Guus Bosman

Today is my 28th birthday!

That is, in the Netherlands it is my birthday already -- here in Durham it will take a few more hours.

This is my 3rd birthday in the U.S., and the first one in North Carolina.

For the confused reader: my birthday is on November 10th.

I generally don't take pictures inside restrooms.

At the State Fair I saw a sign that I couldn't resist.

Mieke has a birthday today -- congratulations from both of us!

The Halloween season is really over now, last night I heard the first Christmas songs on the radio.

The radio station I was briefly listening to, Sunny 939, is playing only Christmas music from now on. A bit to early for my taste, luckily most other stations are still not in Holiday mood yet.

Halloween is now over and the Christmas decorations will appear soon.

Three pictures of pumpkins -- of course, the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice latte is one of them.

The day after Halloween.

A colleague brought some of the left overs of his trick-or-treat supplies.

The morning Jaap and I went to the American consulate in Amsterdam, two weeks ago, we saw a this car.


Immediately we associated this with the Juf Mieke, juf being a Dutch honorific for teacher.

When I was in Middenmeer Mieke and I went to the bus stop to pick up Jaap.

Jaap and Peter went to the Frankfurter Buchmesse for 3 days. Initially my plan was to arrive in the Netherlands on Wednesday stay until Sunday which would have meant that Jaap and I would see each other only on the last day, but I was able to arrive in Holland a few days earlier and Jaap and Peter returned on Friday from Germany, so thankfully we could spend a lot of time together.

We wanted to pick Jaap up from the trainstation in Alkmaar, but he didn't have a cell phone so we didn't know when exactly he would arrive. We guessed the arrival time of his bus in Middenmeer, there were basically 3 busses he could take.

When we were waiting for the first bus I took some pictures of Middenmeer. I enjoyed this Friday, spending time at home and shopping with Mieke.

The other day I saw this car with many stickers.

A true pacifist: "I am already against the next war."

Yesterday morning when we woke up the house was very cold and we switched on the heating for the first time.

The temperature in the morning was around 37 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celcius) and it climbed to 67 degrees during the day. I was wearing my jacket for the first time this fall.

In our apartment in Arlington the heating would only work when management switched the whole building from AC to heating, but here both can be used which is much nicer.

Sure enough, after all the traveling I woke up on Saturday with a stuffed nose and I have a cold. Still, we had a really nice day yesterday when we went to see both Durham and Raleigh.

Saturday evening Tibor brought bulbs for tulips and other flowers, for me to bring back to the States.

We were all curious if it is allowed to bring flowers bulbs into the States. On my way home I had the tulip bulbs in my hand luggage and when I arrived I showed them to a custom representative -- she said it was fine to bring them in the country.