Guus Bosman

It's Memorial Day, so we have an extra long weekend with Monday a day off.

We just had breakfast outside, it's warm today, but the real sunny weather is supposed to come out tomorrow. Which is good because Memorial Weekend is traditionally the time that the swimming pools open and with a little bit of help from the weather we'll swim in the pool soon.

The Eurovision Song Contest had a winner in its finest tradition last weekend. It's been two year since we saw it for the last time, and unfortunately we missed it the show.

The BBC has a great Eurovision website, but the show itself is no unfortunately longer online. I found some recordings online of Saturday's finale, but none of them with Terry Wogan.

I arrived in Puerto Rico around 10.30 pm today. I had to do some things in the office in the morning so I couldn't take the early direct flight, instead I traveled via Miami.

Based on my experience the last time, when my bag never arrived in Puerto Rico and was only located when I was back in Washington, I packed everything in my hand luggage.

I flew with American Airlines, and I really enjoy their level of service. The best part was that on one of the radio stations in the plane they had an Enya special related to her Amarante album. On both flights I listened to Enya almost non-stop. It was excellent.

It was raining in Virginia, obviously it's much warmer here. Yesterday the weather man on ABC mentioned that it would "snow on Pennsylvania Avenue" (downtown DC). I was surprised to hear that because it's been really nice weather lately. It wasn't until this morning that I realized that the weather man was jokingly referring to Mr. Snow, the new press secretary for President Bush who started his new job today.

A house in the suburbs of Arlington, Virginia.

Just a few minutes from the high-rise building that we live in, you'll find typical American houses in the suburbs. A collegue calls it the "real Arlington", unlike the urban Rosslyn and Court House areas. Many of the houses are wooden.

A nice May picture with spring flowers.

Today is Ettie's birthday, and appropriately there was a nice balloon in a tree on my way to work.

Ettie had a party yesterday -- congratulations from both of us!

Next week Sasha will present her research work at a conference in Malta. She's leaving this afternoon.

On Monday she will give a presentation on the results of the work that she is doing at her work, followed later in the week by other meetings and discussions. She will be there for over a week.

The workshop is organized by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the University of Malta which has a Information Brochure on-line.

Today the intranet of the World Bank carried the announcement that Paul David Hewson will be the new Managing Director of the Bank, replacing Graeme Wheeler who is currently acting Managing Director.

I'm getting ready for another bike ride -- the weather is nice but it's not very sunny (unfortunately, for the pictures). We've got some work to do this weekend but I first want to get out and get some fresh air.

Two ducks and a shopping cart.

As seen in the Potomac river in Georgetown.

A few Sundays ago, in early March, we went for a long walk to Georgetown. The weather was excellent, but unfortunately the outside places were not open yet. We had lunch in a restaurant close to the Potomac and at the end of the afternoon we walked back home.

Here's a picture of a gull at the riverside.

Just a nice picture of a parked car near Wilson Boulevard.

Although the last few days it was colder again, spring is definitely in the air. Especially last weekend was very warm -- I went for a walk in my shorts & T-shirt, pretty amazing for early March.

Now it's colder again, but the trees and flowers are showing signs of an early spring.

This weekend I'm working on a presentation which takes quite some time. This afternoon I went to the library, for the first time on my bike. It's so quick, took only 15 minutes to get there -- it's faster than by metro.