Guus Bosman

Friday evening I left work around 19:00 o'clock. I took a cab home, because the colleagues that I usually drive to the hotel with all went home for the weekend.

These weeks I've been working on a requirements document for a new part of our project, and it's as good as ready. I made some updates Friday night late and Saturday morning, and we'll finish it this week.

This weekend is a long weekend, it's Memorial Day tomorrow, and that's why it's a great opportunity for Sasha to come over and stay here for a few days. She arrived at noon in the hotel, she had the 7.45 flight from Dallas. It's great fun to be together here -- it's a beautiful island after all, and because I don't have time to see any of it during the week it's wonderful to be able to explore it together this weekend.

We went for a walk in the afternoon, and stayed a while at the pool.

Sasha just called, and told me that there were a few explosions followed by lot of smoke coming from under the World Bank building, just as she was walking towards it.

It turned out that a power transformator exploded, in a manhole very near the main building of the bank. The buildings were evacuated but nobody got hurt.

My father's photo project had a really nice image yesterday.

I haven't had a krentenbol in six months!

And yes, "de Mossel" is a terrible streetname.

I feel so much better with actually having had eight hours of sleep tonight.

We had dinner in the restaurant of the hotel last night for the first time. There is some kind of cultural week this week, and every night a different "cuisine" is highlighted in the restaurant. Yesterday there was a Canadian special on the menu, and tonight a German one.

I went to my room at 22:00 o'clock, and after calling Sasha I went right to sleep.

Tomorrow morning I'll take an early flight back to Puerto Rico. It's a bit of a sad feeling to leave home again. I'm looking forward to the job there, it's really challenging and it's a lot of fun to work so closely with the customer, but being away from home has its drawbacks.

I'm very happy that Sasha will be joining again this weekend -- she'll come over on Saturday for the Memorial weekend; next Monday is a day off in the US.

My flight is at 7.15 in the morning, which means I have to be at the airport around 6.00 o'clock. Which, in turn, means that I have to take a cab at 5.15, which means I'll have to get up at 4.30. So, in order for me to get 8 hours sleep, I'd have to go to bed in 40 minutes.

Yesterday evening we went out with Bianca and Patricia.

Bianca is an old schoolfriend from Middenmeer and she and Patricia, her sister, are travelling through the East coast for a vacation. They arrived in D.C. on Friday, and they'll leave the city Monday to take a train to New York. After that they'll continue to see the Niagara Falls and they'll end their trip in Toronto, Canada.

Sasha and I met them at the Farragut West metro station. It was very nice to see familiar faces in downtown D.C.! Bianca and Patricia had been seeing a lot of the city in one day, and we continued to the tourist visit by going to the World Bank. Sasha arranged us guest-tickets so we saw the Bank from inside.

Then we went for a walk to Dupont Circle, a few blocks from the World Bank. We had dinner in Kramers Afterworld and we had a very nice evening together. It was very nice to talk in Dutch about things going in Holland, about living here and about the things to be seen in D.C.

When I arrived in the hotel after midnight I didn't feel like complaining about the defects in my room because I just wanted a few hours rest. The next morning however, I went to the frontdesk and told them about the leakage and the broken bed -- they offered me another room, which I was happy to accept. Now I'm on the 8th floor in the main building, the highest floor in the hotel. The room I'm staying is nice; smaller than the regular room but with very nice furniture and a flatscreen TV.

Tonight we were in the hotel earlier than usual. I changed clothes, and two colleagues invited me for a drink in the bar downstairs. Later my fourth colleague joined us and we stayed in the bar for dinner. I had lunch in that place once, and I liked it alot, and this dinner was just as good. We left the restaurant around 23.00 o'clock, and I went to the supermarket to get some fruit: grapefruits and bananas.

I arrived in Puerto Rico about an hour ago and just checked in at the hotel.

Everything's fine, have to get up in about six hours. The room is not the best one I've seen -- the bed is shaky and the rain made the floor near the balcony wet but it will do for tonight.

When we went for lunch we saw the Capitol on an outside TV screen. One of Washington's local TV stations is located in our neighbourhood and they have their broadcast visible on their building.

Apparently an aircraft was violating the airspace above downtown DC, and an evacuation order was issued for the White House and U.S. Capitol.

Nothing happened, luckily.

Yesterday morning after breakfast we went for a long walk through Clarendon and had coffee outside in a park.

In the afternoon we bought a table for on the balcony, to get our house ready for the summer. The weather is really nice and I'm walking in my shorts and with sandals.

In the evening we visited the graduation party of Zen. It was in Anthony's house, near Silver Spring and we had a barbecue outside. Zen's mother lives in Hawai, and she had brought beautiful flowers from there.