Guus Bosman

On the road to my work the trees were blooming with pink blossom. Spring is coming!

This weekend the weather was rather depressing but now the sun is shining and the weather looks great. I had a cold this weekend, and it's not quite over yet, but I took the risk and walked to my work without a jacket this morning.

A closer look at one of the trees revealed a bird's nest, that I only saw when I stopped to take a picture of the tree. A nice reminder: stop to look around, and you see more.

We're leaving in a little while to catch the 9.30 bus to New York. We'll visit Jonathan and Irena this weekend.

This week I transferred some money from my US bank account to the Netherlands. It was pretty quick, I signed the "wire transfer" papers Tuesday, and Friday the money was on my Postbank account.

The exchange rate came as a shock: 1 dollar is 75 euro cents now.

We had an easy weekend. Because I wasn't sure if I'd have to work this weekend we didn't make big plans, but the project is going well and it turned out that I didn't have to work.

Saturday evening we went out with Bella and Ramiro to a Spanish restaurant, La Tasca. We had sangria and tapas, the small dishes. My personal favorite recipe in the Spanish kitchen? The cured meat, delicious. Sunday I went to the office for an hour, there was something small I had to do for which I usually don't have time during the day.

I finished reading the first play of Shakespeare in the book bought two weeks ago. It took a few pages to get used to the style of writing but now it's a joy to read. In addition to this large book, I'm also reading a "Guide to Shakespeare" next to it, which is about the same size (and weight...). This guide is extremely useful for me; it explains many things I would have never realized while reading only the main text. It's written by Isaac Asimov, a great science-fiction author.

Actually, Asimov says that some experts doubt that the first play that I read, Henry VI part I, was really written by Shakespeare. They say it's written to badly for a real Shakespeare play. It's certainly confusing to read, as the chronology of the story is often rather mixed up.

It's raining this morning.

And of course, the weather service is very happy with that: something important. So instead of saying "it's raining and it's windy", they issue an urgent weather message:

BE SURE TO SECURE ALL LOOSE OUTDOOR OBJECTS SUCH AS GARBAGE CANS.
ALSO...REMAIN ALERT FOR BLOWING AND FALLING DEBRIS. STAY TUNED TO
NOAA WEATHER RADIO FOR WEATHER UPDATES.

Yesterday, after our visit to the library, we walked back home.

We had dinner in Clarendon, in a very beautiful place: the Silver Diner. It's a typical American place, and although the chain is relatively new, being founded in 1986, it is decorated completely in 1950's style. The restaurant has small juxeboxes on the table: when you enter a quarter you can choose the next song that will play in the restaurant, and you can modify the volume that the music plays at your table.

The menu is a nice mixture of modern cuisine such as Thai recipes and old-fashioned diner plates like meatloaf and hamburgers.

In the morning we had bagels at Brooklyn bagels, so we continued with "American cuisine". The sun is shining nicely today, and even though it's still quite windy it really feels like spring.

It was quite windy yesterday.

The snow is, unlike in Holland, almost completely gone but the blowing wind makes it chilly.

When I was walking to work I had to wear my hat and gloves again.

Sunday night Chris came over for dinner. He was Sasha's professor for her internship last year, and they work together often.

It was a really fun evening. We never had anyone over for dinner before here, and it was nice to cook for a guest. With most of the furniture being ready the house is becoming a real home. The missing box for the cupboard should arrive this week.

My work is more quiet this week. It's been snowing lightly here yesterday, although Sunday night the news was announcing "severe weather conditions". Hard to predict tomorrow's weather I guess.

Using a dvd-player it is possible to play regular CD-ROMs with pictures, and this morning we were watching some old pictures on our TV, that was very nice. It's a nice and lazy Saturday morning.

In Middenmeer it seems like the spring is carefully starting. According to this picture on Jaap's photo project the ducks in the water near my parents' house are looking for a place to build their home. Traditionally they use the backyard as a breeding place, and when Ettie & I were living there we gave names to the ducks and the same ducks came back every year, and later their offspring.

A nice commercial in the metro: "for the ipod who has everything".

It's a commercial for a speaker set to attach to an Ipod.

I guess it's some kind of sign if the people in Starbucks say "dopio espresso, sir?" whenever I walk in.

An even stronger sign is if they know your name by heart and write it on the cup to indicate the type of coffee.