Guus Bosman

Last weekend we celebrated the birthday of my aunt Ria and I took some pictures, which are online now.

If you would like a bigger version (better quality) of any of the pictures please let me know.

Ettie and Gerben stayed in Haarlem last night; my parents went to Middenmeer.

In the morning we had an "American breakfast": bagels, cream-cheese and grapefruit juice. And coffee, of course.

Ettie and I worked on some homework in the morning, physics. She and Gerben left to Leeuwarden around 15:00 o'clock. I went for a long walk in the city. The shops were open today, which makes the city alive. In the evening I spent some time configuring my (desktop-) computer.

Around 12:00 o'clock yesterday I took a train to Amsterdam Sloterdijk. There Ettie picked me up by car and together with my parents and Gerben we travelled to Limburg. My aunt Ria was celebrating her 50th birthday -- a big event.

Her whole family and many friends were there; it was very useful that they live in such a large house. There was of course a lot of drinks and food (Limburgse vlaai), and later that day songs were sung and music was played. I enjoyed the party a lot and I talked to many people. Some of them I hadn't seen in many years.

I took some pictures; they'll be online later. A strong storm was raging when we went back home. We measured the distance, it was around 200 kilometers from Broekhuizen to Haarlem.

Yesterday I went to Steven to celebrate his birthday. It was a very nice evening, and the cake he baked was excellent. Later at night he showed me the Yahoo chat program, which was really fun -- there was also a Bulgarian chat room.

This morning I installed a new version of my (desktop) operating system, that's always fun. Everything still seems to work, and the computer didn't get a lot slower.

Next weekend I'll be going to Frankfurt, to Milena's birthday. Today I (finally) bought a train-ticket. I'm looking forward to it a lot, and I love the fact that I can go by train.

I did some more useful things today: I took some pictures and applied for a new passport.

In the evening I was chatting with Daniël, who now has a webcam in Hungary, which is really great. Daniël forwarded me an e-mail. Sometimes you have to laugh about something, even though in reality it's sad.

It has been raining and snowing today.

Just when I came back from Jelly, where I had dinner, the snow came back and I made some pictures.

When I came back in Haarlem Janneke and Fiona were at Chess -- the first time I saw Fiona in real-life. I saw her before, on a webcam, but that's not the same.

There was beschuit met muisjes. It's a Dutch tradition to serve aniseed sprinkles on a buttered rusk when a child is born. Blue aniseed sprinkles for a boy and pink aniseed sprinkles for a girl.

I'm going to Leiden again. This time I'll leave a bit later, but early enough to enjoy the great coffee-place just around the corner of the place I'm working today.

It wasn't busy in the train at all yesterday; it's just that I almost missed my train because it left from platform 4. Somehow this is really awkwardly positioned in Haarlem’s trainstation: much further than platform 1, 2, 3 and 5 and higher.

For my work I'm going to Leiden today, which is about 20 minutes from Haarlem. I guess it will be busy in the train around this time.

Jean-Paul put some of his pictures of Center Parcs online. I especially like the ones where we're playing Koehandel.

This weekend I went with a group of friends to Center Parcs, where we stayed in a small holiday villa. We were twelve people, and we had a really wonderful time.

It was relaxing, and I had a lot of fun. It was terrific to have so much time to talk to everybody. We've played many boardgames; I especially enjoyed "Koehandel" a lot.

Jean-Paul and André had organized everything very well: thanks!

I've placed some pictures of Center Parcs online. If you'd like a bigger version of some pictures: let me know. There are also two short movies, one of Daniël explaining a game and a short fragment of Saturday's dinner.