Guus Bosman

It's pretty cool to live in downtown D.C. When I go for a run in the evening, I pass the White House, the National Mall, the Lincoln Memorial... There is something different going on every time I run.

Tonight I saw the cables of the crew that is rappelling down the Washington Monument, to inspect it for damage after the earthquake a few weeks ago. A week ago there were last minute protests against the execution of Troy Davis in front of the White House, and a week before that protests against the Keystone pipeline.

When we went for a walk last weekend, the Race for the Cure had just ended. Many of the participants put their pink ribbons on the fence in front of the White House.

Yesterday we went looking for a new apartment. The current place we stay in nice, but it is only temporary, so we were on the road yesterday.

In the morning we drove around with a real-estate broker who showed us various condominiums for rent. We looked in DC and Arlington. The rest of the day we walked around through Arlington, mainly at the Courthouse and Clarendon metro stops on the Orange line. We're close to making a decision, we'll probably decide today.

I went to CVS just now to pick up some cereal for tomorrow morning.

Our apartment complex is on the crossing of M and 24th Street, and is appropriately called "2400M Apartments".

Yesterday afternoon we went for a walk in Newport, a neighborhood overlooking New York City. We had lunch and enjoyed the view. We saw the Freedom Tower, or '1 World Trade Center', which will be the tallest building in the United States when it is complete.

We left Secaucus at 6.00 pm or so, and arrived home a few hours later. A well-spent weekend.

There is a European bakery right across the street from us, and they have real whole grain bread! It's amazing to live downtown. This morning we walked to buy a bread, groceries and Starbucks coffee; we were done within 40 minutes or so.

Here is a picture of our living room, as seen from the kitchen.

Today Sasha started at her new job in downtown DC.

Myself, I have a week of free time. My work at Raritan is over, and I won't start my next job until next week, so through Labor Day I have no work commitments.

Today was a very fruitful day. I organized a lot of our paperwork and worked a little on my hobby website. I also got a library card for the Washington DC public library, an important part of making a city my home.

In the evening we went for a walk together. We're about 10 minutes walking from the National Mall, which is really cool, and we walked from the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool to the World War II Memorial. The Pool is under construction, so it was rather dark, but the Mall is a great place for an evening walk.

Thankfully hurricane Irene did not have the major impact that was feared for. To be honest we didn't really notice much, except for drizzling rain all day and strong winds in the evening.

Today was a beautiful and sunny day and we went for a walk. It's pretty cool that we can walk to the National Mall so easily. We visited the new Marten Luther King Memorial. It was busy; originally President Obama was scheduled to dedicate the monument today but that was postponed due to the hurricane. There were a lot of out-of-town visitors at the monument who had planned to see the opening today.

Hurricane Irene is on its way from North Carolina to the northern part of the United States. It is not assumed to hit Washington, DC directly and has lost a lot of its strength, but high water and strong winds could cause a lot of damage.

When DC was impacted by hurricane Isabel eight years ago, many homes were without power for several days. Just in case that happens again, we have bought some extra water, candles and food that doesn't have to stay refrigerated. All loose items have been removed from the balconies and patios in our apartment building, to prevent things from blowing away. The storm is supposed to be here between 8 pm and midnight.

Yesterday evening we went to Mackey's bar, where there was a Friday evening social with the DC Dutch club. It was a nice group of people, and since the weather was good we were sitting outside. There were even real bitterballen.

This morning I went for my first run since we arrived in DC. I passed the White House, the Washington Monument and many other famous sights. It was drizzling a little bit, but no heavy wind yet.

We stayed up late yesterday, and the alarm went early this morning, but we're in good shape for the move.

The movers will be here between 8 am and 10 am. The logistics of packing were a little more complicated because we had to separate the things we'll need in our temporary apartment vs items we can live without for two months.

Today I went for lunch with Petra; it was great to see her and catch up. We went to Redbowl, an Asian fusion place in Cary, where we had saté with peanut sauce. A shared favorite.

After lunch we did something very Dutch and unusual: we walked across the road to a coffee place. The coffee was excellent, an espresso with freshly roasted beans.