Twice in the past week a student called me 'sir'. The first time it happened, when a girl was asking how to find the Page Auditorium, I shrugged it off as a one-off incident -- perhaps she was just an overly polite person.

Last night when I went for a run I had to evade a guy who was painting graffiti under a bridge, and he said: 'oh, I'm sorry sir', without any irony.

Am I getting old?

This is a picture of the weather a week ago: we had two days of very cold weather, ice and snow. Barely a week later, it was over 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius).

On Sunday I went for a long run but I had to give up at one point because I just wasn't adjusted to the hot weather yet. A nice problem to have -- I love these temperatures. Supposedly next weekend it's getting a bit colder again, but I think that the winter is over. Daylight Savings Time is in effect now also, so the time difference with Europe is an hour less now.

St. Maarten provided a wonderful mixtures of French food, tropical beaches and Dutch grocery shopping.

The island was not "as Dutch" as Curacao was -- the island felt more American, and more French obviously, but there was certainly plenty of Dutch influence and the grocery stores had a lot of Dutch brands and Indonesian condiments such as ketjap and seroendeng.

A wonderful shopping experience!

In Philipsburg we had Dutch snacks the day we arrived, including bitterballen and kip sate with Indonesian peanut sauce.

Later in the week, in Marigot on the French side, we bought some delicious French things for breakfast -- and a Volkskrant.

We went shopping for Dutch (and French) groceries a few times during our stay, and we came back with a suitcase full of goodies. One of the supermarkets even had freshly baked raisin rolls (krentenbollen). They weren't quite as delicious as true Dutch ones, but it was still nice. I'd like to see if I can bake them myself.

Yesterday I bought two tickets for A Prairie Home Companion, a live radio show that will be in Durham in May.

I started listening to A Prairie Home Companion when we moved to North Carolina and got a car -- on Sundays I'd tune in to the show. It's a wonderful, mellow and friendly show and I'm looking forward to see them in action.

We had a wonderful short vacation in St Maarten last week.

Here are some pictures. Good food, great beaches and a very friendly atmosphere.

Last night it started snowing, and today we woke up to a white world.

For North Carolina, snow in March is pretty rare. Next weekend temperatures are projected to reach 72 again (22 in Celsius). Much better!

On Sunday we saw the Carnival Parade in Marigot, the capitol of the French side of the island.

It was a lot of fun to watch the parade, and we saw it passing by twice. The pictures tell only part of the story -- the music was just as important. Throughout the parade, trucks were carrying huge sound installation and the soca music was very loud and made for a great party atmosphere.

Here's a video of the 2007 parade with sound.

A true wall of sound. The volume of the soca music was incredible.

We had a good view from our spot on a street corner.

The parade was blocking traffic throughout the (tiny) city.

The end of the official parade; people dancing on the music and following the parade.

An hour later we saw the parade again, it was dark already.

One of the carts.

Ettie and Gerben bought a nice new car, so now their old one is for sale.

For sale (in the Netherlands): Nissan Micra, automatic, 3 doors. A little over 116.000 km, year: 1995, color: red. Taxes: 17 euro per month. The car uses 'benzine', which is 'gas' in the US but 'gas' in Dutch means natural gas, so don't be confused.

Please contact Ettie if you're interested.

Saturday we're leaving for a few days to St. Maarten, an island in the northeast Caribbean. Half of the island is Dutch, half of the island is French.

So, we're in for a tropical island with Dutch food! It will be much like our trip to Curacao three years ago.

Welcome, dear Anouk!

Our good friends Kirsten and Rob were blessed with a baby on Monday, February 16.

From both of us: many, many congratulations!