An optical illusion (through w8in.com):

• Relax and concentrate on the 4 small dots in the middle of the picture for about 30 to 40 seconds
• Then, take a look at wall near you (any smooth, single coloured surface)
• Start blinking your eyes a few times and wait...
• What do you see?

I was tempted by these beautiful paintings and old maps of Haarlem.

Too expensive!

Today I brought Sinterklaas candy and cookies to work.

I had ordered some Dutch items online, including these Sinterklaas items, and the package arrived yesterday. The thing is, these candies are only sold in large quantities and I just wanted to try a few bites and not eat a whole bag.

So we had taai and pepernoten at work today.

As promised, here is a picture of our Christmas tree with its decorations.

We may put a few more things in over the next few days, but it's great to have a Christmas tree in the house.

My parents store our old belongings on the attic of their house, and when I was in the Netherlands I spend an afternoon going through them. I found a lot of the books that I had really missed in the last 2 years.

In the week that I was in Holland I also bought a couple of books. Mainly about Dutch recent politics and some nostalgic literature.

I brought some of the books with me in my luggage, but there were way too many to bring all of them. I sent the books by economy mail from the Netherlands to Durham (8.4 kg/18 pounds). The books had been in transit for 8 weeks, but they arrived on Saturday in good shape.

Books I brought:

1. Colloquial Bulgarian
2. Thinking the Unthinkable
3. Founding Brothers
4. Bulgarian for Foreigners
5. The Federalist
6. The COnstitution of the United States
7. The Words We Live By
8. Economist Style Guide
9. The Globe, the Science of Discworld
10. The Color of Magic (in Bulgarian)

New books, that I bought when I was in the Netherlands:

1. Brood
2. Ooggetuigen van de Gouden Eeuw
3. Dit land kan zoveel beter
4. In Godsnaam
5. Brieven aan Ayaan Hirshi Ali
6. Ik mis alleen de Hema
7. Dutch Delight
8. De Hollandse Metamorfose

Last week the book case from Ikea arrived.

It's the same as the one we already have in the study room, but we needed more storage space.

Sunday evening I installed it. The extra shelves are very useful, and the room looks much more organized now.

One of the things I like about this website is that it's nice to look back at older articles and the things we did a year ago, or 4 years ago. Life is always changing, and it's great to capture memories.

As in 2002 and 2003, I plan to publish a year overview for 2006 in the first week of January. But of course, the series wouldn't be complete without 2004 and 2005 so I will publish those in December 2006. I've been working on them over the last 4 weeks, and they are getting ready for publication.

The 2004 year overview is planned for 12/18, and the 2005 overview for 12/26.

I've received a lot of nice feedback on the previous year overviews, and I hope you'll enjoy these as well.

Last night we went to see a concert by Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares at Duke University.

We saw the choir earlier this year, in March, in Washington D.C.

There were some differences in the song selection but over-all the show was similar. The acoustics in the Duke performance hall, an old building, where not as good as in the church in D.C. Because we had bought the tickets in August, we had front-row seats which was really nice.

After the show there was a meet-and-greet with the choir member and we talked with the manager of the choir. They are traveling to New York today.

Great view from the front-row seats.

The lady on the right is one of my favorite performers.

This morning I went to the DMV to get a new driver's license.

In many states, including North Carolina, new state residents have to apply for that state's driver's license. I went to the DMV office in Durham.

Based on my experience in Virginia where there are usually huge lines I arrived around 7.30 am, and when it opened at 8.00 am I was one of the first people in line. It was a much smaller DMV though, and there were only 20 people or so in line. hings went smoothly and I passed my computer based test.

I had to surrender my Virginia license this morning. I must say that the Virginia license is prettier than the North Carolina one, and I'm not sure that I like my picture very much.

Our friends David and Milena were blessed with a baby girl last month: Irina Maria Wende was born on October 29, 2006.

Many congratulations from both of us!

Milena sent us a lot of pictures on Irina's first "1 month birthday", which were very nice to see.