My cousin Paula is staying in Sweden Norway for six months for her study.

She now has a website where she writes with a lot of humor about her adventures in Oslo with fjords, roommates and Holmenkollen.

It is not snowing in Norway yet, but apparently there are plenty of langpootmuggen (crane flies).

This weekend we bought a few plants for in the living room. We went to Lowe's, a hardware store with a garden center and we got three large plants and two small ones.

I was very happy to see a Starfish flower, the same cactus that my grandmother gave me four years ago. It was the last of this type they had in store, and it's in pretty bad shape.

I still bought the cactus. It's a nice challenge to see if I can get this plant back into shape or if it will die within a few weeks. Currently it's on the bar, and I'll leave it alone for a few days so it can adjust to the temperature in our house.

The sales price is $4.95, but the lady sold me the plant for a dollar because of its sad state. All plants from Lowe's have a one year warranty -- should they die I can go back to the store and get my money back.

Yesterday we bought our first new plant in Durham.

Unfortunately we had to leave two plants in Arlington, but they were quickly adopted by other people on our floor in the week before we left.

This plant I saw the other day at Kroger, and it's a type that we used to have in Haarlem as well. It's dense, compact and has a nice light green color.

Yesterday evening we went out in Durham, in a bar called Satisfaction. Around 10.00 pm they started a karaoke session, which was surprisingly very entertaining. I did not get on stage (a next time) but we song for many hours. A fun evening, we were home around 2.00 am.

The pictures of our apartment that I placed on Wednesday morning are some 3 months old.

Of course our house looks much different now we have moved in, so here are more recent pictures of our apartment.

In the future we want to get paintings or pictures to decorate the walls, and soon we'll get some plants and new lamps as well.

The weather is amazing today. Yesterday the sky was still cloudy after Ernesto (Petra has a good picture) and it was unusually cold but today is a wonderful day.

I don't spend much time outside during the week, so it's nice to work on my website on the balcony in the sun. It's a long weekend: Monday is Labor day.

Last night the tropical storm Ernesto made landfall in the south of North Carolina.

Originally it looked like the storm could go to the Raleigh/Durham area, but it stayed in the east part of the state. Except for a lot of rain last night we luckily didn't have a lot of problems with Ernesto.

Yesterday evening we went out to play some pool. It had been a while since I played that, but it was a lot of fun.

It's almost 3 months ago that we went looking for a home in Durham.

We did most of our research online, and after many hours of internet browsing we selected a number of apartments that we wanted to see. Our main choice was the Belmont apartments: close to Duke, nice apartments and good amenities.

We took a very early flight on Saturday, and although our first flight was cancelled we arrived on Raleigh/Durham's airport around 9.30 am. We took a taxi to Durham, and we were impressed by the green next to the highway -- a lot more nature than we were used to.

We spent many hours at the Belmont apartments. The lady gave us a lot of keys for many apartments, and we saw them all. We quickly decided that we wanted something on the 3rd floor, and because the floor plan of most apartments was the same, we mainly choose on location and views. We took a lot of pictures to help us choose.

Ultimately, we found a place we liked and signed the lease that day. We stayed in a hotel in Cary for one evening, and Sunday morning we travelled back to D.C.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from our dealership that our new car had arrived: a black Toyota Camry 2007.

Yesterday afternoon I bought my insurance online, and around 3.30 pm I went to the dealership to sign the papers. We bought the car from Fred Anderson Toyota, and our experience with them was so much better than with Marc Jacobson (in Durham). When we went to look with a car at Jacobson, they really tried to pressure us into buying on the spot, and gave us a wrongly calculated quote, using a different APR than they told us they were using.

Things were much better at Fred Anderson, and the sales personnel was friendly and not pushy at all. After signing the necessary documents I saw our new car -- it's beautiful!

Yes, we are buying the Toyota Camry 2007, and it's a great car. In black of course (black is cool).

I am going to the office now after a nice MSN chat morning, to make up for the fact that I left at 3.30 pm yesterday. I must say I don't mind -- I get a chance to drive my new car.

I just received an e-mail for the dealership that our new car has arrived!

I'll go and pick it up today.

My commute to work usually takes about 25 minutes.

From home it's a few minutes to the Durham freeway (the 147). I take this for some 10 miles, and then the I-40 Interstate to Raleigh.

It had been raining this morning, and it was still drizzling when I left. When I arrived at the point where I'd leave the 147 and go onto the I-40, there was a huge traffic jam caused by a traffic accident on the I-40. Because this ramp is a single lane, it took a long time before we passed it, and I waited almost 45 minutes there. To make matters worse there was a second incident on the I-40, which made me another half hour late. I arrived at the office around 10.00 am.

Friday evening I went out with Sasha's colleagues to a great bar in downtown Durham.

We went to Tyler's Taproom in the American Tobacco District. The American Tobacco District is an area near the baseball stadium with a couple of bars, restaurants and shops. The name of course, is referring to the the tobacco industry that has been very important to the region and to the city of Durham.

We went by car (I was driving) and got lost on the way to there. A phone call brought help. Obviously I couldn't drink alcohol, which was unfortunate because the bar has a great beer selection. It was a very nice evening. On the way back we got lost again, and asked for directions at a gas station to get home.

Saturday afternoon I saw a soccer game with Matt (Reading won) and the rest of the day I did some house hold stuff.

Sunday I went to Lowe's to buy some tools and a tool box, and then I drove to The Street at Southpoint. Thats a small shopping area, with some of my favorite shops. In fact, it reminded me a lot of Clarendon, the area near our apartment in Arlington. There was a Starbucks, a Barnes & Nobles, a Jos. A. Banks and a Cheesecake Factory.