Friday evening was the Christmas party of my company in Philadelphia. I took a train with three colleagues from Union Station. I don't think I had ever taken an Amtrak train before, so this was a nice experience. We left at noon and it's about two hours from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia.

It was a very nice party, in a restaurant in downtown Philadelphia. When the bar closed around 11 pm we went to a Southern style restaurant with a live jazz band. I spoke with a lot of clients and colleagues. We closed the evening with drinks in the lobby of the hotel.

After Thursday's Christmas happy hour of Augusto and Ewa this was my fifth Holiday celebration in little over two weeks.

On my way back the next day I saw that my train had a three hour delay. I was glad I could exchange my ticket for an express service that was leaving only 40 minutes later.

Tuesday was the Christmas celebration of my company in Washington.

The party was in Georgetown, in the Four Seasons hotel, a beautiful location. We arrived at the party at 7.30 pm. We had drinks and it was nice to introduce Sasha and my colleagues to each other.

The company has been growing a lot, and there were more people attending the party than last year. Dinner was very nice, and we had a lot of fun at the table. We left the party around 11 pm.

A colleage took a lot of pictures; the picture here is one she sent.

Wednesday we had an easy evening. I cooked Polish kielbasa which is pretty similar to Dutch sausauge (rookworst), I felt it appropriate to cook some winter food in this weather.

Last Friday we went to the Christmas party of Sasha's work. When arrived around 7.30 pm there were already a lot of people. Like last year the food and decorations were excellent, and there was a real festive atmosphere.

We met a lot of Sasha's colleagues -- Sasha is working in a different department since last year so there were many new faces for me. We had dinner and talked a lot. A bit later we found Rosa and Jenny in a line for the buffet, a very pleasant surprise.

In the crowd I saw Paul Wolfowitz, the new president, surrounded by a lot of people.

After dinner we went to a bar downstairs where we had deserts and some drinks, and then to our favorite destination, a disco-style dancefloor. It was really crowded and dark, like a club, with a great mixture of Latin music, greatest hits and others. We danced for a long time, and had a realyblast.

Later we moved to the dancefloor upstairs, where there was a life band playing rock & roll music and we met a lot of Rosa's friends. We danced all night and were among the last ones to leave the party.

Augusto, Ewa, Sasha and me.

Sasha, Rosa, Jenny and me.

The next we slept in. The rest of the weekend I spent on the phone because we had a rather involved production deployment, the last one of the year.

The pedestrian traffic signs use different colors than regular traffic lights.

Red means "don't walk", but instead of green for "walk" white is used.

A blinking red sign means what orange does for regular traffic lights. Some of the more advanced ones indicate the amount of seconds you have to safely cross the road.

Yesterday was my first day after a week in Puerto Rico, and the change in weather was dramatic: there was a nice layer of snow on the world when I walked to my work.

For the first time since a long time I was wearing my real winter shoes again. At worked I changed to work shoes, and of course in the evening I forgot my winter shoes at work.

Every time the weather is slightly different than average the news channels are covering the "snow storms" full time. This time CNN had a special reporter in Secaucus, to show how much it was snowing there.

Like I wrote before, decoration for Christmas is big in Puerto Rico.

A popular figure in of course Santa Claus, and you can find him in many different places.

Pictures from the airport, the hotel and of a giant Santa Claus balloon at the Prime Outlet stores.

Santa Claus at the airport.

Santa Claus at the airport.

Santa Claus in the lobby of the hotel.

Santa Claus at Prime Outlet stores last Sunday.

Last night I travelled back to Washington.

I stayed a week in Puerto Rico, longer than I had originally planned, and it's very nice to go back home. American Airlines, the airline that I usually fly with, has a great slogan "we know why you fly". In their commercials they show the various (family) reason why people fly, and the best ads are with people flying home. Most likely I won't go to Puerto Rico this year anymore.

I was later than usual at the airport, the cab driver had to get gas and left the highway to find a low price gas station. That was a bit annoing because I didn't want to have to rush at the airport. The lines were short though, so the check in went quickly. It really is low-season in Puerto Rico now, there are much less people travelling now than a few months ago.

My original flight to Washington D.C. had more than three hours delay, so I changed my ticket to fly to Baltimore instead. I was told that there was no captain for the other flight yet, and the lady at the counter was very nice and give me an exit row seat.

There is a big difference in weather between Puerto Rico and Virginia... it started snowing! Tomorrow morning's I had a meeting, which was cancelled because of the possibility of a lot of snow tomorrow ("inclement weather conditions", as they say in the States).

The sign that says there is a 3,5 hour delay... I was happy there was another flight I could take instead so I didn't have to arrive home terribly late.

An intriguing commercial for "Hurricane Blockers" on a power box.

I couldn't find much about this on Google, and I wonder if this company tries to sell something that would block hurricanes, or if it's a call for changes to the building code.

The hurricane season for 2005 is officially over since a week or two. It was a record season, in the amount of hurricanes that were registered.

When we arrived on the airport Thursday morning I was amazed by the amount of Christmas decorations that were put up. The entire airport was decorated in Christmas style.

It turns out that this is what most Puerto Ricans do around Christmas -- everywhere you go, there is an abundance of Christmas trees, Santa Clauses and other decorations. My theory is that this is to compensate for the lack of snow and other natural Christmas-like resources on a tropical island.

A Christmas tree in the lobby of the Holiday Inn.

Christmas trees for sale in front of Pueblo, a local supermarket.

There are a lot of commercials for Mariachi on the highways in San Juan.

Mariachi are Mexican-style musicians.

787 is the area code for Puerto Rico.