This Wednesday we went for dinner in a Western ranch restaurant on top of the El San Juan hotel. We were with eight colleagues; it was a fun dinner after a long day.

We had a drink in the Waterclub and I was back in my room around 11 pm. I decided to take some more night shots. They didn't come out as well as the one from Tuesday evening but it was nice to experiment with different settings and use my tripod.

The beach of Isla Verde, Puerto Rico at night.

The building with the blue lights in the Waterclub hotel, which has a rooftop bar that is partly open. This is where we went for a drink Wednesday evening.

The is picture of the Atlantic Ocean at night is rather experimental. I used a shutter speed of 3.22 seconds.

The first two days in Puerto Rico have been very busy, and we're making long days. It's good to be here, we're getting a lot done and it's much nicer to be close to the customer.

Yesterday there was a cake for me in the office from the customer for my birthday. Tonight we got in the hotel very late, and I shot a picture: the first one with my new tripod.

Due to the one-hour time difference we're getting up at 6.00 o'clock Virginia time in the morning.

That's flattering...

A nice way to start the day.

When we went out with Bella and Ramiro last Saturday we saw a familiar sign in an unexpected place.

In Adam's Morgan we saw a falafel place called "Falafel Amsterdam". A sign on the door indicates that this was indeed an establishment with Dutch owners.

I left to Puerto Rico yesterday. The alarm went at 9.00 o'clock Sunday morning, which was early considering the the evening before.

Initially I had planned to fly to Puerto Rico last Friday but the activities that were originally scheduled for Saturday were already completed during the week so I had some welcome extra time at home.

I packed my luggage in the morning and after we had breakfast together I left for the airport. There are no direct flights from DC to San Juan except for the 7 am one, so I had a stop-over in New York. I had an exit row seats on both flights. I arrived in the hotel around 21:00 o'clock local time -- there is a one hour time difference between San Juan and Arlington.

Yesterday we went with out with Ramiro and Bella. We met in the early evening at the Cleveland Park metro station to go to the Dutch embassy. It was nice to see each other again, it had been a while.

We went to the embassy for the haring en paling evening: eel and herring were brought over from Holland for a get-together of the DC Dutch society.

It's was a busy evening, it's quite a popular event, of people of all ages. There were a lot of Dutch things to eat and drink. Of course herring and eel, but also Dutch wafers, gevulde koeken and there was Dutch music playing. I bought two packages of Dutch chocolate sprinkles (hagelslag).
At the party I met Petra in real life. She lives in Vienna and I visit her website regularly and we've been in contact for about a year. It was very nice to meet her in person.

We left the party around 20:30 o'clock and we drove to Adams Morgan, where we visited a small exhibition by three painters. We looked at the paitings for a while. The place was very crowded, it was a party and exhibition at the same time. We didn't stay very long but went to nearby Cuban bar, where we stayed long and had margarita's and mojito's. We danced on Latin music and had a good time. It was a very pleasant evening.

Herring and eel, being sold by a lady in a traditional Dutch costume.

A herring on a sandwich with onions, and Grolsch beer.

There were a number of items for sale, such Dutch wafers and chocolate sprinkles (hagelslag) and gevulde koeken .

A brightly colored fire hydrant, in Arlington, VA.

For a long time, I wanted to take a picture of such a device, but I never found the right moment -- the light not good, a car parked too close...

Last Saturday was a good day for pictures. You can see that the November sun is creating long shadows.

I had a very pleasant birthday yesterday. During the day I received a lot of e-mails, comments, phone-calls from friends and family, very nice.

In the evening we went of for dinner to a really nice restaurant: Cafe Belga, a Belgium restaurant in the Eastern Market district of DC. It was great to have real Belgium fries with mayonaise, and the cheese croquette.

This in combination with the triple beers made for an excellent evening.

The Belgium restaurant didn't have Grimbergen triple but this weekend we'll have one of the triples that we have at home.

Today is my 27th birthday! We celebrated it together this morning, and Sasha gave me a really nice present -- a tripod for the digital camera.

There was a chocolate cake, and a lot of mail and e-mail as well -- thanks everybody for the birthday wishes!

It is also exactly a year ago that I started my new job, so double the reason to celebrate today.

We had dinner tonight in a local sports bar, the Hokie House. Blacksburg is a real university town, and the night life seems to be dominated by the university population.

We had two shows two forms of ID to get in, and we got both our hands stamps with a big black stamp to show the bartender we're over 21 years old and thus allowed to order alcohol.

The name Hokie Bar refers to the name of the mascot of Virginia Tech. It's some kind of bird, some people say it's a rather unfortunate turkey, other say it's just a bird.

More about the hokie.