There is a lot of renovation going on in our apartment building, after the severe leak damage that occured when somebody broke a sprinkler outlet.

Today a large crane was installed next to the apartment building. Our building is over twenty floors, and it's a huge crane. To set up the main crane a secondary crane was necessary.

Jaap took some very nice pictures. Jaap & Mieke are leaving soon -- they'll take a cab at 12:30 o'clock. Their flight is around 17:00 o'clock, so there's plenty of time.

The crane being installed. It took several hours to put all the parts together.

Both cranes next to each other:

Our hallways is now being renovated as well. It looks really bad with the wallpaper of the walls, I hope they'll fix it soon.

While my parents are here my father is doing a lot of the cooking, and I really like it.

There are a lot of family recipes that he is making and that I hadn't had in a long time.

Favorites include omelet hete Sahara, couscous with sauce, and various nice salads. Tonight Jaap cooked beef with apricots in the oven. Delicious!

Yesterday evening we went out for dinner for work with a guest from Puerto Rico. We went to see the Capitol, and when I was there I remembered that my parents were planning to watch the concert that was being held there. I couldn't find them in the audience though -- would have been nice to surprise them there. Later they told me that they had changed there plans and went somewhere else.

We went for dinner in Georgetown, in Cafe Milano, a very nice Italian restaurant. I had the La Scala pizza, with arugula, an nice and interesting ingredient for a pizza. It was a fun evening. At a table behind us was Mr. Greenspan, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

My parents, not there.

Bulgarian archaeologists have found 15,000 miniature golden rings that date back to the end of the third millennium BC.

The rings were found near Dabene, which is close to Karlovo and about 120 kilometers from Sofia. The treasure is part of the heritage of ancestors of the Tracians, "proto-Thracians", who lived in what is now Bulgaria until the 8th century.

The discovery is said to match the famous treasure of Troy.

Friday evening when I came home from work I was welcomed by a lot of people on our balcony: Jerry and Marjolein arrived, They made a trip through the U.S., which they started in Arlington a few weeks ago. It's great to see them.

We went for an American dinner, hamburgers with fries. Of course we tried the spicy chicken wings, the pictures that we took in the restaurant got lost, unfortunately. Later we went for drinks to Four Courts, an Irish bar. We got a table, and enjoyed Guiness and Amber beer. A band was playing, and we joined the sing-along and stayed till very late.

Jaap has a birthday today -- congratulations!

He is celebrating his 56th birthday here in Arlington, and it's very nice to spend that together.

There were presents in the morning, and cake with whip cream for breakfast. Sasha and I gave Jaap a headset for Skype, and Mieke a book on American history.

After a long sunny period it rained all day on Tuesday but around 18.00 o'clock the sky cleared. I met Jaap and Mieke at the Iwo Jima memorial after work, and we saw a the Sunset Review Parade.

This is an event organized by the U.S. Marine Corps, and includes performances by the Drum and Bugle Corp and the Silent Drill Team. I especially enjoyed the Drum and Bugle Corps -- a very entertaining show with great music, marches and military music.

A few minutes after the show started we were invited to fill in some empty seats in a special area so we had comfortable places and a great view.

Certainly worth visiting again.

Sunday we went to Manassas, a town 25 miles from Washington. We went to the historical site of the Civil War. Near Manassas are the fields where two bloody battles were fought.

Many battles in the Civil War, the largest war in American history, were fought in Virginia. The first large battle took place in Manassas, and the bloody result and heavy losses at both sites gave that battle the name 'the loss of innocence'.

Visiting historical places like that always make me want to read more on the history of United States, and specifically of the area here.

On the field canons are placed to indicate the location of the various factions in the battle.

Graveyard of the lady who lived in a house on top of one of the hills, the only civilian victim of the first battle of Bull Run.

A stone house, that served as a field hospital in the two battles. It is the only original building that still remains.

Stone bridge over Bull Run, the river that gave the battles their (Northern) names. The river is not very big, but the bridge played a strategic role in the defense of D.C. The highways that are running through the place follow almost exactly the roads that were there in the 1800's.

There was a piece of furniture we never found time for to install: the table for the TV.

We got most part of the TV set delivered a while back but since it wasn't urgent we never went back to Ikea to pick up the last remaining part that was out of stock.

My parents offered to go to Ikea together and Saturday afternoon we went to College Park. Our rental car is not extremely large, so Mieke stayed home.

Jaap and I found the remaining part of the TV unit and some other replacement parts fairly quickly. Then we overcame the challenge of loading our Chevrolet Cobalt with the large packages with only one minor injury.

In the evening we installed the first part of the TV unit and it looks very nice.

Friday night we had dinner on the balcony together. My father cooked; sausages with a lot of vegetables and fruits. We made a plan for the weekend, and we decided to rent a car to leave the city and visit places in Virginia.

Saturday morning we took the car from Avis near Clarendon. It took a few minutes to get used to the automatic gear but then we were on our way to our first Virginia visit: the Great Falls.

These waterfalls in the Potomac river, about 20 miles upstream from Arlington make for a magnificent view.

In the 1800s traders created a canal with five locks to by-pass the waterfalls and improve commercial relations. The canal worked only for 30 years and was replaced by a canal at the other side of the river, the Chesapeake & Ohio canal. Remains of the original canal and its locks are still visible though. There were also ruins of some buildings of the village that existed next to the canal. We went for an 90 minutes walk to see the terrain, and watched a movie on the history of the canals and waterfalls.

The dissatisfied look on my face is not because I'm dissatisfied but because the sun is shining very brightly. Great view.

A cajak is going down the Potomac river... dare devil.