This afternoon I bought a new network cable for my laptop. The hotel provides an internet connection in the room, but you need to bring your own cable to connect to it. Last week I borrowed somebody else's, but I got my own today.

I didn't really pay attention, except that I didn't want to pay to much money, these cables are so expensive! I bought the cheapest one I could find, a short one. Only when I arrived in the hotel room I realized that three feet is really very short! So now I'm sitting on the floor.

I went for dinner with four colleagues in a restaurant in the hotel across the street. I had pasta there, with a salad. I spoke with Sasha on the phone when she was changing planes, she'll be home around this time.

It's nice to enter a room for the first time, and I liked unpacking my stuff. If everything goes as planned, I'll stay 10 more nights here.

So Friday night I went to my new hotel, and met with Sasha there: a great start of a great weekend.

The hotel were we stayed, the Wyndham Condado Plaza, is located closer to the city than the Holiday Inn I was in during the week. It's a very large hotel, with a casino downstairs, a couple of restaurants and about five swimming pools.

Friday evening the weather was pretty bad, just like it had been pretty much the rest of the week. In the afternoon, when Sasha arrived, the weather was good though so she got a nice welcome on Puerto Rico.

We went to the city by cab and when we arrived there it was raining. That was unfortunate but we were obviously in a good mood and it didn't spoil our evening. It helped that the cab stopped right in front of a small shop where they sold umbrella's. We looked around for a place to eat and after a while we found a very nice restaurant, "Amadeus". There we had a nice dinner with some typical Puerto Rican ingredients such as fried plantain, and enjoyed the Friday evening.

I finished work for today, that means we'll go into old San Juan in a little while to see what's there to discover.

Working is much nicer at the poolside or lobby of a hotel than in the office. This morning we went to the sea. There is a small beach nearby, but most of the shore are rocks. Big waves are crashing on them.

The weather is great today, so before we'll go out we'll have lunch at the pool.

I moved to a different hotel for this weekend, because the hotel were we originally stayed was booked for the weekend. A nice change to check out a new hotel, and Sasha checked in before I came home. It's much nicer to be on a tropical island together with her than alone.



Although I've been here about a week, I didn't get a chance to see much of the island yet -- something we'll make up for this weekend. There is some work that I need to do (that's why I'm in the lobby now, using a wireless connection for my e-mail), but we'll definitely go out and see the places around here. Pictures later.

Thursday evening I went out with 3 colleagues. First dinner together, then drinks on top of the Intercontinental hotel overlooking the ocean, and then to a surprising bar: a very interesting evening.

This morning Sasha arrived in Puerto Rico!

She took an early flight and checked in the hotel around 14:00 o'clock. I'm still in the office, but looking forward to the weekend!

It's been a long day today.

We were in the office around 8.30 o'clock, and we stayed till after 20.00 o'clock. We got a lot of work done, obviously.

We went for dinner together again, my two colleagues who I'm working with and I. This time we went to an Argentinian restaurant, a steakhouse. A lot of meat, not very healthy but delicious.

The weather is still not that very good, it's been raining every now and then since I came here. Today around noon we had a rather spectacular thunderstorm. Let's hope in the weekend the weather is better.

Yesterday was my first working day at the customer. I met many people that I spoke with only over the phone in the last months, as well as many new people. In fact, we have a few people of our company on-site all the time, and it was nice to see them again. Yesterday was a day off for the customer, this was the first working day of the week.

For lunch we went to a place with typical Puerto Rican food. I had rice, with beans and chicken with a nice sauce. A side-dish that I had was fried bananas (or a fruit that looks suspiciously like bananas); very nice.

The coffee here is outstanding! Even the coffee from the vending machines is very acceptable.

We stayed till late in the office, there were a lot of things to arrange and set up. It is extremely convenient to be so close to the customer; many questions and issues that we'd typically process by e-mail followed by a lot of phone calls can now be resolved by simply walking to another desk. The people here in the office, and for that matter, on the entire island have been very friendly.

Today I travelled to Puerto Rico. I had a direct flight from Dulles to San Juan, and in the plane I was studying Spanish. Although many people in Puerto Rico speak English, it is very useful to know at least a few phrases in Spanish. And it's just a lot of fun to learn a new language.

I arrived in Puerto Rico around 13:00 o'clock. It was raining when the plane landed! I'm prepared for sunny weather, and the rain was a surprise. It took a while before my luggage appeared on the carousel and it was a relieve when I finally got my suitcase.

Today is a holiday here, so we are working from the hotel today. The rooms all have internet connection. The are a lot of tools available that make working outside the office much easier: e-mail, chat, cell-phones, conference calls, online document repositories... the combination of these makes it easy to work with the people in the office in Virginia.

I went for dinner with two colleagues in Old Town San Juan.

Today I'm preparing for my journey Monday. Last week I prepared my laptop, business cards and PowerPoint slides, today it's time for shorts, sunblock and other things.

I'll go to San Juan, Puerto Rico to visit our customer there. I'll do requirement analysis and discovery for new phases of our project, something I'm really looking forward to. I'll stay at least a week, but probably longer.

We spent the previous weekend very pleasantly. Rosa had invited us to celebrate her birthday with a brunch in a resort outside Washington. Of course, that was an invitation that was gladly accepted. The brunch was on Sunday morning, abd we took the opportunity and booked a night in the hotel at the resort as well.

So, on Saturday morning we travelled to the Landsdown resort, where we arrived at noon for an early check-in. It's a very pleasant place, just 15 minutes from Dulles airport. We went for a swim, had lunch together, used the spa, got a massage... very relaxing.

Sunday morning we woke on time, and went for a nice swim again. Then around 11.30 o'clock Rosa and the other guests started arriving, and at 12:00 we went for the brunch. We were pretty hungry by then, so we enjoyed the great buffet very much. There was a huge variety of food, from typical breakfast (bacon with eggs) to oisters to fresh pasta to great cheeses. Very delicious and it was very cosy too. A lot of the guests were Rosa's family members, as well as friends and colleagues.

We left around 15:00 o'clock. Ed gave us a ride, and we went to an outlet together were I bought two pairs of pants. The outlet had the same shops as in the city, but the prices were much lower.