Since a few days Starbucks has a new coffee on display: Aged Sumatra. Every now and then they have packages of special coffee beans for sale, and I was really curious about this one.

The beans of this coffee have been aged five years, which gives a taste. It is supposed to have been discovered when the Dutch V.O.C. ships transported coffee beans from Indonesia to Europe, which took many months.

I asked if there was a way to try the coffee, without having to buy a package, and when I came in in the afternoon when it wasn't very busy they custom made me a cup of coffee from these beans. They used a French press for it (which I believe is known in Holland as a Turkish' coffee machine).

I liked to coffee a lot, it has a very special taste: a more mellow and smoother flavor than regular Sumatra, and far less acidity. It was nice, but I don't think I'll get a package of this for at home. I prefer the regular blend in the mornings.

The snow from yesterday has covered the whole city in white. The bright sunshine makes that it's very shiny outside, and it's almost time for sunglasses. The major roads and footpaths are cleared of snow, but it's still slippery because of the melted snow and ice.

I worked again today; in the morning from home and in the afternoon I went to the office. It's not to bad to work on Sunday, because the work is really fun. We've made good progress this weekend.

I received my new ATM card today, so it really took only one week. However, when I tried to activate the card in the ATM the machine said I was using a wrong PIN number. I'll have to visit the bank tomorrow to find out what's going on because I'm pretty sure I used the correct one.

This weekend is a working weekend for me and my team. Today I was in the office. Originally we all planned to come in, but due to the weather my colleagues stayed at home and worked from there.

It's been snowing all day, and that's big news in all the media. There's an official "winter storm", and a "sever weather warning" is active. When they announced that on the news last week I thought it would really storm, and snowing 50cm per day, but it turns out to be a moderate snow, nothing as dramatic as been shown in the news. We just saw more than 5 different news channels, and they all had specials on the "severe" weather.

But even though it's not as bad as all the warnings would have you believe, the snow has a big impact on people's lives here. Traffic is going very slow because the snow is falling so quickly that it's hard to keep the roads clean. Many shops and buildings are closed too, even the Kinko's near our apartment building that's usually open 24 hours is closed untill tomorrow morning.

Yesterday evening Sasha and I went out for dinner together, which was great. Later we briefly went to a birthday party in a bar at Adam's Morgan. On the way back the driver of our cab was a lady from Romania, who had rather interesting views of the world.

I took the pictures below today in Rosslyn, around my work, when I was going for lunch and later when I went home.

Sunday a week ago we spent the afternoon in Georgetown. On the way to there we took a bus, but in the evening we decided to walk home. Georgetown is the first neighbourhood of DC across the river from Virginia. It was fun to walk over the Key Bridge. While walking we were at the phone with Irena about something.

Below are two pictures of the Key Bridge at night.

The bright spot in the right-upper corner of the picture is a plane that is preparing for landing. Reagan National Airport is nearby the bridge, and there's a plane passing by every few minutes.

On the left is the building where the Christmas party of my work was.

What do Dutch people bring when travelling from and to the US?

Read about in in a nice discussion on AllesAmerika.com.

On the list to the U.S. are pindakaas (peanut butter) and borrelnootjes (coated nuts). Favorites to bring to Holland from the U.S. are clothes and BBQ sauce. No one mentioned volkorenbrood yet.

Today was Inauguration Day, the day of the installation of President Bush. It was more quiet than usual on the streets when I walked to work; all federal buildings were closed.

Yesterday it was snowing, and today I wore the special winter boots that I bought before going to Bulgaria last year. The road to work was still covered with snow and ice and pretty slippery. The winter shoes are wonderful: nice, warm and with a solid grip so you don't slip.

At work there's a lot to do, and a deadline is approaching, so it's quite busy now.

A lot of colleagues came in later today because the metros were so crowded due to the festivities downtown. We watched the official celebrations on TV in the evening. After the swearing-in ceremony there were many balls and parties in the city; President Bush visited nine of them in one day.

Today it was snowing for the first time since I've been here. It's been pretty cold the last few days, and in the morning it started snowing.

Both Sasha and I are over our colds; it took us about a week.

Tomorrow it's Inauguration Day. President Bush will get officially installed, and it's a holiday in the U.S. for federal employees. Sasha's office is closed tomorrow but I'll go to work.

Kill Bill is a movie by Quentin Tarantino that comes in two parts, on two separate DVDs. We saw the first part on a Sunday evening, the next part on Monday (last week). Two nights of great enjoyment -- this movie is really good.

The story is rather violent and has a large amount of fighting scenes but it comes with a nice plot, a lot of humor and very good performance by the actors. The acting by Uma Thurman was excellent, and so were the visual effects in the movie.

Like the other Tarantino many things were over the top, such as the acting and macho dialogues. The "deleted scene" that was a bonus track on the second DVD was very nice, too.

The ingredients and food of the American kitchen are not that different of those you'll find in Holland, so most things I'm used to cook with are available. You can even get boerenkool (kale) in some supermarkets.

The other day we found a specialty store with a lot of imported things from Europe. Truffels and vinegar from Italy, special wines, things like that. They also had a few Dutch items, such as drop and Droste chocolate. We bought a package of caramel wafers: stroopwafels!

It's easy to find Dutch beer and cheese, although they're expensive. There's also quite a collection of Belgium beers available here, but I haven't found my personal favorite Grimbergen triple yet.

The only thing that I really miss so far is real Dutch bread: a freshly baked volkorenbrood would be very nice. The bread in Wholefoods comes close, but is not quite the same.

Drop, imported from Holland, next to English licorice. Of course, you can also order drop online.

Today was Marten Luther King Day. It's a federal holiday, so Sasha had a day off. Many companies in the private sector don't have a free day though, and it was a working day for me.

It's very cold outside, now it's -8 degrees Celcius. I still enjoyed walking to and from work -- I was well prepared this time.