Yesterday I was in Heereveen around noon. I visited my grandmother there, which was very pleasant. We showed each other many pictures and we talked a lot. Around 16:00 o'clock I took the train to Leeuwarden.

Ettie and Gerben were having a party. There were many things to celebrate: birthdays, graduations and a new house. The party was very nice; I liked it a lot. It's much easier to actually talk to people when you're not organizing the party yourself (like last week); I enjoyed it. There were also some people I haven't seen in a long time.

Click on Read more... for a few pictures.

In a while I'm leaving to Friesland. I'll visit Oma Groen, who lives in Heereveen, and later I'll go to Leeuwarden. Ettie and Gerben are giving a party tonight.

It's an easy trip: from Amsterdam there is a direct train to Leeuwarden, a trip of around 2 hours.

I visited Ester and Richard tonight.

We had dinner together: Richard's famous lasagna. I saw Jip too. He was studying walking, that was nice to see.

Today I received flowers from Stichting Dagcentra IJmond, very nice.

Daniël is staying here now, he's leaving to Hungary in the morning. I made a pizza -- pretty good, if I may say so.

I'm going to bed early tonight.

What a great night! My birthday party got completely out of hand on a Monday evening and I enjoyed it a lot.

Late at night I had a very nice and very long phone call, which was the best part of a wonderful evening.

There will be some pictures later, now I'll get to Chess as soon as I can.

It's my birthday!

I just got some cakes ("vlaaien") for my collegue's here at Chess, we'll have coffee and cake soon. I allowed myself a small birthday present: a wonderful cup of espresso.

I received a lot of e-mails and cards already, which gives a nice feeling. Tonight there'll be a party, I'm looking forward to that.

Mieke and I celebrated our birthdays together in Middenmeer. She had a birthday last Friday and my birthday is tomorrow.

I had a great day! There were a lot of guests and some very nice presents. One of the things I liked a lot was a shower-radio, a present from Ettie and Gerben. Radio in the shower... that's feels rich.

Yesterday evening we did indeed play Steden & Ridders. Ettie, Mieke and I all won a game.

Tomorrow will be my real birthday; I've invited a few people to celebrate in the evening.

Today I experimented a bit with the video-recording of my new camera. It's really nice to make small motion pictures. The resulting files are
unfortunately too big to put online.

I had dinner with Daniel yesterday, which was nice. In the morning I did a lot of small things and I went into the city for a while. Monday I'll celebrate my birthday, so I did some shopping.

I'll leave to my parents in a while. I'm looking forward to the train journey: The Economist has a special issue on America that I'll read in the train.