Dutch citizens living abroad can now apply for a new passport, identity card or DigiD at Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands. Minister Plasterk of Internal Affairs recently opened a special service desk.

The service desk will be available 7 days a week from 7.00 am to 10.00 pm local time. Note that an appointment is required for applying for new passport or identity card. No appointment is needed for a DigiD.

A DigiD is an electronic identity card that is used for filing Dutch taxes and applying for Dutch social security (AOW). Earlier, applying for a DigiD was not possible for citizens abroad since a Dutch home address was required. With this new service desk, applying for DigiD becomes possible during a trip to the Netherlands.

To apply for the DigiD at Schiphol a Dutch passport and a working cellphone are required. The security verification requires a phone number that can receive SMS text messages. More information can be found through the DigiD help desk: info@digid.nl or +31 70 383 70 30 (business days until 4.00 pm EST).

Friday I was in our Jersey City office. It was the first time I visited there and a day was too short to meet everybody I wanted to meet.

The office is located on the river front and has a great view of Manhattan.

It is a lot of fun to see Nora learning to talk. She speaks Dutch with me and Bulgarian with Sasha and switches between the two languages effortlessly. Nora is now at a stage where she'll say "no" to everything -- even if she means "yes". It's very funny when we both ask her a question. To Sasha she'll reply "не!", to me she'll answer "nee!". In both cases she might mean... "yes", haha.

Here are some other words:

- "kaa'" vs "гау гау ки" (кашкавалче) (cheese)
- "коремче" vs "buik" (tummy)
- "brood" vs "хлапче" (bread)
- "морковче" vs "orteltje" (carrot)

We were in Barnes and Noble today and bought two books for Nora. One was a Richard Scarry picture book, the other was: "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes". We gave this as a baby gift a year ago, and really loved the story and the rhyme. When we read books to Nora we want to do that in Bulgarian and Dutch, and I've translated several American books so far.

Translating it into Dutch was not easy. How to do justice to these iconic lines?

And both of these babies,
as everyone knows,
had ten little fingers
and ten little toes.

I ran several translations by Nora, and while the Dutch word "teentjes" is very cute, she seemed to prefer "tenen". There is actually an official translation, and on Bol.com I saw a few pages of it, but the meaning and the rhythm of the book was modified too much for my taste, even introducing names for the babies in the book which is a distraction.

It's the Fourth today and we walked in the Lyon Village Parade this morning.

The parade is a short walk along Key Boulevard, and several classic cars participated as well as Uncle Sam. Nora was deeply impressed by the fire trucks that also took part. We've been reading about the "brandweer" for a while now and it was fun to see them in real life, if a little scary.

At 12:30 pm Nora went for her nap. When she wakes up, the Zane family will be almost here. They're visiting us for the first time in the new house.

We asked Nora, "waar is de koe" and she pointed to her cow and said "koe". Then we asked "къде е кравичка?" and she pointed to the cow again and said "вича".

When I asked "wat zegt de koe" she dutifully answered "boe!" and when Sasha asked the same thing in Bulgarian she said "муууу!", much to our delight.

I gave her a new book to read for dinner and it had a picture of a bird. She said "duif?" and then "ogetje" (for "vogeltje"), followed by "tjielp tjielp!"

Our friends Jennie and Ronald are making a trip along the East Coast, and yesterday they arrived in Washington, DC.

They came to see us in the morning and we had lunch together -- it was very nice to see them.

After a few minutes of shyness Nora enjoyed meeting them, and she was very happy with her gift, a big inflatable pink cow. Koe! Koe! Koe!

Djurre Boshuizen is born!

Our dear friends Joost and Ankie were blessed with a baby boy yesterday morning. Mother and child are doing fine and Elin is now big sister.

Nora is walking, as of today. We are very proud.

She was excited about her new 'baby carpet' and enjoyed walking on it and continued to hike throughout the living room.

In America a one-year old baby is called a "toddler", from the verb "to toddle". The Dutch translation for that verb is "waggelen" -- to walk unsteadily.