It's been raining all day today. We had an early appointment in D.C so I took the metro from Foggy Bottom to my work. The moment I put down my umbrella on the floor, I saw an umbrella under another bench. A good reminder not to forget my own!

In the evening it was still pouring, and when I came home there was no power in the apartment building. However, one elevator was still working and there was partial lightning in the building hallways. Our apartment was pitch black, a strange experience. I went for a great run in the rain and took a shower by candle light. The power came back 30 minutes later.

We had a nice day in our new town, Arlington, today.

In the afternoon we walked to the library. They still had our information on file from 2005. Made me feel at home.

We had dinner in the Silver Diner and then did our grocery shopping for the week.

Our living room and kitchen are in good shape, and slowly but surely we're getting the rest of the apartment ready as well. Today we worked mainly on the guest bedroom.

After a visit to Home Depot I mounted the bookshelves against the wall and we opened the last boxes. We threw out a lot of old papers, which is a nice feeling.

Two weeks ago I replied to a small contest by the Dutch Embassy on Facebook, "tell us what your Dutch heritage means to you". I wrote: "Sharing stroopwafels with my colleagues today. And drinks tonight at Mackey's Pub in DC".

They awarded all participants with a price, so today I received a beautiful Dutch Design mug in the mail. Thank you, Dutch Embassy!

This afternoon I'm doing some work to assist another team. It's relaxed, working from home, and things are going smoothly so far.

I went for a long run this morning. Last Thursday I ran to DC from here for the first time, and on the way back to our house there's a 1 mile stretch that's entirely uphill. It's not a super steep incline, but it's hard at the end of a long run. Oh well, a good exercise.

The last two days we have been eating turkey sandwiches. The 10 lbs turkey would have been enough to feed 6 adults at least, so we'll continue to have turkey for a few more days. Real turkey breast is so much better than from a deli... so delicious.

We had a great Thanksgiving Day. In the morning we put some of our Haarlem and Amsterdam maps on the wall and the house is getting cozy.

We started cooking in the afternoon, and Pascal and his daughter Hanna joined us for dinner. A classic Thanksgiving meal, with a 10 lbs turkey as main course. Hanna enjoyed the home-made apple sauce. It was a great evening, topped off with a long walk through Arlington. Almost all stores and business were closed; some will open very early tomorrow for "Black Friday" shopping specials. Not for us!

This weekend we moved to our new apartment in Arlington. It took three trips with the car, including a dedicated drive for the plants, but all our belongings are now in the new house. It will take several days before everything is on its right place, and we have quite a few boxes from Durham still to unpack, but it's definitely 'liveable' already.

Today Verizon FiOS was installed, high-speed internet access, and a window in the living room was replaced.