This weekend I'm preparing things for Sinterklaas. Yesterday I bought most of the things I need, but I'll go to one shop once more.

I went out Friday evening with some colleague’s; it was great fun. After dinner we spent the whole evening in Van Stoffelen, and later we met some other colleague’s there.

A nice news message from my internet provider:

"The speed of the XS4ALL subscriptions Lite, Basic en Fast ADSL will be increased once again, starting January 15 2004. " - XS4ALL.

My current connection speed is 1024/320 Kbit/s, but from January the downstream will be doubled to 2048 Kbit/s. Wow... I remember the time that I was happy with a new modem that had a speed of 14.4Kbit/s.

It's Thanksgiving weekend in the States. Sasha is spending the weekend with Irena and Jonathan and family of Jonathan in Columbia, a city north of Washington.

Yesterday evening I was watching TV when the visit of President Bush to Iraq was announced.

Mr. Bush is really good in situations like those; many Dutch people underestimate how popular he is, partly because public appearances like yesterday's. His visit made a big impact on the soldiers in Iraq and many Americans at home.

Tonight I had dinner with Jennie, Samantha and Ronald.

We had a really wonderful meal: hot pot. Hot pot is a Chinese recipe, where there's a big pan with spicy, boiling soup in the middle of the table, and a variety of things to boil in it in smaller dishes around it. In a sense it's a bit like fondue, except that the taste of the soup is very delicious: a lot of herbs and spices have been added.

There were a lot of Chinese vegetables to put in the soup. Additionally there were mushrooms, tofu and different types of meat. The name "hot pot" relates to the taste: Jennie added around 20 red peppers to our version. Extremely spicy, extremely delicious!

I am doing some personal administrative work now. Bills, insurance, tax...

It's going well, I just finished a letter. These simple things can take so much energy! I'll post the letters and the paid bills tonight to be completely ready with it.

We had dinner in Leeuwarden tonight. Ettie and Gerben celebrated being together for six and a half year and we went out with the 'extended family'. It was a nice evening, with good Mexican food.

I'm staying in Middenmeer now.

What a marvelous movie! I just came back from the Toneelschuur, where I saw “Goodbye Lenin” with Arjan. It's been a long time since I saw such a nice film. It is warm and human story about life in the DDR, before and after the changes in 1989.

“Goodbye, Lenin!” was chosen as the best European film at this year's Berlin film festival and has won many other awards. The Economist: "It is the warmest souvenir yet of a nation that died almost overnight".

Next to the great story it was very nice to see so many things from the DDR: the TV-programs, the food, the housing... very nice. Recommended.