Saturday evening we went to the movies. We saw "National Treasure", an action movie in a James Bond/Indiana Jones style. Honestly speaking the movie wasn't very good, and I guess it was made for a much younger audience, but we had a very nice evening. It was fun to go out and relax. What I also liked was that so many famous places in the States played a role in the movie, such as the US National Archive.

Afterwards we went to Summer's, a bar in our neighbourhood, where we ate and had a few drinks.

Sunday we spent the afternoon in Georgetown, a nice neighbourhood across the river from Arlington. We had lunch in a place which claimed that many presidents had patronized it. It was a very cozy place and the food was good.

Yesterday I went for fitness in our building for the first time. It wasn't very busy in the fitness room, which is located on the highest floor and has a great view. It had been a while since I ran a longer distance, and I could feel that running took me more effort than it used to do. I guess that's a matter of exercise. I'll also have to find a program that suits my style of running -- there's quite a difference between running a real track and running on the treadmills we have up there.

I've developed a cold over the last days, nothing too bad but a bit annoying.

In today's Washington Post there are two large articles about the Netherlands. The first one, on the frontpage, is a background story on the murderer of Theo van Gogh. It describes how this guy radicalized over time into a fanatic terrorist. At first I didn't recognize the name of the murderer, Mohammed Bouyeri, because in most Dutch newspapers his names is depicted as "Mohammed B.".

The other article deals with an experiment by the Dutch government to distribute cannabis through pharmacies for people with certain (terminal) illnesses. The experiment is not as succesful as was expected, mainly because the price of cannabis in the pharmacies is almost double the price in "coffee shops", where cannabis is sold for recreational use.

The Washington Post newspaper is published every day of the week. Just like the Dutch newspaper's Saturday editions, the Post's Sunday edition is extra large. Actually, we bought today's (Sunday's) edition yesterday, on Saturday -- there is an "early Sunday edition" available that obviously does not contain the news up to Sunday, but does come with the extra parts that are pre-produced anyway. It's great to have such a huge paper in the weekend.

Today we are taking it very easy, and that feels great. I'm having a really good time here, and the last weeks have been very nice, but it has also been quite tiring. We didn't really have free time last weekend since we just had to go out and get some basic furniture: it's not very convenient to live in a completely empty apartment. But after a relaxing Friday evening it's now weekend, and our house is at least partly furnitured. We had breakfast together, the way we were used to in Haarlem, and then we went out. Not for large shopping, but just for fun.

In the morning I opened a bank account. Friday I received my first salary, and because I didn't have a bank account yet, I received a physical pay check. Checks here are in general much more common then in Holland. By the way, my salary is paid every two weeks instead of each month, something that is quite normal here (Sasha's employer for example also does that). Anyway, we walked to a bank near our house that I wanted to work with.

It's been fun to choose a bank, and my choice is Rigg's bank. This is actually a local bank: they have only branches in Washington D.C. and the cities around it, not in the whole U.S. However, they have quite a lot of ATMs here, and (important), they have branches nearby my work and our house. They're also used to dealing with international financial transactions. It is important that a bank has a lot of ATMs around, because if you use an ATM of another bank, there are extra transaction charges that are at least $2,00.

Opening the new account took a while, as the lady that helped me was not very experienced. But we were not in a hurry and she was very friendly. I opened both a checking account and a savings account (spaarrekening), the latter giving interest. As long as you keep enough money in the account, the accounts are free. Sometime in the next few days my paycheck will be "cleared", and then I can start using the temporary ATM card that I received.

We went for coffee afterwards, and then we walked around in the neighbourhood. It's great to be just together and have time to walk around etc. We had lunch at home.

I also like it that today I have time to update my website. It's now 17:00 o'clock here, and I am writing this article on the PC in our apartment. However, we don't have internet here yet, so I'll put the text and pictures on a disk in a while and upload them downstairs in our building's "business center", basically a free internet cafe.

Wednesday we received our first mail: a card from my parents. The next day we received a card from Ettie and Gerben.

Thanks from both of us!

Things are going well at work: the work is fun, and the project we are doing is really interesting, with nice colleagues. Yesterday we worked till late, today I'll go home now.

I walked to my work this morning! Our apartment is one metro stop away, but yesterday I walked with a colleague back to Court House. It takes about 30 minutes, a nice and healthy walk.

When I went for lunch I took a picture of Rosslyn, where my work is located.

This weekend we moved into our new apartment. We signed the papers and received the keys last Wednesday, but as we didn't have any furniture we stayed in Rosa's place until Friday.

We got up early Friday, and after two hours of packing Arnold, a neighbor, brought us to Arlington. We had a car full with bags and suitcases, but we didn't have any furniture to move. Saturday we had to be in the apartment at 12:00 o'clock, because a mattress would be delivered that afternoon. We ordered a mattress through "1-800-MATTRESS" and it was a good thing that they delivered the mattress on time, otherwise we would have had not place to sleep. The mattress is nice and thick. We already had the cuilt and the pillows, so at least the bedroom became usable.

Saturday afternoon we went shopping in a mall called Pentagon City, which is indeed near the Pentagon. There we bought a lot of small things, but also two large items: a TV and a vacuum cleaner (stofzuiger). We choose a Philips TV, and it's beautiful. We took a cab back home because of the large amount of things and packages we had.

Sunday morning we went to Ikea. We went there last week too, so we already knew about some of the things we wanted to get. We took the metro to Ikea College Park, which is actually located in the state Maryland. It's quite a distance from D.C. but the metro system is very extensive in Washington, so we had no problem going there by public transport. We arrived at 9:45 o'clock, before the shop opened, and therefore the coffee in the restaurant was free. You could also get breakfast for 99 cents, really cheap, but we already had breakfast at home.

We bought a lot of things. The biggest items are a bed, and a living room table with four chairs. It's fun to choose new furniture. Arnold brought us back, with the furniture. In the afternoon we assembled the furniture (my hands still hurt from the screwdriver), and around 23:30 o'clock everything was installed. Slowly but surely the apartment is changing from an completely empty place into our home. We also bought our first plant, something I am particularly happy with. It's a Yuka, about 1,5 meters heigh.

Yesterday evening we went to a party. Three colleagues of Sasha are leaving the bank and they gave a goodbye party. It was in a bar in D.C., not too far from the place where we live now.

It was a very nice evening. I spoke with a lot of different people, and as most of them work at the World Bank they came from all over the world. It was nice to meet Sasha's colleagues.

Today we are moving out! Therefore I'll start packing now -- later more.

Sasha and I took the bus downtown together this morning, and we had a very cheerful busdriver. The sign with the bus number didn't work, so at every stop he stopped and announced which bus this was: "S2! McPherson Square! S2!" . He really enjoyed that, and I suspect him of having disabled the bus sign himself.

Today we will sign the papers for our new apartment. We're both quite busy, but
we'll try to go to the apartment in our lunchbreaks. We will move in this weekend; Saturday a mattress will be delivered. It will be great to move in and start furnishing and decorating our new home.

Heard this one on my work:

"For Americans, a hundred years seems like a long time. For Europeans, a hundred miles seems like a long distance".