I am leaving work early today; I'll be going in about 10 minutes. We're going to Texas!

Suitcase is packed. We'll take the metro to Union Station, and from there a Marc train to BWI airport. Our flight is at 18:10 o'clock, to Dallas, Texas, where we'll take another flight so we'll arrive in San Antonio around 23:00 o'clock. I'm looking forward to the traveling; it's fun and we'll be traveling together.

In preparation of the trip we will be making this weekend we saw the movie "Alamo" yesterday.

This was the first rented DVD we have been watching here and we were watching it on our PC. It worked well, but I'd like to connect to PC to our TV as that screen is bigger and has more contrast.

The movie describes the war between the United States and Mexico about the area that is now the state of Texas. A central building in the movie is The Alamo, a fort in San Antonio, Texas, and that is exactly were we will be flying to this afternoon. We're going to celebrate New Year there. After two very busy weeks I'm really looking forward to spend a long weekend together there, down South.

We didn't buy breakfast this weeked, and somehow there were no donuts with the coffee downstairs today. So I bought breakfast on the way to work.

I went to "Brooklyn Bagels". The smell and atmosphere there reminded me of our first summer in the U.S., in the resort in Tannersville, NY.

A bagel is a typical American thing; it's a circle shaped bread bun, thick, and more chewey than regular (European) bread. You can eat them as-is, but they are often toasted. There's a huge variety of flavours: this morning I had a regular bagel, but there are also bagels with cinnamon, poppy seed, onion or salt, or for people who can't choose: "everything".

I had egg salad on my bagel -- not a very smart choice when it comes to eating decently in the office.

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas. It was a really nice experience to have a Christmas with a five year old child that wakes up in the knowledge that Santa Claus brought the presents that are under the tree. We put cookies for Santa Claus, and some food for the reindeers, and indeed, in the morning the food and cookies were gone!

After breakfast we gave each other presents under the Christmas tree. This was my first American-style Christmas. It was a lot of fun to give and receive the presents. The rest of the day we took it easy and we cooked a huge meal: turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, salads. For desert we baked a chocolate cake.

This morning we had fresh bagels for breakfast. It is snowing outside; little snowflakes are whirling down. We're going out now, to downtown New York.

Things are getting up to speed at my job. I am working now on a major project we are doing, I started helping out on that project Monday. It's really nice to be part of a project: feeling the rush, getting things done and working under some pressure makes working fun.

I am making long days, much longer than at my previous job. I knew this in advance when I decided to go the US, and actually it much less tiring than I thought it would be. I guess it makes a big difference that the work I'm doing is so much fun. Also I'm glad that we live so close to my work so I don't have to commute a long distance to and from the office. Tomorrow a lot of colleagues will have a day off, as Christmas is coming and many people are traveling tomorrow.

Today it was a very cold day.

The Sunday paper mentioned that it might snow today, and when we woke up I was a bit disappointed that the world wasn't covered in a nice white layer. I like to walk to my work, which takes between 20 and 30 minutes, and is usually nicely refreshing. I was looking forward to the walk, but the moment I stepped outside our apartment I changed my mind. It was extremely cold! The temperature was somewhere around -12 degrees Celcius, but most of all there was a very strong, icecold wind.

Even the short walk from the metro station to Starbucks, and then to my work, made me very cold. Tomorrow I'll bring my gloves and a hat.

In the last weeks I took a few pictures of Washington and Rosslyn at night.

I'm still learning what the best camera-settings are for night shots. The small picture of the Capitol that you can see here looks okay, but the quality of the picture is not good enough for a large picture.

The Mall.

Street in Rosslyn, VA. Compare with this day light picture.

Side walk closed. Rosslyn, VA.

Yesterday we had the Christmas party of my work.

The party was held in the Mariott hotel in Rosslyn, Virginia and we were on the top floor of the hotel. There we had a great view over the Potomac river and the city.

It was a fun evening and it was very nice to talk with colleagues in a non-work atmosphere and meet their partners. After the official party we went to a bar at Court House, near where we live. Steve, a colleague, gave us a ride (thanks!) so we had time to quickly go home before going to the bar. We had a great evening and talked with many people.

Today we had an easy day. In the late afternoon I made a short visit to the Museum of American History.

We just came back from the Christmas party of Sasha's work.

The party was in downtown D.C., where Sasha works.