On Sunday we saw the Carnival Parade in Marigot, the capitol of the French side of the island.

It was a lot of fun to watch the parade, and we saw it passing by twice. The pictures tell only part of the story -- the music was just as important. Throughout the parade, trucks were carrying huge sound installation and the soca music was very loud and made for a great party atmosphere.

Here's a video of the 2007 parade with sound.

A true wall of sound. The volume of the soca music was incredible.

We had a good view from our spot on a street corner.

The parade was blocking traffic throughout the (tiny) city.

The end of the official parade; people dancing on the music and following the parade.

An hour later we saw the parade again, it was dark already.

One of the carts.

Ettie and Gerben bought a nice new car, so now their old one is for sale.

For sale (in the Netherlands): Nissan Micra, automatic, 3 doors. A little over 116.000 km, year: 1995, color: red. Taxes: 17 euro per month. The car uses 'benzine', which is 'gas' in the US but 'gas' in Dutch means natural gas, so don't be confused.

Please contact Ettie if you're interested.

Saturday we're leaving for a few days to St. Maarten, an island in the northeast Caribbean. Half of the island is Dutch, half of the island is French.

So, we're in for a tropical island with Dutch food! It will be much like our trip to Curacao three years ago.

Welcome, dear Anouk!

Our good friends Kirsten and Rob were blessed with a baby on Monday, February 16.

From both of us: many, many congratulations!

This week there was a basketball game between the University of North Carolina (UNC) and Duke University. This annual game is a hugely popular event, and some of the Duke students have been in line since December (!) to get tickets for the game.

We went for a walk over campus earlier this week and saw the tents and camping equipment in front of the sports stadium. The next day the TV news mentioned that one of the kids in the tents was treated for meningitis, but was doing relatively well. The name of the tent ville is Krzyzewskiville, or Kville, named after 'Coach K' a hugely successful coach of the Duke men's basketball team (and also of the US Olympic team in 2008).

Read more about the line policy on Kville.info.

Sadly for those enthousiastic fans, Duke lost to UNC with 87 to 101.

I realize that it may sound like I do nothing but cooking these days. Having said that: tonight we cooked nasi goreng with real krupuk and it was great.

Nasi goreng is an Indonesian fried rice dish which is popular in the Netherlands.

In Grand Asia, an Asian grocery store near my work in Raleigh, I found real Indonesian krupuk; crackers made of shrimp. They are deep fried for a minute or so in the pan and expand to three times their dry size.

Last but not least I experimented with a peanut sauce from Hong Kong, and that was a very lucky choice. It was delicious, a great combination of sweet and spicy at the same time.

Sunday I was a Chinese store in Durham, and noticed this can of meat, "made with pork and chicken".

The Holland name is accompanied by a windmill, so they must mean the country, but the meat itself was packed and canned in Los Angeles, CA.