Saturday we went to a shopping mall near the Pentagon, "Pentagon City". These malls are a real American phenomenon: a mall is a very large shopping center with many shops in one big building. Most of them are outside the city, and reachable only by car. We have been to this one here a few times to get our new things for the house, because it's well reachable by metro. The "Arena Boulevard" in Amsterdam is perhaps comparable to this type of malls.

In the mall we saw Santa Claus. He is there all day for children to have their picture taken with him.

I've prepared this story and pictures at home; I didn't have time to go downstairs and upload them yesterday. We didn't order internet yet. Not that that's so terribly complicated but we want to have the best deal possible, and a combination package with cable-TV seems now the best way to go.

The last picture is of a small shopping district near our house. In the background you can see the lighted logo of Barnes & Nobles, a bookstore.