About an hour ago I went home briefly. When I was almost there I heard screaming: "Turn around! On your knees!".

Fortunately it wasn't meant for me but for the guy that had some sort of an axe and was breaking the windows of the police station. I guess he was really angry, when I walked back to Chess I saw that at least 8 windows had been broken...

While looking for a nice picture of the police station I came across this (slightly sarcastic) article about the renovation of the Nieuwe Gracht, where Chess (my employer) is located. Translated: "It's always nice if big companies like Chess are able to see how people were living in the Middle Ages and how they transported their stuff over sandroads, with holes in the road. That must have given those smart guys a lot of inspiration".

The renovation this website talks about finished about a year ago but did indeed take much longer than expected.

When we had dinner we saw flash-lights and smoke on the Adriaan. First we thought somebody is shooting pictures, but it turns out to be a training for the firebrigade. I suppose the flash is for the pictures that are meant for this website.

The Hendrick de Keyser Foundation bought the building 'Huis Barnaart'.

That's very close to Chess, I walk by it everyday.

A picture from 1912:

The second house from the left is Huis Barnaart, the 5th one is the Chess building.

The window near my desk is getting full with snow.

The view from the backside of the Chess building; looking to the right.

Haarlem in the winter.

The view from the backside of the Chess building; looking to the left.

The Grote Markt as seen by the Haarlem webcam.

I wondered if I could find yesterdays waking up on the internet. After all, even Middenmeer has their firebrigade online.

And yes, there is a website of the Haarlem firebrigade too. Yesterday's event is not online yet, but they are many pictures of other fires they worked on. They coolest feature of the site, one that Middenmeer's doesn't have, is the life audio stream of their scanner.

Yesterday morning it was snowing: the first time since we're living in Haarlem.

Click on 'Read More' for yesterday's view from the window.

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I wasn't the only one who liked it:

There's a Christmas star on the Adriaan.

It's been horribly cold the last few days, winter is definately not my season.

However, for all those people who do like skating things look pretty nice. Even the Spaarne is starting to get frozen.

While I was walking to work I took 2 pictures.

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Yesterday at 19:00 o'clock I saw a boat passing and the Spaarne was completely open. Now there is a layer of ice on the whole river.

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This is the Nieuwe Gracht, the canal in front of the Chess building. It would be cool when the ice will be strong enough... then we could go to our lunchplace without having to walk around to take the bridge.

Two days ago a canalboat didn't care about the ice and made this track you can see here.

While I was working on my last homework assignment I saw a small boat with two Zwarte Pieten in the Spaarne. Some pictures!

They told a kid that they were looking for Sinterklaas' boat (it is lost as you can read here).

About 10 minutes later there were a lot of people gathering, so I went to take a look. The children here are singing and I heard that Sinterklaas would arrive. However... would the boat be back already?

Nope. The real boat is still missing, so Sinterklaas came in a policeboat.

Sinterklaas arrives.

The children went inside the police station as Sinterklaas would give a show there.

Two weeks ago Sinterklaas arrived for the first time in Haarlem. Unfortunately I couldn't go and make pictures then. We took a few through the window but the distance was big. This one is reasonable and gives a good impression:

The Haarlems Dagblad has a picture of the tree that fell yesterday.

You can see the prison in the background; compare it with a picture from the view from our livingroom window.

Picture: United Photos de Boer / Marco de Swart