April 2004

Somebody with too much time on his hands created a composition of the sounds that come with Windows 2000.

Using the Windows sound recorder he has created a short song -- amusing.

Daniël is in Holland again; he arrived this evening in Amsterdam.

According to a very nice tradition, there were quite some people to pick him up. We went for dinner and a beer.

We had a wonderful and very romantic weekend in Paris. It was super to see each other and to spend time together. Neither Sasha nor I had been in Paris before, which made our visit even more special.

Friday, April 9th 2004

My train journey was quick and comfortable, with coffee and a magazine. I arrived around 11:00 o'clock at Gare Du Nord, the northern trainstation of Paris. From there I took the metro to the hotel.

In the afternoon we went for a walk, after we had our first French lunch together. The first place we went to was the Eiffel tower, or Tour Eiffel in French. It was larger than I had imagined and quite impressive. We took the stairs to the 2nd floor, where there was an elevator to the top. We had a great view over the city from there.

The hotel we stayed in, Hôtel Lutetia, is right in the center of Paris -- very nice.

Saturday, April 10th 2004

Saturday we took a day-pass for the open buses that go around the city, called l'Open Tour. This was a great way to see the major tourist attractions of the city, such as the Arc de Triomph, the Notre Dame etc. We went on and off the various buses a couple of times, to have lunch and coffee, and just walk around. It was really fun to explore the city like this; we saw a lot in a relatively short time.

I took quite some pictures; here you'll see a few, of the Arc de Triomph and Tour Eiffel photographed from our bus, and Sasha in front of the Notre Dame.

We ended our bus-tour around Madeleine, a church. From there we walked back over the Concorde, a beautiful square, where we had a view over the Champs Élysées at night. We walked next to the Seine to the Louvre, then to the Latin Quarter. We saw the Eiffeltower lighted, which was very pretty. There was a big spotlight on top, like a light house.

In the evening we went for dinner in a very cosy Jazz Café, "Chez Papa". There was life piano- and contrabas music, French red wine and of course: great company. A wonderful evening.

Sunday, April 11th 2004

Sunday we had breakfast on a terras in a street near us. We were together, the sun was shining and we had coffee, French bread and French cheeses.

In the afternoon we went to an area in the northern part of Paris: Montmartre. First we saw the Sacre Coeur. As the weather was getting really nice we enjoyed the sun there for a long time. The area there was very beautiful, with many small streets. There were a lot of artists there too.

From the little streets of Montmartre we went to the region around Moulin Rouge. This is the red light district of Paris, it's rather shabby but it was fun to see.

At night we had dinner in a very good restaurant. All the food was great but our pre-dish was the most interesting. It was a huge plate with many different types of seafood: clams, oysters, shrimps, escargots... very delicious.

Monday, April 12th 2004

Monday morning we spent in the area around the hotel. We had coffee together and enjoyed the sun.

Then we went to the airport, Charles de Gaulle where Sasha's plane left around 16:00 o'clock.

I went by local train to Gare Du Nord. I had a train ticket for 19:00 o'clock, so I had plenty of time. Then when I arrived I saw that there was another Thalys was leaving to Amsterdam in just a few minutes!

I ran for the train and I just made it -- I was happy that I had flexible ticket. This way I was home two hours earlier than I had expected; around 22:00 o'clock.

A wonderful weekend, in a wonderful city.

I came back from Paris about an hour ago... a super weekend!

In a few minutes I'm leaving to Amsterdam Central Station, where I'll take the Thalys train to Paris!

The Thalys leaves at 7:00 o'clock, but I want to be there a bit earlier. First of all, I don't want to miss the train, and second I have to get a newspaper, coffee and breakfast (for in the train).

The Thalys is a high-speed train (TGV), that will reach a maximum speed of 300 kilometers per hour in France. In the Netherlands the speed is "limited" to that of a regular intercity train, because the highspeed tracks are not ready yet. It's a really fast connection; I'll be in Paris at 11:00 o'clock.

Sasha arrived around this time, her plane was scheduled to arrive at 6:00 o'clock in Paris. My train arrives at Garde Du Nord, the North-station of Paris. From there it's about 15 minutes to the hotel.

Sasha has been in Cameroon for about two weeks now, and their work there is done. So, she's flying back tonight from Yaounde to Paris.

Tomorrow morning I'm taking the train and I'll meet her there in Paris... I am so happy about it!

We will spend a really long weekend together; Sasha's flying back to Washington this Monday.

Yesterday we learned about the prepositions and corresponding cases (Falle) when talking about time and date. So now I know for sure how to say: "in the weekend", it's "am Wochenende" (Dativ and preposition an).

I also signed on for the Zaterduitsdag, Saturday April 24th. There will be lessons German all day. It's organized by the Goethe Institut, where I'm doing my German course, and it's open for everybody.

There are a couple of different programs that Saturday, such as a conversation training and "intercultural differences". I choose the grammar program: cases and prepositions. Ten years ago I would have never imagined voluntarily spending a Saturday learning German grammar.

I've moved to another desk again.

It's unfortunate that I had to give up the view over the canal, but now I have a nice view on the garden at the backside of Chess.

This weekend I spent in Friesland, in Leeuwarden and Heerenveen.



I had a very nice evening with Ettie and Gerben Saturday. After dinner we saw a funny movie, Finding Nemo -- hilarious! A really cute movie about a little fish. We went out in Leeuwarden later. We visited a number of different pubs and it was cosy.



Sunday I spent with my grandmother and my parents in Heerenveen. We went to the Douwe Egberts museum in Joure in the afternoon. That was interesting. They had a lot on the history of this Dutch coffee brand, but also other things such as mechanical printers from the early 1900's.



The train journey back went really smoothly. This morning I learned that I've been quite lucky, just after I left the station in Amsterdam there was a bom alarm that shut down all train transport for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday and Thursday I was at a big trade-event for Chess. It's called Intertraffic, and it's a trade fair for the design, maintenance and management of traffic and transport infrastructure. The fair was in the RAI in Amsterdam.

Chess has been working on a new parking machine for Vialis, which is one of the projects we demonstrated this week. The goal for Chess was to make contact with potential customers and suppliers.

It was a lot of fun working there and explaining people about what we do. There were a lot of international visitors; I found good use for my (renewed) German knowledge and interesting enough also for my Bulgarian! There were a couple of visitors from Bulgaria and Macedonia.

It was also nice to learn more about other Chess projects we do from my colleagues who were at the fair.

The Chess stand at Intertraffic 2004.

Roger.

Rob with the Vialis parking machine. On the computer next to him the back-office program for parking machines that I've been working on is running.

A picture from the Intertraffic website that gives an indication of the other stands that were at the fair. Left in the back you can see the booth of Vialis.

The Intertraffic fair is an important meeting place for buyers and suppliers of traffic equipment etc; there were over 600 exhibitors.