3.02 pm

New York! Strangely enough, it seems like any other major American city. Worlds away from The Hague, of course. For one thing, the streets here are paved, not cobblestone or brick. For another, as I walk around the city I hear English and Spanish, not Dutch and English. My new apartment is 30-40 minutes from work. Probably closer to the 30 side once I actually know where I'm going and have the subway route down. The room I'm in has a desk and a pull-out sofa to sleep on, and once the sofa is pulled out it becomes rather small. Still, I've got full access to the kitchen and living room, and really, I'd be plain silly to expect a large room in this city.

3.18 pm

Done arranging furniture for the nonce. The couch is now turned 90 degrees so that I can pull the bed out all the way and still sit down at the desk to type. Because I think that making the bed into a couch every day and/or having to scramble over the bed to get to the other side of the room would get old rather quickly.

Work starts tomorrow at 9:30 am with breakfast, followed by orientation-type stuff I think, lunch with my new office mate, and then afternoon "meet the firm" drinks. I'm rather excited to be starting work again. I spend much too much money when I have days off. Besides, you can only sit around doing nothing for so many afternoons before it starts to get old.