This weekend we moved to our new apartment in Arlington. It took three trips with the car, including a dedicated drive for the plants, but all our belongings are now in the new house. It will take several days before everything is on its right place, and we have quite a few boxes from Durham still to unpack, but it's definitely 'liveable' already.

Today Verizon FiOS was installed, high-speed internet access, and a window in the living room was replaced.

Our good friends Daniël and Erika are blessed with a baby boy!

Várdai Botond was born on November 20 at 12.56 PM. He was 56 cm long and weighted 7 pounds.

Congratulations!

This weekend we're officially moving to our new apartment in Arlington. Yesterday I brought most of our remaining boxes there, today we'll only have to move our clothes, some small stuff and three plants.

Two weeks ago I bought a drill, and I used it again yesterday to mount to our bookshelves against the wall. Unmounted the bookshelves were pretty stable too but now they are nice and straight and look even better.

I configured our music setup on said bookshelves. It's all going a little slower because I've had a cold since last weekend but most of the rooms are now ready.

Tomorrow afternoon Verizon will install FiOS, fiber-cable internet with a speed of 20Mbps/5Mbps.

Today is Dutch-American Heritage Day and to celebrate I brought stroopwafels to my work. They were well received.

In the evening I went for drinks at Mackey's Pub with a nice group of Dutch people. I have a cold so I stayed only a little while but it was fun.

A few days ago Sasha was featured in the alumni spotlight of her university, a great honor!

Read the interview here: http://econ.duke.edu/news/archive/2011/11/09/tabova

A new exhibition about Rembrandt in America is attracting thousands of visitors at the North Carolina Museum of Art, and will travel to Cleveland, OH and Minneapolis, MN next year. It is the largest collection of Rembrandt paintings ever presented in an American exhibition and the first major exhibition to explore in depth the collecting history of Rembrandt paintings in America.

The almost 30 Rembrandts on display are from private collections and more than two dozen American art museums, and one of the works was transported from the Netherlands for this exhibition. In total, nearly 50 works are shown, including some that were originally attributed to Rembrandt van Rijn but are now thought to be by other masters such as Jan Lieven or Govert Flinck.

While the primary focus of the exhibition is on the history of Rembrandt collecting in America, the show also explores his work across various genres, his artistic evolution, and his influence on other artists of the day. Included in this exhibition are a number of significant portraits from Rembrandt’s prosperous early career in Amsterdam as the city’s most sought-after portrait painter, as well as character studies, historical and biblical scenes, and three of his celebrated self-portraits. In addition, the exhibition features a gallery with Rembrandt catalogues since the mid-19th century.

Identifying Rembrandt paintings

The exhibit is as much about art collecting and mistaken identity as it is about the art on display. It includes works no longer attributed to Rembrandt, including two in the North Carolina museum's own collection. The NCMA is a fitting venue for that, given its history. Back in the 1950s, the museum's first director, William Valentiner, was a major Rembrandt scholar who identified many works by the Old Master.

Many exhibitions devoted to Rembrandt’s paintings were held in 2006, during the 400-year anniversary of the artist’s birth; however, Rembrandt in America is unique in offering visitors a rare opportunity to envision the evolving opinions of scholars and collectors regarding what constituted an autograph Rembrandt painting over a period of more than a century.

Rembrandt in America

North Carolina Museum of Art: through January 22, 2012
Cleveland Museum of Art: February 19, May 28, 2012,
Minneapolis Institute of Arts: June 24, 2012 through September 16, 2012

http://www.ncartmuseum.org/exhibitions/rembrandt

Last weekend we went to Ikea and bought two cabinets for in the dining area, and yesterday we went to the new apartment to install them.

We also visited Home Depot for some things; slowly but surely the new apartment is getting together.

We spent the Saturday relaxing and doing small chores. I changed our address with a lot of companies and spent some time doing insurance paperwork. All this with my new laptop; the new hard disk arrived and I completed configuring the laptop for the most part.

In the late afternoon we went to the Pentagon City mall and did some shopping. We had a bite there and then did grocery shopping in Clarendon. We went to our new apartment for a little bit; we'll be back there tomorrow to put together the Ikea furniture we bought last weekend.