Julian and Yvonne's Wedding, Bad Tolz, Germany June 13
Okay! It's taken me a while to edit and select the pictures from the huge amount I took while in Germany for such a short time. Summer's penpal from middle school got married this summer. We made a trip out for a long weekend, and celebrated the wedding--as well as the 850th anniversary of the great city Munich!
We arrived after a decent flight and spent the day with Yvonne and Julian. Julian picked us up and we enjoyed a 100+mph ride on the autoban to their flat. That evening we had dinner with Yvonne's parents and enjoyed Bavarian specialties. The cooked bavarian sausages and pretzels went down smoothly with some local wiess bier (white beer). Excellent and hearty!
The next day was the wedding. We traveled south from Taufkirchen to the town of Bad Tolz. After WWII Bad Tolz once housed more American troops than any other European base. Today it is a quaint town with beautiful cobblestone streets on the scenic Isar river. Bad Tölz is known for its spas, historic medieval town, and spectacular views of the Alps. On the western bank of the Isar River lies the Kurverwaltung, or modern spa, whose iodine-rich waters are known for their soothing and healing powers.
The wedding was held in the historic town hall building. Today it is a museum. After a traditional civic wedding, we went by car about 10 miles outside of Bad Tolz, to Moarwirt a Hotel, Beer Garden serving French style cuisine. After many courses of great food for lunch, an afternoon walk capped the afternoon as new friends and old chatted over fine wines and beer. The evening ended with a light dinner of German specialties, and some of the best breads I've ever tasted.
British Virgin Islands Part 1
This year, my wife's parents rented a 40ft sailboat and invited us, Summer's brother and wife to sail the British Virgin Islands for a ten day cruise.
We left early Friday morning leaving from Richmond, VA airport. We arrived later that day in Road Town, the largest city in the BVI. Our boat was waiting for us and we spent a hot night in the harbor.
The next day we took the boat out for our sailing cruise, and learned some of the finer points of trimming sails and navigating the very shallow harbor.
Then we were off. We sailed to Norman Island that night and visited the William Thornton, a restaurant and bar on a boat that lives in the bight of Norman Island. From there we sailed to the Baths on Virgin Gorda, and from there to Marina Cay. After some grog and good food at the famous Pusser's restaurant, we traveled back to the baths and then on to Spanish Town, the former capital of the BVI. From Spanish town we traveled on to Trellis Bay, and then to my favorite destination Diamond Cay. We finished it with another long sail back to Norman Island and a final night on the notorious Willy T.
Our trip took us to exotic islands and we enjoyed some excellent snorkeling almost daily. Our night were filled with interesting restaurants and locations to include Foxy's and Foxy's Taboo on Jost Van Dyke and Little Jost Van Dyke.
The last day was spent sailing from Norman Island back to Road town, where we spent the night in St. Thomas with a beachside hotel room with hot showers and privacy!
The trip was excellent! We got along pretty well considering the tight quarters. Polished off some rum and learned some more about marine living and managing a sailboat.
There are some pictures available of us on the boat at:
www.yachtshotsbvi.com
Click on the "View Photos" Tab, then to the section:
NORMAN AND PETER ISLAND:
CDR Flood Relief - Montana for Thanksgiving.
The CDR offices were nearly destroyed by a flood in October, and we've been displaced ever since. Most of us are working from home or from our playgroup office. Our company works with families and their children ages birth to three. We support at-risk children that may have developmental issues. If you have some money to donate this year, please think about making your proudest gift to our organization. Currently, this disaster is costing us over 250K and counting. The insurance company we have will not cover all the damages, and due to a faulty installation--it may be a while before we are made right on this.
Click here to goto the CDR relief site
We're back from Montana. It was amazing. The air up there is clean and crisp. The highs up where my parents live was in the teens. It doesn't get that cold in VA that's for sure. At least not for very long. I heard it was in the 70s in VA, quite a contrast.
We rented an AWD 08 Subaru Outback and I have to say that they are decent cars. The road to my folk's place (nearly 20 miles outside of Kalispell, MT) was already icy, and had about 6-7 inches of snow. I could do about 45-55 mph uphill on the winding road, it was truly a rally effect--and some of the funnest driving I've had in a while. Needless to say Summer was more impressed with the car, than my driving.
Anyway, a safe trip and great dinner at the cabin. Very fun hanging out with my family in the mountains.
Home from Peru.
This year we decided to visit Peru. It was just a place we both wanted to see sometime and the conditions were just right. We left Richmond, VA on Thursday morning and flew to Lima through Houston. It was a six hour flight from Houston to Lima, so it's only about nine hours of flight time from VA.
We spent 3 nights in Lima, and explored some of its catacombs and cathedrals, sampling great restaurants in the Miraflores suburb of Lima. We stayed in the center of Lima, and if you decide to go there--stay in the Miraflores area. The center of the city is loud and somewhat unsafe after dusk.
From Lima we traveled to Cuzco and spent an evening there, I experienced a bit of altitude sickness at 3400m--don't be afraid to ask your hotel lobby for some oxygen, as many of the hotels have this on hand for flatlanders and hardmen with a bit of this annoying and unpredictable ailment.
From Cuzco we took a train to Aguas Calientes. This is located in a 'Cloud Forest' 8km from the top of Machu Picchu our final destination. We stayed at an incredible eco-hotel styled after an Andean Village. The ceilings were high and built from eucalyptus beams, ours included a spacious deck and fireplace. Well worth it--and after some Andean Purification in the hotel's spa--Summer and I were feeling relaxed and pampered.
Our trip to the Machu Picchu Citadel was guided by a local guide. Armando studied tourism and enriched our time with history and explanations of the ruins, religion and construction facts. Machu Picchu Citadel took 400 years to build, it was recently made one of the seven wonders of the world.
We met some very cool people on our trip. Autumn and Joe, they were guests at the eco-hotel--we shared some great laughs and stories getting to know eachother and frankly, getting a little tipsy in the hotel lobby/lounge. Thank guys for the great times!
Welcome to danieloostra.com
Hello All! It's been a while but after some problems with the domain name www.danieloostra.com dealing with the name transfer, that triviality has kept me from using my name as my domain name!
What it has taught me is that you should investigate your domain registrar and make sure they have good service. I won't name any names here, but shoot me an email here EMAIL and I'll be happy to send you my official whitelist of top Web Hosts.
Other than that, I am working at Child Development Resources, where I have the title of Systems Administrator. I say title because I also am their staff photographer, webmaster, graphics artist and marketing specialist. It's a great place to work, the benefits and flexible schedules are unheard of. So, if you are early child care specialist or would like to work with children or raising money for children, let me know right away. We might have a career or volunteer position for you.