The Wedding Reception of Harmen and Hester

I wish I had taken more pictures, I missed half the family.

Off To Holland

We flew home to celebrate the wedding of Harmen and Hester. Doortje took the picture above as we were flying over Austria.

Earth Observatory - Nile Delta Dust Storm

On April 17, 2007, desert winds whipped up a severe dust storm over Cairo,according to the Associated Press. Poor visibility shut down Cairo’s airport for several hours. At 09:05 UTC the same day, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this image of dust blowing northward along the Nile and fanning out over the Mediterranean Sea.

In this image, dust partially obscures the view of the Nile well inland from the coastline. The dust grows especially thick near the coast, just west of the Nile Delta. A fine gray outline shows the coastal contour through the dust. Just southeast of the storm is a bank of clouds, potentially associated with the same weather system that kicked up the dust around Cairo.

NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Walk in the Snow

It hasn't been much of a winter here in Zagreb this year so when it snowed on the hills behind town yesterday Wim and I took the dogs to Sljeme (1,033 m) and let them have one last roll in the snow, they will miss it it in the next few years.

Cairo, Egypt

We are to be posted to Cairo this summer.

Waiting for Dinner

Lunar Eclipse

The only semi decent picture I took of the lunar eclipse last night.

Islamabad, Pakistan

They want to post us to Islamabad. We are not pleased.

Three Years Later...

And I'm still feeling a buzz.

The 23-Hour Day

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Holiday House in Holland

The Austrian Alps

Driving through the Alps in Austria on our way home to Holland last month. We think this is the only snow they received this year as "it is warmer in Europe's Alpine region now than at any time in the past 1,300 years".

Plitvička

We're back from Plitvička.

Dad Arrived in Zagreb

07 Oct: Off to the Split for a cruise.
14 Oct: Update; Back in Zagreb, had a good time, did not drown.
16 Oct: Update; Posted cruise photos on Picasa.
18/19 Oct: Update; At Plitvička.
20 Oct: Update; Posted Plitvička photos on Picasa.
22 Oct: Update; We think he is bored to tears.
23 Oct: Update; Dad left today for Frankfurt and for home on the 24th.

Beer Pong

Andy (far right in all three photos) the beer pong champ, we're so proud. A brief explanation of the game; there are two teams with two people on each team. There are 10 cups on each side of a 8 or 10 foot long table. The cups are about 1/3 full of beer, and they are layed out in a pyramid shape. The team trys to throw a ping pong ball into the other teams cup, and if it goes in they have to drink the cup. Whichever team runs out of cups first loses. It's a very fun game.

We have a new neighbour

ZAGREB, Croatia - Richard Gere is making his temporary home in a villa on a hill just outside Zagreb while shooting a Hollywood movie about one of the world's top war crimes suspects.

He has hired a house 3 doors down the street from us.

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Ice on the Baltic

North/South Motorway to Warsaw

Sunday again meant few trucks on the road and no rush hour traffic and we averaged 88kph for the day on the way to Warsaw. We drove into Poland and stopped for the night just south of the city as driving into Warsaw to find a nice hotel is impossible (for us anyway). So we've found a crappy little hotel south of the city that we've stayed at twice now, and while it's not a very nice place (shower drips, move a toe and the bed squeaks and the room is so small that you have to step outside to change your mind) they have a nice restaurant and it's surrounded by farms so there's lots of room to walk the dogs.

Doortje Driving In Poland

Austrian/Czech Border

We drove through Slovenia, Austria and into the Czech Republic on our first day, Saturday, which meant few trucks and no rush hour traffic in Vienna. They recently completed a ring road around Vienna so we didn't have to drive through the center, which is a major pain, but we missed the ring on the return trip somehow and had to drive the motorway through the city but it was a Sunday so not so much traffic.

Long Drive To Estonia

We packed the truck differently for this trip as we usually fold the seat up and put a large foot locker type plastic box behind it with all the things that would get broke if the dogs slept on them but Jinx kept climbing on the box to get 'a better view' when we went to collect Door at the embassy on Friday so on our way out of town Saturday morning we stopped at the pet shop and got some seat belt harness for them and put the seat in the upright position and the box in the back and it worked quite well. They sleep most of the time anyway but now they were just behind us strapped in the passenger seat so we could get to them easier. The only bad part of this seating arrangement would be the customs people could see the dogs sitting there, but that kind of worked in our favor as most of them were interested and got a chuckle out of our 35/25 kg 'kinderen' strapped into the passenger seats, with his/her own window. And not one of them asked for the dogs papers at any of the border crossings.

Short Break

We went to Opatija this past weekend.

The view from our hotel room overlooking the Adriatic and St. Jakov's Church with Rijeka in the distance.