Day 12: Wednesday, Dec. 30th

Finished my second of three books today, in the shade, my skin needed a break from the sun for a few days! We went out and did some shopping when Mark returned from the prison visit, he said it was crazy there! Here is a fun pic of a Bird of Paradise outside the apartment.



And a snorekeling photo

Day 11: Tuesday, Dec. 29th

The trip is half way over already. :( Today and tomorrow I am flying solo for the majority of both days. Mark has two field trips to attend following class for the next two days, and doesn't get home until 5 or so. The first trip is to the Curacao Court House and the second is at Bon Futuro Prison, which I hear is a pretty scary place.

My day was filled with walking Jake, working out, reading by the pool and swimming. I chatted with two couples who are staying in the apartments next to us. Both are from Germany and both men wear speedos in the apartment pool. :) I know that's how they roll in parts of Europe, but it is still strange to me.

We went out for ice cream following dinner and were able to see some fireworks (or vuurwerkes in Papiamento). It is a very big thing here to set off fireworks from Christmas to New Years. We hear them every night, they sound more like bombs than fireworks! There are vuurwerke "shops" set up right on the side of the road. In reality, they are trailers dropped off which serve as vuurwerks shops.


Jason's girlfriend, Talie, flew in today from New York to spend the remainder of the trip with him. We plan on going out with them for NYE and hopefully watching the Rose Bowl game with them. The second might be a more challenging task as we don't get ABC here, and the few sports bars we checked with also don't get it. Hope it works out so we can watch the bucks beat up some ducks!

Day 10: Monday, Dec. 28th

Another day of snorkeling, reading and enjoying the beauty of the beach (the beach at the Marriott hotel today) with Mark and Jason. Jake does not cry when we leave, I think he is very comfortable here. On a side note, he has a skin issue that is called seborrhea, that is completely cured by the weather here. My dry, cracking, bleeding Ohio winter hands were also healed in just a few short days of this climate. I did have to trade dry skin for tons of mosquito bites though! :)

We are really enjoying our time here. As we travel around and explore the island it is funny to see that even though we are so far from home there are still some very familiar sights. KFC, Subway, and Pizza Hut are everywhere. There are even a few McDonalds and Burger Kings as well. It just blows my mind! Fortunately, there is not a Starbucks on every corner!

I did not take any pictures today, forgot to bring the camera, but here are a few from a few days ago. The first is all the boats in the harbor of the Spanish Waters and the second was taken at Playa Forti Beach.

Day 9: Sunday, Dec. 27th

Well today was the final day of three in a row Mark had off class. He also has two more coming up, Jan 1st and Jan 3rd. We visited Jan Thiel beach again so that Jake could do some ocean swimming (they have a small dog area). Then we came back to the apartment for some relaxing by the pool. Mark had lots of reading to get done for class this week and Jake and I took a short nap.



Mark has some bruises to show from the cliff jumping on Saturday. Now I am really glad I did not do it, he is very sore! All in all it was a lazy, uneventful Sunday.

Day 8: Saturday, Dec. 26th

Today we went to Playa Forti for some cliff jumping. As irony would have it, as we pulled in, an ambulance was leaving with a girl who had just jumped from the cliff. Supposedly she had the wind knocked out of her when she jumped and the pressure caused some problems with her equilibrium. Since she was about my size, Mark decided that I shouldn't jump (although, I have to admit that I probably was too chicken anyway). Mark and our friend Jason did jump, although both of them were pretty hesitant. Click HERE for the video. (We had better luck getting the video to play by using the "HQ" link at the bottom-right of video screen).

After that, we went to Playa Kalki to snorkel some more, which, considering that our backs were already candy apple red from the day before, may not have been the best idea in the world. We were off to a good start, but then Jason got stung by something twice in about 30 minutes, so we decided to call it a day. Jason has two nice sting "lines," one on his arm and one on his neck. I figure that since I have taken the brunt of mosquito bites in the last week, Jason was fair game for whatever sea creature decided to bite him. :) Next, when Mark and I got home, we fried up some traditional Curacao Cassava (aka as Yuka), which turned out to be pretty good. It is a root, similar to a potato, at least according to Wiki.

Day 7: Friday, Dec. 25th

Bon Pasku (Merry Christmas)! Today just did not feel like Christmas! We had a wonderful day at Jan Thiel Beach.


We did some snorkeling...



There was a whale that was confined so that he could heal. I am not sure what was wrong with him, but he looked scratched up.


We ended our day with a non-traditional Christmas dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread, delicious!



Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Day 6: Thursday, Dec. 24th

We spent Christmas Eve at the pool for the most part. Jake did some swimming too. There was a dinner organized by the university (Univ of the Netherlands Antilles - or UNA) at the Hilton Aqua Restaurant. It was elaborately decorated for Christmas and even included a saxphonist who wandered throughout the restaurant playing Christmas songs. Snow and family are the only two blatantly missing elements. Having snow is overrated; being with family is not.



The food at the Hilton was probably the best we have had to date in Curacao. There were five buffets: a meat buffet, a pasta buffet, a seafood buffet, a salad buffet, and, saving the best for last, a dessert buffet. Mark opted for practically every item on each of the five buffets, and I was a big fan of the mushroom penne pasta. Merry Christmas Eve!

Day 5: Wednesday, Dec. 23rd

After class, Mark, Jason and I made our way to tour the capital of Curacao, Willemstad.


There are two sides to the city, Punda and Otrobanda, which are seperated by the St. Anna Bay. The Queen Emma Bridge, a floating bridge, opens to allow boats to pass and closes to allow pedestrians to cross.



There were three massive cruise ships docked this day. It is really crazy to see how huge these suckers are!



There are many shops to browse around and great people watching too. We sat right next to the water and enjoyed a few drinks before heading back.

Day 4: Tuesday, Dec. 22nd

Today was spent swimming, sunbathing and exploring the neighborhood we are staying in. Jan Sofat is the name of the community and let me tell you, there are some amazing homes here!



The photo below is of a small private island just off the shore of Jan Sofat in the Spanish Waters, this is just one house!

Jason, our friend who is taking the classes with Mark and is also a student at Capital Law school, spent the afternoon with us. This is the before and after of the chair he was lounging in!


Friederike, from Germany and the woman who owns the property, later explained to us that every couple of months that happens with these chairs due to UV damage and the fabric has to be replaced. This was so funny, poor Jason! Below are a few more photos from the day. Mark, off to school in our sweet Kia Rio, also known as a K-POS to Katie. And Jake, enjoying the island life!

Day 3: Monday, Dec. 21st

The big highlight of the day (sad, I know!) was that we finally made it to the grocery store. We were happy to be able to cook something, instead of eating pizza for the third night in a row. We attempted to go to the grocery on Sunday after our luggage search was over, but stores close early here on Sundays, we are so spoiled with our 24 hour supermarkets. The US currency is widely accepted here, which is nice. The guilder, also called the florin, is the currency (picture of money below) of Curacao. At the bottom is our 1 cent piece next to theirs, which is so tiny.


Above is a map of where Curacao is located, for those of you wondering where the hell we are! Cuacao is about 40 miles north of Venezuela.

The tap water here is safe to drink and tastes so much better than our water at home. I let Mark try it first, he is braver than I! My plan was to just drink bottled water, but we have both been drinking it with no problems.

Driving here is an adventure! Our original thought was that I would drop Mark off at school and then have the car to go places if I wanted. I have yet to drive anywhere. There are no street signs, people drive very fast and there is always a lot of traffic. We have made lots of wrong turns and have had to back track because you have to make split second decisions about which way to go. I feel most comfortable just staying in our neighborhood while he is away at class. Taking walks with Jake, blogging and lounging by the pool will probably be my morning agenda for the next three weeks, not too shabby!

Day 2: Sunday, Dec. 20th

Mark was up and off to class early. He is taking two classes that run from 8-noon most days. He likes it very much so far. I explored the neighborhood with Jake, which is really beautiful. I was eagerly waiting for Mark to get home so we could go back to the airport and hopefully get our luggage. I was so nervous that it would not make it from Atlanta to Aruba and then to Curacao. Everything was in there and we were feeling quite lost without it. The outlets here are different and require adapters (which were in the luggage, of course) for use with our plugs. Because of this, I had no way to charge the dead laptop, hence the delay in posting to this blog. I could not figure out how to turn on the television with the two remotes and I had no sunscreen to start working on my tan (with as pale as I am and as hot as the sun is here, I was not risking it!). I did some reading and took 2 naps, rough life here! Mark got home and we proceeded to the airport. I found a nice man by the name of Romeer and told him my last name. He rubbed his head and said "oh no, Courtney" (he knew our first names without being told, this could be bad!) "Come on Romeer, give me some good news here!" He said our luggage, all 4 bags, was just sitting there 5 minutes ago! It had just been sent with a taxi driver to be delivered to the apartment. He attempted to call the driver to tell him to leave the bags even though we were not there, but could not get ahold of him. Too much stress! Fortunately, when we returned, the bags were there. I cannot tell you the amount of relief I felt! I know it might sound petty, but trust me three weeks with the same outfit, no deodorant, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. would have made for a cranky Courtney! Not to mention I had a whole suitcase of food (dry and canned goods). That comes in very handy as food is extremely expensive here. We had pizza on Saturday and it was $29. Here are a few more pictures of the apartment.

Day 1 Continued

As we made our way to our apartment we saw lots of poverty, trash and skinny wandering dogs (which breaks my heart). The traffic and drivers here are crazy as well. Luckily our apartment is in a gated community with a security guard at all times at the entrance. The neigborhood is very clean and safe and I have no concerns with walking Jake by myself in the mornings. Here are a few photos outside the entrance of our apartment. I am able to take still photos as well as videos with the video camera, so we are in business! I just have to get the hang of all this and hopefully it will become less time consuming and I can get caught up.

Very breezy and comfortable eating and sitting areas

Day 1: Saturday, Dec. 19th

So the adventure began bright and early. We were picked up by a cab and delivered to the airport around 4:45am. Our flight left Columbus late due to the plane having to be de-iced. I think we left around 8:00 instead of the scheduled time of 7:00 and the flight was about one hour in length to Atlanta. We rushed from gate A to E via train and 2 escalators and arrived to our gate with 4 minutes to spare (according to the lady taking the boarding passes). So we made it on the plane, but did our luggage?? The flight was fine, about 4 hours in length. Jake was given two doses of children's Benadryl, which did not phase him. He was awake the entire time, but pretty calm. I have pictures of him to share, but am just realizing I left the cord at home for uploading pictures from the camera to the computer. We do have the video camera and cords for that though. So we arrived to a very windy and hot Curacao around 4:00 (they are 1 hour ahead of Columbus). We stood in line for customs/immigration and that process took probably an hour and was pretty painless. We then went to get our luggage, which was not there! Not good! We filled out a form with a lady who informed us that even though we made it on the plane, our bags did not. They were still in Atlanta and were to be delivered the following day via a flight from Atlanta to Aruba. We crossed our fingers and proceeded to the man that was supposed to "examine and inspect" Jake. He looked at our papers and told us "just go." We asked no questions and "just goed!" We then got our awesome Kia rental and headed to our apartment which is very nice. To be continued...

Curacao Christmas

We have set up this blog to keep in touch with our family and friends while away. Stay tuned, we'll see how this blogging thing goes!