Bon Bini!

Well, we're back from vacation. You must have wondered why there was not much blog activity. I didn't want to announce the vacation, in case sneaky 15-year-olds could hack Blogger, exploit the Internet, find out where I live and steal our TV. But now next time you don't see a lot of blog posts from me, you'll assume I was away. Or not...maybe I am just laying a trap for a sneaky 15-year-old.

Anyway...

"Bon bini" is "welcome" in Papiamento, the native language of the people of Curacao. The people of Curacao learn to speak four language - Dutch (as they are a colony), English, Spanish and Papiamento. They speak Dutch at home and school, but Papiamento everywhere else, unless they need to communicate with a lower-life form, such as an American. I have to tell you, we witnessed folks from many other cultures on this trip, and never have we felt so utterly inane and uncultured. We speaky only Americanese. Geesh, we're dumb. Must review 5 years of French and brush up!

Our expedition to this little island, which sits 35 miles off the coast of Venezuela, began last Friday at 4 a.m. Our flight out of Philadelphia was at 6 a.m., and having stayed a local hotel the night before, I missed my alarm and had 15 mins to get ready. Needless to say, this resulted in a hastily thrown together look which I caught in the mirror at the Miami airport and was horrified about. I almost fell off the people mover. I'm surprised Kevin didn't just leave me on a curb somewhere and abort.

So, early flight, ginger ale on board (as is my custom) and we land in Miami around 9:30 a.m. at which time we discover that Miami airport is the most God-forsaken location to be marooned for two hours EVER. We hiked ALL OVER the place, which is undergoing construction, in search of any type of breakfast food. Finally, we found a halfway decent sandwich for $8 which we split and then hiked back to our gate. At least we got the blood moving and the time passed. Next flight from Miami to Curacao International (hahah). We landed on the tarmac around noonish and hopped the shuttle to our hotel, Breezes. We stayed at the all-inclusive Sandals on our honeymoon and decided to try another one - the only real big difference here is that Breezes welcomes families, so there were kids galore (which actually wasn't bad at all, they were busy doing kid things).

20 minutes later, we were checked in and finally able to relax, although we were both tired from 8 hrs of travel. This was the off-season for Curacao, which we learned later, so the resort was blissfully under crowded and quiet (which also meant that not all the options were available, nor was the nighttime entertainment so thrilling). The following days were mostly full of lounging on the beach, reading, snorkeling, a little site seeing, some drinking, board games, spa time and ESPN2. We also kept up on the Denver news, which was oddly the cable news available in our room.

We did note a few oddities. This was our first interaction with topless bathing. I had read that this was permissible in Curacao, especially in a private resort area, but was still surprised the first time I walked by a lady with her top off. Ouch, sunburn. But we got used to it.

Another funny episode occurred when we noticed a group of four obnoxious Americans turning purple and drinking their faces off in the sun. We ended up sitting behind them one day on the beach and were constantly reminded of our not-so-quiet neighbors at home. Ironically, we were looking for a little peace and quiet and the brashness of our neighborhood followed us south. Later, we were seated next to this same group at dinner, only by then they were hungover and sunburned, conducting loud, uncouth conversations and one of them bolting from the table to throw up a few times on the way to her room. We continued to see them and inevitably, eavesdropped on their conversations to learn that they were from Philadelphia. Go fig. Two of them were getting married at the resort - in fact, on our last day we saw them getting their wedding pictures taken as we were on our way to check out. At the Miami airport again on our way home, I was chatting with a girl who had also been on our flight down, and she said, "how about those people who got kicked off the flight?" I though, oh no, it has to be them. After verifying with physical descriptions, sure enough, two of the four were too inebriated to fly (were laying on the floor of the airplane) and the flight attendants kicked them off. I guess they sobered up by the next flight because they all ended up in Curacao one way or another.

On our site seeing tour, we went to the Curacao liquor factory. I'm sure you've heard of blue Curacao, which is a liquor that tastes like oranges and is made from laraha (oranges) that are native, since the Spanish brought them when they discovered the island. The Valencia oranges grew green and bitter in Curacao, good for only one thing - liquor! They now make a few colors of Curacao of Curacao (the official name) liquor, as well as a few flavors. Kevin boldly had a few shots and pronounced the chocolate and coffee mix "not bad." We bought a bottle and I'm sure will have it for years to come.

We had a very relaxing trip, a nice anniversary, and upon arriving home found a new storm/screen door installed on our back door, which will help ventilate our sunny back room and the kitchen, as well as giving us some cross breeze through the whole house. THANKS DAD, again, you are the best!!!