Guus Bosman

Curacao is a very popular destination for Dutch tourists, and the local business have adapted their menu's to that. Of course the beer is Dutch, varying from the nice Grolsch bottles to a special, "Carribean", version of Amstel, Amstel Bright.

The food on this island close to Venezuela is also distinctively Dutch. Most places sell items like broodje gezond, kroket, frikandel, fries with mayonaise, all targeted to the Dutch tourist.

If we had lived in Holland I would have been very disappointed by this; it was hard to find local dishes. But for us, having lived in the US for so long, it was nice eating the things we haven't had for quite a while. One of the things that I enjoyed the best was having a Grolsch with bitterballen while overlooking the Willemstad harbor. On the beach I ate a sate van de haas, with a great peanut sauce.

Hotel Kura Hulanda has three restaurants. They had a more international menu and served very good food. The waitresses in the hotel were mostly Dutch; people who were doing an internship for a hospitality school in the Netherlands.

When we were in Curacao a few weeks ago, we stayed in Willemstad, the capital of the island.

Curacao is an old Dutch colony of course, so it is in the news in the Netherlands with some frequency, for example when Queen Beatrix visits the Netherlands Antilles.

The classic picture that the Dutch TV stations would show in such a case is the harbor front, with the color facades, and it was very nice to see them in reality. I took some pictures at night.

So, when I called United on Wednesday evening, they told me that my bag was lost and that they would send me the reimbursement forms soon.

We left San Juan Thursday afternoon, and I was wearing all my belongings in my laptop bag and two plastic bags from the hotel. At least I had no luggage to check in this time. When I asked at the counter if there was any news the representative said they had found the bag, and that it was in D.C., waiting for me.

When I arrived at Dulles it turned out that my bag was actually just arriving from Charlottesville, another airport, and had made quite a trip in the last few days. Apparently there had been a problem with the tag attached to my bag, and it had two instead of one barcode. It arrived practically at the same time as our flight, so all I had to do was to go to another carousel to see my bag arriving, safe and well.

I justed arrived in Puerto Rico with the 8.30 am flight from Washington and United Airlines lost my bag.

I was waiting for my bag at the carousel but it was completely empty, and when I checked at the office it turned out that my bag never boarded the flight in the first place. So, my poor bag is still somewhere on the cold airport in DC right now. I hope I'll get it soon because I'm here for some important meetings.

It's the second time I'm flying with United, the previous time the flight back had a 5 hour delay (luckily I was able to get on an American Airlines flight instead that day).

After a long, warm day in the mountains we celebrated Sasha's birthday on the beach!

We went for our first snorkeling trip ever in the Caribbean, and it was magnificient.

Only a few meters from the coast there was so much life, so much beauty under water, it was incredible. Especially near the rocks in the bay there were thousands of colorful fishes, corals and plants. The beauty started from about 1 meter depth -- very near the shore, and even where the water wasn't very deep there was some much life under water.

We got our snorkels at the Blue Bay diving shop, and spent many, many hours in the water.

My favorite place was just outside the bay, where the real deep sea started; the deep sea had a beautiful, deep glow and an even large variety of life.

On Monday, the third day of our stay, we made a trip to the other side of the island, to "Westpunt". I thought that Westpunt was something like a small village, so when we asked for a bus to that village in the hotel that caused some confusion: there is no village, it's just the name of the west-side of the island.

We wanted to visit the national park on the island, the Christoffel park, named after the highest mountain on the island, Christoffelberg.

At 9.30 am there was a bus from our hotel, a small mini-van, and we were the only passengers. Although the park was not the official destination the driver dropped us of at the entrance of the park. It was warm and sunny, so we had brought water, some snacks and a very good sunblock -- which we would need badly later that day.

There were a number of trails to walk in the park, and we decided to climb the Christoffelberg itself. It was a beautiful hike, but we had underestimated the effort a little bit, and it turned out to be a four hour trip under the warm Curacao sun. It was good we brought our supplies, especially the sunblock.

We made some nice pictures of our hike.

We were back around 3.15 pm, and our van came to pick us up. We were glad to be back in the civilized world and I'm proud to say that I have climbed the second-highest mountain in the Kingdom of the Netherlands (the highest being the mountain on Saba).

Last week we went on vacation to Curacao, an island in the Netherlands Antilles. It's located just north of Venezuela, in the Caribbean Sea.

We were looking for a place with good weather and good beaches, but also for culture and cities -- not an average beach-resort destination where all you can do is lie on the beach. And we found it!

Curacao was the perfect destination for us: excellent weather, beautiful nature and beaches and in Willemstad a very interesting mix of cultures. We booked our trip on Expedia, where we found a very nice hotel, Kura Hulanda in the heart of Willemstad, that added to the whole experience of the vacation.

After we arrived in Curacao on Saturday afternoon, we checked in the hotel and went for a walk through the harbor and the city. It has such a similarity to Amsterdam! Of course, it's a Caribbean city, and a cruise-ship port, but there is something distinctively Dutch in the architecture and the city layout with its squares, narrow streets and terrasjes.

The next morning we took the hotel's shuttle to the beach. The beach is called Blauwbaai, or Blue Bay, and it is absolutely gorgeous. It's a small, protected bay, with a sand beach and many palm trees that serve as naturals parasols. It was very sunny and the water was great, so we were swimming a lot.

Saturday morning we woke up very early, after a short night we took a cab to the airport at 5.30. I routinely told the driver "Dulles airport, please" but luckely Sasha corrected me and told the driver to go the Reagan instead -- I was still asleep.

Check-in was smooth, I am very glad we were flying American Airlines so we could use the priority line, it was busy at the airport.

We flew to Miami first, and after an hour on the airport there we went into our plane to Curacao.

When we landed on the island we had to close the shutters of the plane because of the heat -- it was so warm outside! Wonderful weather.

Tomorrow morning early we are leaving for Curacao!

It will be the first real vacation since our trip to San Antonio, and we're really looking forward to it.

The flight is at 7.15 am, and it's midnight now, so it's gonna be a short night.

The journey from Washington to New York on Friday went very smooth, mostly because of the professional bus driver who managed to evade the most congested roads. On the way back we were not so lucky.

We woke up early Monday to take the train to New York at 10.30 o'clock. Irena brought us to the trainstation. We said goodbye and had plenty of time to take the train. When we arrived in the city we had a cup of coffee and walked to the bus stop. However, when we came there we saw nobody waiting, while there are usually people in line. So, we double checked the ticket, and we realized that the bus company had changed the location of the bus stop! We ran eight blocks across town, from 34th to 42nd but we were too late and just caught a glimpse of the bus leaving. I yelled and waved to the bus driver but that did nothing than attracting several cab drivers who offered us a ride.

Well, what do you do when you have a good hour to kill on Times Square? Indeed, we went to Starbucks and spend our time well. We were really early at the bus stop for the 1 pm bus (the correct location this time) to make sure we would get on. That was a smart move because a lot of people were waiting and some people couldn't get a seat.