Tag: Curacao

Through her eyes

~ Maggie ~ 1 Comment

We’ve been very busy. Work, buying a car, looking for a house. But also… having fun with our oldest girl visiting.
It all started as a joke. She posted a picture of the snow in our family group app, T. answered with a picture of the beach. Then she posted: ‘Can I come to stay with you?’ And T. answered: ‘Of course, if you bring an air mattress.’ (we’re still living in a studio apartment and have only one bed).
All in good fun.
But a day later I got a private message, quoting her father. ‘Can I take this seriously? I’d love to come and I can take some days off right now.’ (she works as a freelance make-up artist)
Well, why not? It turned out she didn’t even need to bring a mattress, as our landlord had a third bed the fits perfectly in our ‘living room’. It’s a bit crowded, but we can manage for a week.
The joke started on Wednesday, the private message was on Thursday, she booked on Friday and arrived Monday evening.

So this week we’ve been driving around the island even more than we usually do, showing her all our favorite places, the houses we didn’t buy, the beach and everything else. It’s so much fun to see things through her eyes. I’m still enjoying every palm tree, every sunset and every time we visit the north coast, but for us it’s familiar. For her, it’s all new and exciting.
We’ve still got a few more days ahead of us. She flies home Wednesday evening. I’m constantly trying to fit things in with work deadlines and other stuff that can’t wait. But I so happy she’s here! It makes us feel like we’re really living here now.

A real 'Curaçao' weekend

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes our weekends here are very boring. Enjoyable, but not much to talk about afterwards. Just relaxing, driving around, not doing much.
Last weekend though… Not boring at all.
We started with our (almost) daily swim at Daaibooi Beach. I remembered to bring my camera this time.

Then we went home to take a shower (and admire some flowers).

We usually go to Mambo beach on Friday evenings (told you, kind of boring) but this time we went to Blue Bay Happy Hour, to meet some friends and to meet some of their friends.
One of them was a dinosaur.

That was such a fun evening! We were invited to join them at the beach the next day. So on Saturday we packed our cooler (with beer for T. and water for me), grabbed some snacks and off we went. To Kas Abou Beach.

Can you guess where some of our new friends come from? Let me zoom in a bit on their floaties.

Yep, that’s an American Eagle. The other one is a Trump floatie. We stayed the whole afternoon. Swimming, talking, snacking. Loved it.

On Sunday we went to a Food Festival, but next time we’ll try it for dinner, not for lunch. It was really hot and not very populated.

The burrito we had (first time we tried one!) was very good though. And the hot dog we had a few hours later wasn’t too bad either.

We drove around the island for a while and then we headed home, but on our way home, we remembered that Kokomo beach has a familystyle Happy Hour on Sundays, with a rock band playing. One of the things we really miss on this island is good music, so we decided to check it out.

The music was great, so we stayed until they stopped playing. And we got to watch a perfect sunset too.

Also, this happened. Found a shop that carried (some) knitting needles and cotton yarn.

So now I’m knitting myself some potholders, because I actually need them. But I guess I’d even knit something I don’t need, just because I’m so happy to be knitting again.

How was your weekend?

Three on Thursday :: it's raining again

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Well, actually, not today. But it has been raining a lot. The forecasts don’t talk about ‘minor flooding in the usual places’ anymore. They just say there will be showers. Lots of showers.
Maybe that’s because the flooding isn’t minor anymore (it’s still not really out of the ordinary though).

Also, showers can be very beautiful if they pass you by (an hour later one went straight over our heads).

linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday

Right now

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Right now I am…

:: so happy to be on Curaçao again
:: finally (after 5 days) feeling synched with local time. My jetlag was serious this time!
:: enjoying our first sunny day. It rained an awful lot these past few days.
:: smiling when I think about the forecasters that told us to expect some ‘minor flooding in the usual locations on the island’. Typically Caribean relaxed way of coping with things that cannot be changed.
:: laughing at ourselves because we fell in and out of love with a 300-year-old monumental building (second and third picture) within two days of arrival. We looked at it, loved it instantly and started dreaming about all the possibilities. And then we found out how much bureaucracy we’d have to deal with… Hmn. Nope.
:: smiling because on Saturday we found another, much more realistic dream home
:: keeping my fingers crossed that we will be able to buy it (need to sell the Dutch house, officially move to Curaçao and get a mortgage approval before we can put an offer in)
:: having mixed feelings about jumping in so quickly. But oh, it’s such a beautiful house! (last picture)

Curaçao :: More buildings

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

I know I did this before, but oh, Curaçao is full of beautiful old (and new) buildings and I love to take pictures of them.
I actually planned to go on a bit of a photo walk and take pictures of some old homes we drive by a lot on our way to the beach, but that never happened (it’s on the list for the next time we’re there). But I did manage to take pictures of these three. The blue one is my favorite.

Joining Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday

Three on Thursday :: Breathe…

~ Maggie ~ 14 Comments

I wish my to-do list had only three things on it. Well, actually it does:

1. finish house
2. keep up with everything else
3. relax

It’s just that that first item is a huge one. Before we left we were already on it, but our time frame shrunk from “a few years” to “one month”. So there’s that. Also, I conveniently totally forgot I was halfway sorting through my parents’ paperwork when we left.
They’ve always lived in big houses, but recently downsized and I told them I would take care of their archives, sort it, shred what can be tossed and store what needs to be kept. And then December happened with all the holidays and then we left and I just shoved two giant boxes of paperwork in a corner. Hmn.
Anyway, I am getting there. Slowly, since there’s also the rest of the work that needs to be done (more taxes, household chores, etc.)

How about #3, you ask? Well… I try. That’s where the pictures in this post com in.

This is by far my most favorite spot on Curaçao. It’s not easy to reach. After a shaky ride on a dirt road, you have to walk on ancient coral (sharp and uneven) to reach the point where you can see it. But when you do… we think it’s spectacular.
A local once told us: “This is where Korsou breathes”.  And that’s exactly what it sounds and looks like.
It always gets me to breathe a bit slower too.

I needed to be reminded of this spot. Let’s look at those pictures and breathe….

Three on Thursday:: Friday Visits

~ Maggie ~ 1 Comment

Yes, we’re officially back in Holland now, but I’m going to linger on Curaçao on my blog for a while. I’d like to say I’m lingering in my thoughts, but those are filled with things to do before we can go back. No lingering there, I’m in full action mode (despite the giant jet lag)
Anyway. I thought it would be fun to show you three pictures of what we used to visit (almost) every Friday night. Our main reason to go to Seaquarium Beach every Friday night was to have a snack at Aloha and a drink at Wet & Wild Beach Bar but between the snack and the drinks we usually took a walk down to the Seaquarium to see:

1. Fish

Lots of them in the water there. This is not a pond or another restricted aerea, it’s open to the sea and these fish are free to come and go. But it seems there’s a lot of food in that water, because it’s usually very busy with all kinds of fish. We liked watching them swim.

2. Iguanas

There were usually one or two around, sometimes even more. I love looking at them, they’re all different.

3. Sealions

These are in captivity, sadly, but they seem quite happy. In this picture they were napping in the water. So cute to watch. One of them held his nose above the water the whole time, the other one moved his head up and down to breath.

Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday

Three on Thursday :: Santa Martha Bay

~ Maggie ~ 8 Comments

Three pictures from last Sunday.

We drove through Banda Abou again and made our way to Santa Martha. It’s a nice drive (if you’re like my husband and like to drive narrow, curvy roads in the hills) and it has some beautiful views (but we didn’t stop to take pictures – you can see the ones I took four years ago here).

That route takes you to an abandoned resort and a beach that is usually very quite. It wasn’t now, a group young men and women was gathering there and having lots of fun playing in the higher than normal (we’re having some strong winds) waves. We brought our swim suits, but decided to stick to just standing in the water (in Dutch we call that “pootjebaden” which could be translated to “leg bathing” – I don’t know if there’s a word for it in English).

We just stood there for a while, enjoying, savoring the moments. We’re getting good at that 😉

Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday

Three Things :: moments to savor

~ Maggie ~ 10 Comments

Even though it’s comforting to know we’ll be back, it feels like time is going too fast. Not even two more weeks until we go back to Holland. And since we’re not sure when we’ll be able to return (lots of things to take care of first), I’m trying to savor every moment we’re still here.  Three things I’m really going to miss (apart from warmer temperatures and sunshine of course) :: swimming. We plan to go every day, but usually end up swimming about two or three time a week. Still, we love it. During week days we drive to the nearest beach around 4:30 pm and have a little swim. We usually just float around for a while and swim up and down the bay a few times as exercise. I found it’s a great way to loose stress and anxiety.

:: driving around Banda Abou. This is the less populated, more natural region of the island. I love how green it is right now, after all the rain, but it’s just as beautiful in dryer periods.

:: watching sunsets. We’ve still got two weekends ahead of us and usually spent Friday nights at Seaquarium Beach where you can see the sun set while you have a drink at the beach bar. A great way to start the weekend.

Linking up with Carole Knits’ Three on Thursday