Island Dining - The Paddock

We were at Customs in Oranjestad the other day. It was early afternoon when we were done waiting in line and we hadn't eaten.  We had passed "The Paddock" numerous times and also had many suggestions from friends to eat there, so we did. It was just across the street from Customs.  We have no idea why there is a cow, a VW Bug limo or a dinosaur on the roof, but it sure got our attention!

 The Paddock is primarily an outdoor restaurant.  With the constant breeze, it was a comfortable place to eat.  We took a couple of pictures of our fellow dinners.  They were a little skittish, but not because they were trying to avoid the camera, more like they were trying to avoid being stepped on.

 Drinks and specials are on the chalkboard.  We each had a hamburger.  Marty's had pineapple bits between the patty and the melted cheese.  He enjoyed it, and a quarter of Peggy's too.  But this will not be one of our favorite places to eat. A little bit too many "ride-alongs" on our plates.

 Inside the restaurant, autographed dollar bills and other currency were stapled on the walls.

 The view consisted of people and cars on the street (not shown) and in the other direction a large cruise ship.

Then there was the occasional sailboat.

 We took a picture of this fellow diner because of what she was holding between her fingers--a cigarette.  Generally there is very little smoking in restaurants.  We don't recall seeing "no smoking" signs in the restaurants, people just tend to avoid it, thankfully, probably because most of the resorts have a "no smoking" policy.

Two more things:  This restaurant had menus in Dutch and menus in English.  Peggy picked up Dutch menus on the way in since there was a "please seat yourself" sign. Peggy didn't notice a difference, which spoke well of her German memories. Then the waitress brought us English menus, which we could suddenly read better. We find we're often mistaken for Dutch tourists on the Island. Arubians learn four languages in school. They initiate conversations with us in Dutch first. We wonder if that's because of our blue eyes.  The other thing: In the tourist areas restaurants show dollars on their menus. Everywhere else on the island, it's Florins, which is the same as the Dutch Guilder.

Arubian Seascapes and Landscapes

The Caribbean, from our front yard:

 The Caribbean from our kitchen window:

 Whenever we go just about anywhere, we take a rough and curvy road through what we can only call a green desert.  Here are a few views from out our car window:

Plenty of cacti, dogs, goats and iguanas, all oddly beautiful. And the storms--spectacular!

The House Lights

Early in January we were told that the House of Lights would be open on Thursday and Friday, but not to go on Friday, it would be too crowded because of the bands playing.

 So we drove to where it was, without a map.  We found it because of all the lights, and it's on a hill.

 As near as we could tell, they did it to open Carnival.  It was enjoyable milling around with the crowds.

 It even had a manger scene.

It actually was quite pretty.  The "House" was made of plywood, so apparently it's not there all year.  But one of the things that fascinated me was the cacti were wrapped in lights too.  I wonder if they got stuck decorating or un-decorating the cacti....

Caribbean Sunset from Our Front Porch

Watch Where You Step!

We just wandered out to our front yard to enjoy the evening air and heard some clattering--so that reminded us to show you:

 Our Pets

A nice thing about the outside of our home is that we have so much tile (see above). The bad thing is that it amplifies the creepy crawler sounds.

Aruba - New Years' Activities

From the car place, we went straight to our new favorite membership store, Price Smart.  We joined last November while we were here.  Very similar to a Sam's Club or a Costco.  We stocked up with about $350 worth of groceries and headed "home."

This is "Home." The picture was actually taken last November.  Since then they have trimmed the hedges and repaired the planter out in front.

After we unloaded, we decided to go get a few more things.  But the Ford Explorer, well, the engine kept dying and let's just say it was possessed and dashboard alarms kept going off.  As we were sitting dead with in an intersection with an 80km per hour car bearing down on us, Peggy " gently suggested" we go rent a car.  So back to Oranjestad.  We got a "full" size car.

Yes, this considered a full size car here.

We purchased some fireworks.  $6.50 got us 100 cherry bombs and 12 larger bombs (3/4" dia. X 4").  It was late, so they were sold out of everything else.  We got a call from one of Marty's collegues inviting us over.  So we watched them fire off a few rockets and things.  Then someone brought out "the big package."  It was about 30" x 30" x 5" and held a string of 200,000 fire crackers.  They lit it out in the street. From start to finish it must have taken about two minutes.  All over town we saw scenes like this:

All that red stuff is from those 200,000 strings of firecrackers.  We saw debris like this everywhere we went during the week.

We were tired, so we went home before midnight and went to bed.  But at midnight, well, we didn't need to look at the clock, it seemed that fireworks--fire crackers, really, were going off everywhere around us.

Happy Birthday Kerry-Bear-y

We hope you had a wonderful birthday. We are so glad you agreed to come to our family (after much begging and arm twisting, we're sure)! You have taught us so many things. We remember when you were just born and mom used to rock you and sing you lullabies and then sob and sob about how glad she was to have you (we refuse to admit postpartum hormone fluctuations had a thing to do with that). You were such a sweet little baby. We knew right away that you were brilliant. You had an assured complacent, sweet countenance that we really enjoyed.

Thanks for your thoughtfulness. In everything, but especially the way you put together memories for our enjoyment. We appreciate all the effort you have shown us over the years (the 25th anniversary trip, the 50 memories book, the thoughtful presents in general).

We love you.