CURACAO
Monday, January 27, 2014
Willemstad, Curacao
Partly Cloudy, 85 F
What
a breezy day Curacao has welcomed us with! Right now I am writing in a
Starbucks while Tim drinks coffee. We have shopped already, the usual jewelry
stores (Diamonds International, Effy, Milano), his favorite occupation. J This trip I am only looking for special
gifts for other people. Tim is still looking for coffee filters so we meandered
into a less desirable neighborhood. I
meandered out by myself and found more shops.
One
of Curacao’s most interesting features is the “Swinging Lady,” the bridge that
crosses the river to the main shops. Remarkably our ship docked on this
river----to me the river is narrow, but large enough to accommodate the
container ships and our cruise ship. The bridge is engineered to swing to the
side when ships and tugboats are passing through. When the whistle blows you
have to hustle to cross because it does not wait for anyone. We were caught on the bridge one year and
only waited about 10 minutes for both sides of the bridge to reconnect. Anyway, when we were ready to cross back over
to the other side of the river today, the bridge separated. Many people were
stranded on the bridge. After waiting a half hour we decided to take the free
ferry across. In the meantime, the USTS Kennedy
(Port of Cape Cod—U.S. Navy training ship) and a barge passed by. Our ferry
crossed and the bridge was still separated/closed—one hour. People were
stranded on that bridge in the sun for one hour! I’m glad we weren’t! Later, at
5 p.m. we found out that to leave Curacao and return to the Caribbean, the ship
backed out that narrow river, about ¾ mile.
Starbucks
offered free wi-fi and coffee for Tim, so we sat there while I wrote and then
posted the blog. We headed for lunch and then the pool when we boarded the ship
about 1 p.m. I love that NCL welcomes us back before boarding with refreshing
wet towels, water and juices, and cookies and sweet breads. On the hottest day
they even provided ice cream. A tent is set up just outside the ship for this
warm welcome. I do commend NCL for customer service.
I
have made a horrible discovery. The desserts on the Sun are delicious. Six days
into this cruise and I finally took a chance on dessert--carrot cake. Wow! This
discovery is not a good thing. On the
Ruby Princess I rarely ate dessert—they always looked so good but when I tasted
them they weren’t good at all.
We
had dinner tonight with Kevin and Linda, originally from Scotland but living near
Toronto for the past 16 years. They are also going on the next cruise. They are
a lively couple with lots of personality. We really miss our friends Donna and
Lawrence (Wisconsin) who were going to take this cruise with us. At the last
minute they were unable to cruise and we want them to know we are thinking of
them.
Curacao: A volcanic island first inhabited by
the Arawaks. The island was discovered in 1499 by Spaniard Alonsa Ojeda. In
1634 the Spanish occupiers were defeated by the Dutch. In 2010 the country of
Netherland Antilles was dissolved and Curacao became a stand-alone country
within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Kingdom consists of four countries,
Bonaire/ St. Eustatius/Saba, Aruba, St. Martin, and Curacao. Curacao lies
outside the hurricane belt.
JANIE ON THE SWINGING BRIDGE IN CURACAO-NCL SUN IN BACKGROUND
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