Darice de Cuba

After almost three years of no traveling I took a last minute vacation back home on Aruba. A lot has changed on the island, the city is decayed, screaming economical recess. But then again in the hotel area it’s blooming full of restaurants, shops and malls. Tourist have no reasons to leave the hotel area other then exploring the island nature.

And Aruba keeps getting more American, we now have TGIF, Quiznos, Hard Rock Cafe. Starbucks is opening soon at Seaport Market Place. Plus all other fast food joints we already have of which all have several locations on the island. You know this 30km long island, and they all get more then enough customers.

In any case I’m enjoying the restaurants more, I went to this place Mathew’s at Casa Del Mar Beach where I had a delicious chicken quesadilla. I like the Mexican food here better then in the Netherlands. So I try to eat the food I don’t get there. Tomorrow I’m hoping to go to a seafood restaurant for dinner, Caribbean seafood that is.

I went to the beach also after my lunch at Mathew’s, the water was heaven, just the right temp. It has been such a long time since I took a swim in the sea. And to think when I still lived here going to the beach was as normal as grocery shopping.

The weather is another thing, global warming sure is evident here on Aruba. 12 -15 years ago it was hot, but the wind was cool, when the sun was at it highest it would be around 31 degrees Celsius. But now the high is 33 Celsius everyday, the low is around 26. The wind feels dry and warm, it’s just unbearable. It rains more often then before but it adds nothing to cool the atmosphere, but at least the nature is always green while back then in the summer time it would be brown due to no rain.

When I’m back in the Netherlands and it’s winter I hope I don’t have to get complaints that is warm(because I’m always cold) and they want to open a window. Because that ain’t nothing, if you are warm in the winter you haven’t felt what warm is like.

Hopefully I will have some decent photos soon to upload on Flickr. I only uploaded photos taken with my iPhone so far. I have the Nikon D70 and the Ricoh GR with me. But no Photoshop on my netbook so I will only upload low quality photos edited with Flickrs online tools.

It has been seven months since I did a write up about my current life situation. For those who follow my weblog regularly know that I had a kidney transplant in March. Since then a lot have changed on other areas. The transplant came right in between changing jobs. Needless to say the new job didn’t work out, I have to much health stuff on my mind to put energy into a job that required me to work fast on websites without quality lost or mistakes(read: high stress levels). Besides that I don’t believe in working as fast as possible on a website and expect no quality lost or mistakes. So being that it was still the trial month of my contract I asked to be let go of the contract.

So currently I’m at home, working on a personal project I hope will become something soon. I’m also formalizing some documents to be able to work freelance without having to fill out tax forms for each freelance job. I have one active website job right now and I’m working on a offer for a second one.

I recently came across a photography style; Strobist. I came across it through Dustin Diazs flickr stream. Not that I wan to try it out but his photos are so inspirational it gets my fingers itching to start taking photos again. So I must really make an effort to take the D70 with me for some shooting. I just need to write down what I want to shoot, make a plan and stick to it. This way I can get disciplined again in taking photos more often.

Two days ago I turned 28, man does the years fly by fast. I commented to my mom I might be 28 in physical years but mentally I feel like in my 30’s. I have gone through so much the last three years with health issues, family issues and just life generally. But I gladly celebrated my 28 years yesterday with a nice dinner at Pastis.

The food was yummy, I had mussels with fries and for dessert I went with a creme burlee which was delicious. I don’t drink alcohol anymore but I had a sip of the white wine and it was real good, not too dry and very light tasting. Definitely a place to go to more often.