Before I get into my reporting today, let me try and answer a question I have been getting a lot. Where the hell is Curacao? Somewhere in the Caribbean, isn’t it? But where exactly?

Well, Google to the rescue and here we go http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Curacao&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=0&ll=12.118352,-68.966331&spn=0.002392,0.005375&z=18&iwloc=addr

What you can see is the hotel where I work, most easily identified by the pool and beach. I actually tried to find my butt parked there on the beach for all of you to see (it’s a nice butt you know), but I have zoomed in as much as it would go and it won’t do it. If you then zoom out it will give you an idea where the island lies in relation to the rest of the Caribbean, South America and the US. Pretty cool, ey?

Okay, but back to the reporting. I thought about writing about Month End, but I think it’s not applicable to most of the audience and boring anyway, so let’s forget about that.

There is also only very little I can write about the social part this week with the exception maybe that I am officially too old for listening to Techno and House (even in a rather inebriated state) amidst hundreds of sweating and jumping locals and Dutch. The beach doesn’t help there either for some reason.

I then actually wanted to write about apartment hunting with its ups and downs and the progress of getting a car with only its downs. However, when I was out apartment hunting this week something else happened. Those of you, who haven’t yet watched enough Jamba ringtones commercials on MTV to be rendered brain-dead, might remember that I wrote about not having yet seen an accident in my last entry. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.

In the 2 hours we were out and about looking at apartments I saw a little boy getting run over and we passed another collision involving 2 cars.

In addition, last Sunday I have passed the scene of a heads-on collision.

I believe all of the involved will live to tell the tale, but the boy surely will not play Softball for Curacao this year. The ladies in the car that got hit in the side have suffered a broken collarbone, concussions, whiplash and various abrasions and I doubt it has done many good things for their blood pressure either.

Now these 2 accidents happened around lunch time so I guess we can only blame the general carelessness here when it comes to driving. The heads-on collision on Sunday (which looked by far the worst and I where don’t actually know what happened to those involved) I would bet my afore-mentioned butt on that alcohol was involved. Everybody has a drink (or 7 or 8) here, especially at the beach on a Sunday and then gets in the car to go home, so I guess it’s just something that you have to deal with.

The one thing I do like about this here is that they have not yet completely lost the plot when it comes to the laws governing this. So, if you do have an accident here while driving intoxicated, you can’t sue the guy who sold you the drinks, like the way it is now in many other parts of the world. Here it’s just: Better luck next time.

I don’t really know how this fits into this, but it’s far too cool not to tell you. The guy that drove me around to look at apartments (and who will most likely become my landlord) is some sort of local celebrity here. I haven’t quite figured out what it is he exactly does, other than driving around in one of his 8 cars and showing people apartments or houses, but he seems to own lots of houses, he owns part of the mobile phone company, is a famous DJ and among other things owns a radio station.

Needless to say that his own radio station is playing in the car.

Now get this: When we stop at the scene of the accident with the little boy, he gets out of the car, checks out what happened and then makes a phone call. We are still in the car and the radio is on. 10 seconds later the radio station plays some sort of “Breaking News” music and then you hear the words of the guy 10 feet next to you over the radio. You see him say the words but hear them over the radio. How weird is that? Traffic and news reporting on a whole new level.

He does the same thing at the other accident. Welcome to Curacao.

Anyway, it looks like I might have found an apartment which might be finished this year. The first time we looked at it, he said it would be ready on August 10. As we went back on Wednesday I could not see any considerable change over the last 2 weeks other than a few palm trees planted in the yard, but he insists it’ll now be ready on August 20. We’ll see. I think it’s impossible, even with Polish workers.

The car story is so sad I won’t even bother you with it. Still no car…

I’m also not in the mood to tell you about the rest of my week right now and in any case I stayed in Friday and Saturday, so nothing special there.

Maybe things will pick up a little today. I can’t sit around all day again.

Hopefully more soon, until then, take care