Ah, A
writing pad! One of those old-fashioned lined ones from days of
yore, you know, high school! A kind, but somewhat bewildered
saleslady with a limited knowledge of English, dug out an old white
pad from a stack of paper products near the cash register in a
Willemstad dime store. She looked at me as if I were trying to pull
a fast one, but, took my FL 2.90, about $1.70, without question and
cautiously closed the cash register drawer.
Now,
to catch up. I actually started scribbling while we were having one
of our rare soft drinks in a sidewalk cafe, oddly enough across the
street from a McDonald’s. We had crossed the Queen Emma pontoon
bridge over into Punda, the original section of the city, and spent
several hours poking into shops and stores, generally looking around
acting like tourists when we decided to take a rest break. We were
sitting in the shade, chatting and watching the crowd of tourists that shuffled aimlessly along,
not like us, of course. We were joking
about the McDonalds across the street when a police car rushed up,
quickly parked and blocked the street. Two uniformed officers got
out and headed toward the restaurant. We joked, “Man, they must be
hungry!” but it turned out to be a business call.
They met an
agitated, concerned young woman wearing the traditional McDonald's
management-type uniform on the sidewalk outside the store. We
watched idly as they all disappeared inside. Soon, they all
reappeared on the sidewalk with three young, clean cut, muscular
looking young white men in tow. The tallest of the three had on a
red T-shirt with “Guantanamo Fire Department” emblazoned across
the back. He was obviously not happy, taking photos of both police
officers, their car, the license plates, the manager, and anything else he thought would intimidate the police officers who simply ignored him. The two
police officers addressed the other two men who
stood with their arms folded across their chests. We could only
imagine the confrontation inside the restaurant.
We
finished our drinks and headed back toward the ship, and as we
crossed the street we heard one of the police officers say rather
firmly, “No one is going anywhere until the U.S. consul arrives!”
A good time to speak German.
We
asked a woman we stopped on the street if, by chance, she knew where the
Numismatic Museum is located, the one attraction we all wanted to
visit. That is the coin and money museum run by the Bank of the Netherlands. The lady walked us a complete block out of her way, saying hello to friends
as she went, even stopping to caress a baby of a friend, just to point to the building several blocks away. We
walked right past it coming in and didn't see the sign. We thanked her
and slowly headed in that direction, but got sidetracked once again,
this time by the huge open air vegetable market we could see down a
side street. By the time we reached where the Queen Emma bridge should
be, we realize we have missed the museum once again. Oh well,
something to see next time!
 |
| Waiting on the Queen Emma pontoon bridge. |
The
Queen Emma bridge wasn't there. It was completely on the other side
of St. Anna Bay. We joined the throngs patiently waiting for a tug
boat to tow an ocean-going freighter slowly up the bay, taking photos
as we waited for the floating pontoon bridge to chug across the river
and reattach to the landing. The bridge is self powered, and within
minutes of the freighter passing, the bridge reopened and hordes of
pedestrians crossed the bridge in both directions.
We
finally bought our goodies at the shops we knew to have the lowest prices,
we never buy going in to town, only coming out after we know prices,
and we picked up a bottle of blue Curaçao liqueur for a friend.
Of course we bought the prerequisite trinkets and mementos, stuff that
always ends up in a junk drawer somewhere, but, hey, that's one reason
we're here.
Time to head for the ship and another great dinner.
