A couple of weeks ago, one of my colleagues asked me to join a World Cup pool. It works pretty simple. You pay 5 Naf, make your picks – from the first game all the way to the championship – and hope to win some sweet cash at the end of the tournament. I accepted the challenge and spent the next 8 days obsessing about my picks. I studied the schedules, the rosters and I took past performances, trends and statistical anomalies into consideration. I looked at what the experts were saying, paid attention to the altitude and the crazy World Cup ball and then just went with my gut feeling. It was supposed to be my defining moment. I was going showcase my brilliance for everyone to see! Fast forward 14 days and I’m currently in 59th place. Out of 82 people. FML.

But my horrific failure does not surprise me. I have always said that the more you think you know about sports, the worse you are going to be at predicting it. You think you’re cool because you know that Australia’s back-up goalkeeper likes to play chess? Take it easy Johnny. Mary from the Accounting department is still going to beat you and she doesn’t even know that Australia has a soccer team. She’s just basing her picks on “cute guys”. You think that you are hot stuff because you remember that Gareth Southgate missed a decisive penalty for England in Euro ’96? Your little niece is still going to pick more games correctly than you. And then she’ll punch you in the neck. That’s because you’re dumb and because YOU KNOW NOTHING!

Let’s open the mailbag…..

Online ordering
I’m always hearing about people that order stuff from the U.S. Is this easy to do, or do you have to wait very long and go through customs? And more importantly, where do they order from?
- Sebastiaan

They’re probably just ordering online from websites like Amazon, but that brings a couple of options with it. If the website you are ordering from offers international shipping, you can choose for package to come directly to Curacao. UPS, DHL or Fedex will then take care of your package and you either have to pick it up at their office, or they’ll deliver it to your home. Keep in mind though that international shipping is more expensive and that it takes longer to get to you.

The other option is to ship it to an address in the U.S. Then a courier can come down with it or it can be taken care of by the Ezone people. When you open an Ezone account at the post office, they’ll give you a shipping address in Miami. When you order your stuff, you ship it to that address and the post office will make sure that your package gets here. The advantage is that you are shipping to an address within the U.S., which is much cheaper than international shipping.

You do have to pay the Ezone people depending on the weight of your package and here is where things tend to get a little iffy. I ordered a wireless mouse last week and had to pay 15 guilders to Ezone. Then I ordered some running shoes. That cost me 56 guilders. You may think that those are decent prices, you may think that they are expensive…but in the end it’s just pretty handy. Just try to avoid really heavy stuff because they will charge the hell out of you. Oh, if you’re interested in an Ezone account, it’s totally free at the moment.

F.O.L. job openings
I am trying to find out about the US jobs over there at the HATO U.S. Military base.
- M.

Yikes. I know absolutely nothing about the F.O.L. or their possible job openings. If someone does have any info that our reader can use, drop it in the comments or e-mail it to me so that I can relay it to him.

More World Cup
Where has been the coolest place so far to watch the World Cup games?
- Nigel

Well, I have gone to three different places so far during this World Cup, being Wilhelmina Plein, Road Side Cafe (to cover the Portugal game) and Pampus Restaurant. Wilhelmina has tons of televisions, so wherever you look, you can see the game. Pampus has great seating and Road Side Cafe has this cool arena type thing where you can sit and pretend that you are in the stands. I also caught parts of games while standing in line at McDonald’s and at the post office, but I don’t think you can count those. Friends and acquaintances also had good things to say about Coach Sports Bar (Rooseveltweg) and Tony Roma’s. The reviews for Hemmingway’s weren’t as great however, but I didn’t go there personally so I can’t judge.

I really think that the early times are messing with the excitement and the atmosphere. 7:30 A.M is too early to be jumping up and down and while 10:00 A.M is a bit better, you have to remember that a lot of people are at work during these hours. The afternoon games offer some relief, but those early start times are brutal. Seriously, during the week people are stuck at work and with the weekend games, you have to consider that people go out Friday night and that they can’t wake up on Saturday morning. I swear that last Saturday, the people behind me at Pampus were hungover and sleeping. Listen to me FIFA, YOU BETTER START TAKING CURACAO INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN DECIDING THESE KICK-OFF TIMES! WE’RE SUFFERING HERE!!

But to answer your question… it depends which team you are rooting for. If you follow Holland, you’ll know where to find the Dutch fans. If not, just go somewhere with your friends or family, have some drinks and make the best of it. Nothing sucks more than watching the game alone.

Lomito recipe

A reader asked for a good lomito recipe in the comments section and Sebastiaan thought that it would be a good idea to let my wife take care of that one. She did a very good job the last time with the pastechi recipe, so now it’s time to take it one step further.

Dave: “I have a very awesome lomito recipe, but I’ll let you have your fun with it.”
Dave’s wife: “Oh really? * takes out big piece of lomito *
Dave’s wife: “Here’s a knife. Let’s see what you got, rookie….”
Dave: “Move over grasshopper. It’s time for the adults to go to work…”
* cuts finger to the bone *
* passes out *

We’ll do our best to have a great lomito recipe the next time we run a mailbag. In the meantime, if you have any questions, you know the drill. Send them over to david@curacaoconnected.com and I’ll try my best to answer them for you.

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