We just got back from a great, altho rainy trip to Aruba! Unfortunately due to terrible weather, some of our dinner plans had to be scrapped, no one wants to eat on the beach in the pouring rain, right? <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/cloud.gif" alt="" />
Saturday arrival: beautiful weather, ate a late lunch at Matthew's which is part of the casa Del Mar resort where we stayed. ordered a balashi and a fantastic BLAT (blt with avocado spread), DH had the Matthew's Sandwich which was grilled chicken chunks, pineapple, and bacon with a bbq mayo. He said it was terrific, even tho the chicken and pineapple didn't stay on the bread well. Hit the grocery store and got settled in, then spent some time on the beach.
Sunday: Beach day, yay! I tried to call Que Pasa to make a reservation but couldn't get thru, not sure maybe they weren't open on Sunday? Dinner was at The Old Fisherman in Oranjestad, across the street from where the Numasmatic museum USED to be. Dinner for both was grilled fish (snapper?) with creole sauce, DH added shrimp to his meal. the fish was delicious, perfectly cooked. we loved the creole sauce, but there wasn't enough!

Monday: shopping day in Oranjestad, got a super-cute Ed Hardy watch for $48 @ little switzerland! lunch was at Queen's restaurant and bar on Shellstrasse. This was our BEST meal on the island! Food and service both outstanding. They have only been open a year, I hope that they are there for many more years to come. I don't know how they fried the pan bati, it was crisp w/o being terribly greasy. they gave us a delicious garlic sauce for it that contained just a little habanero - enough for a little heat and a lot of flavor. lunch for me was stewed goat, with rice and beans, cheesey mashed potato and steamed veggies with a garlic sauce. that goat was flavorful, tender and fantastic. the sauce had a jerk flavor to it, but it wasn't jerk. Dh had grouper that was lightly breaded and pan fried, again with a creole sauce. we talked to our server about the garlic sauce, and she ended up bringing DH a small dish of diced habanero for his fish. Oh, and the fried plaintains there were so delicious! some places they are real sweet, these were savory, perfectly cooked and not greasy. I commented how much I enjoyed them and the server offered to bring more. Unfortunately I was too full of goat!
Monday dinner was at Pizza Bob's which is just next to the Casa del Mar. For apps I had bruschetta which, while delicious, had a little too much olive oil for my taste, DH had french onion soup. We ordered pizzas for dinner, not realizing that if you order before 7pm you get a large instead of a medium. We enjoyed those pizzas for several days! mine had grilled chicken, onions and spinach. delicious, except for the blobs of frozen mushy spinach! DH had pepperoni, green peppers and onions.

Tuesday: Signed up for fun tours for Wed and Thurs, then visited the Archaeology Museum - that is really a beautiful little museum - and the fort. We Wanted to go to the Numasmatic museum, but it's gone. Dinner was at Amazonia, one of the 3-4 Brazillian Churrascarias on the island. http://www.amazonia-aruba.com/cms/ It was delicious, the salad bar was nicely varied. They had a delicious pumpkin soup, and their black beans clearly had ribs cooked with them. I mixed them in with my rice, it was terrific. the usual aruban sides were brought to the table with the meat. those were pretty awful. the mashed potato was runny, the pan bati and plantain were not worth eating. the meat was amazing, and the sauces they brought were very good. I really enjoyed the chimicurri with on my beef tenderloin. desert was chocolate cake, but it was more of a pie - at any rate it was terrific - and free with a coupon from our Aruba tour book.

Wednesday we slept in, had breakfast at Matthew's then went to the butterfly farm! I had a butterfly brooch for about 15 minutes... he was SO pretty! then we walked up to Pelican pier for our 2.5 hour snorkling tour on Le Tigre catamaran. We went to one of the reefs, then to the wreck of the ANtilla. I'm not a great snorkler and the water was pretty choppy so I stayed on the boat at the wreck. next time I want to take a different snorkling charter - one with an emphasis on the snorkling and not on the open bar! It was raining so we were glad to get back to the hotel and warm up a little!

Thursday: We made it to the first two stops of our open-air bus tour, then the monsoon hit and they cancelled the rest of the tour. Lunch (and COFFEE) at Matthews, then back to the room to dry out! Since it had been POURING all day the roads were flooded. So much for flying fishbone or Madame Jeanette's for dinner, the taxis were in hiding. so we went for italian night at Matthew's. DH had the osso buco, which was quite delicious. I had grilled grouper with a garlic sauce. also terrific.

Friday was a total washout. DH ended up at the doctor for an ear infection. we walked up to the eagle pharmacy (again very few taxis about) to get his antibiotics. the water was nearly up to my knees in some places! We ate up the last of our groceries for dinner.

Saturday morning breakfast at Matthew's again, the off to the airport. all flights were on time... but MAN did it take forever to get thru security, customs, security again! no wonder they say to get there 3 hours ahead!

We'll have to go back to Aruba, there were so many great places we wanted to see and try! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Cheers.gif" alt="" />