Holland under the palms.

Dutch as an official language, high life expectancy, no beggars, Pina Colada with a pancake. And year-round blue skies. This is Curaçao. The idyll Retired Dutch know how to appreciate Klaas - only accustomed to doing nothing was difficult.

 

Klaas sits in the lobby of the Hotel Van Der Valk in Willemstad, nuckelt a Pina Colada and reads the "Amigo", the oldest newspaper of the Netherlands Antilles, 1884 was founded. Klaas could also use the "Telegraaf" read the daily arrived from Amsterdam, but there is "too much about Holland" in it. So he reads better in the "Amigo", which on Curaçao, Aruba and the other Antillean islands is going on.

For Holland, the "Amigo" just one page a day left, with the selection of messages will appear a little arbitrary. The government of the province of North Brabant has opposed the construction of a shopping center in a highly protected area in Maasdijk was the first hotel for Polish migrant workers opened, and the public-law institution NOS-TV has the broadcasting rights for matches in the Champions League acquired .

Klaas is all cold. He has the Netherlands five years ago, leaving after his software company for good money to a competitor had sold, "but not enough of them in Amsterdam to be able to live." Instead, after Hengelo Uitgeest or to draw, where the rents are cheaper, he moved immediately after Willemstad.

Because Klaas is 50, and "Seniors", which is established on Curaçao, to pay all income tax, only ten percent. So he has more of the money that he effectively and fairly sure did.

For Curaçao also speaks, "that you like here in Holland can live only under blue skies and palm trees." The official language is Dutch, and in any supermarket to get Dutch products, bales of bitter about Pindakaas until Gemberkoek of Peinenburg. "It is everything arrived, even the potatoes and oranges, because only thrive on Curacao bitter orange, from which the eponymous liqueur is produced.

Pancake, dipped in Pina Colada

Klaas has a fixed daily schedule. He is late to breakfast in the "Gouden hoekje" - always a milky coffee and a "Appelflap" - and then goes over to the Van Der Falk, in order to fully lobbying the afternoon to spend with Pina Colada and "Amigo." The Van Der Falk was once the tallest and finest hotel in Curacao, with 15 floors, it is still the highest, but no longer the finest. A few years ago, it changed owners, now it is renovated floor by floor.

The lobby, narrow and long considered as a subway station, is still a meeting place for the Dutch 'ex-Patriots ", which from time to time at his wish. Klaas has with the owner of a Dutch bakery angefreundet who have long lived on Curaçao. The more often brings "Gevulde Koek", "Cocos Koek and Eierkoek" from the previous day with.

"In Pina Colada dipped, they taste best," says Klaas. Four clock afternoon, when the heat slowly subsides, Klaas ventures out into the open again. He goes on the shady side of the Waterfortstraat, crosses the Wilhelminapark and comes on the Columbusstraat to the old market on the quay.

The Plasa Bieu "is the Antille alternative to all varieties of Nouvelle Cuisine. Seven-calorie food stall serving local food on large plates at small prices. The guests sit like in a beer tent at canteen tables, eat and communicate with each other. The waiters wear smocks and aprons plastic hood over the hair. "I had only tuned accustomed," says Klaas, "this is not fine, but it tastes like."

Klaas took more than a year to adapt to the idleness of the effort to acclimatise. He has a large collection of DVDs brought from Holland, "Casablanca," "High Noon," "Psycho", new movies, he borrows in a video store in the Jupiterstraat from. "There is everything here."

Good separation in the

Some, however, does not exist, such as beggars. Atypical for a Caribbean island is that prices have not negotiated. Neither the market nor in the shops. There is hardly illiterate, more than 95 percent of the adult Curaçaoaner can read and write. The life expectancy for females is 73, for men at 77 years. About 300 years the Dutch have many positive presence left.

It was not until 15 May this year the Islanders in a referendum for a large degree of independence from the Netherlands voted: 52 percent were in favor, 48 percent against: Curaçao is the end of 2010 an independent state within the Kingdom of the Netherlands will.

The neighboring island of Aruba in the West has this status since 1986, wants to Bonaire in the East as a "community with a special status" with the mother country remain. It separates the good - and find each other again.

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Klaas Papiamentu now wants to learn the language of the natives, a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese with Dutch and English Einsprengseln. It sounds a little sandbox and nursery school, but is highly developed and not easy to learn. On Aruba and Bonaire is also Papiamentu spoken, but there are other dialects.

"You can stand it here," said Klaas, the temperatures throughout the year at 30 degrees Celsius, the rainy season is short, the humidity is bearable. The best are the people: descendants of colonists and slaves, which have mixed together, Christians, Muslims, Jews, animists - "and no one tells the other how he should live."

In fact, it seems Curacao evidence to be that multiculturalism is possible and that pragmatism is a virtue. In order to prostitution out of the city to ban, one has near the airport village joy, like a family wellness facility looks: Campo Alegre.

Colorful bungalows stand among palm trees and cacti, each of the 150 rooms has air conditioning, a House Rules governs what the customers and the girls may not need. Every Tuesday is Damentag because men may come with accompaniment, some use the occasion to their wives to show how well it is received in the Campo Alegre.

Also Klaas was ever here, but only, he assured to get a Wet T-Shirt Contest view.