Dear Attila,

    How are you? We are students from Pine Grove Middle School. We're writing from our English class. We're writing to you because you lived in Curacao and we're reading a book called The Cay and it's set in Curacao.

    We were wondering if you would answer some questions for us.

Could you describe some of the places you have traveled to? answer If you have a TV, what shows do you watch? answer What are some of your hobbies? answer Where do you find the time to do all of the things you do? How many hours a day do you sleep? answer How do you spend time with friends? answer Do you like sports? answer How old is Lauri? Where did you meet her? answer How did you get interested in computers? answer Do you want to have children? answer What kind of car do you drive? What side of the street do drivers drive on in Curacao? answer Do you go to the movies? answer What type of residence do you have? answer Why do you like to travel so much? answer Do you read much? answer Do you like to surf? (in the water) answer What is your favorite food? What do they eat in Curacao? answer Do you have a green card? answer

    Thank you for answering all of our questions. We are anxious to hear from you soon.

Thank you for all your great letters. I feel very special to learn so many things about all of you and I'm proud to have pen pals like you! Let me try and answer some of your questions.

I have traveled to many places especially in Europe and America. As far as the travel experience goes, I would place them into the following categories:
  1) Western European countries (Germany Holland,Switzerland, Austria, etc).
  2) Southern European countries (Turkey, Italy, France, etc).
  3) North America (U.S.A. and Canada).
  4) Latin America and Caribbean (Brazil, Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, etc).
  5) Communist countries (Bulgaria, former Yugoslavia, former East Germany, etc).
Categories 1) and 3) are comparable in many aspects such as economy, standard of living, etc. Some differences between them are the missing European influence, especially in the U.S.A. What I mean in particular are the life styles of people, layout of cities, spare time activities etc. The U.S. is famous for its malls, spread out cities, cars and wide highways, American movies, etc. In Europe people do a lot of things with their friends and families, in America people do more things on their own.
Categories 2) and 4) are also quite comparable. People there have a slightly different mentality. They are more relaxed, take things as they come, and are generally very close to their family and friendly. The food is good, entertainment is great, and each of these countries has a charming character. All European countries (category 1 and 2) have a lot of history and traditions to them, and almost every country has its own language.
Category 5) is completely different. In those places it's simply sad in every respect.

I do have a little TV, but if it weren't for Lauri, it wouldn't even be hooked up. We don't have cable, and the other day we bought a silly antenna that doesn't do much good. Now that the TV is hooked up and we get a handful of channels, I catch myself watching TV, although I know it's generally a waste of time and just an encouragement to postpone useful work and to be lazy. I don't really make an effort to watch anything, however, I sometimes find myself watching shows like Jerry Spring and Jenny Jones in the evenings.

Some of my hobbies are computers, music, travelling, and food. I also like scuba diving and hanging out on beaches. Computers are at the same time my profession, and that makes for a very nice combination. I like maintaining my web page and to work on little projects of my own. I like listening to music just as much as I like making music. When I was little I played drums, when I was a teenager I played guitar with my band, and now I'm back playing drums Brazilian style. Music I listen to includes World Music, Brazilian and African music, Latin music, and New Age. Travelling is a topic on its own, I think. I love cooking and eating good food as well.

I actually sleep a lot. I hate waking up early, and I usually sleep at least 9 hours a day. Especially while being in school, I took the following approach to making more spare time and to reduce time needed for studying: I was awake and paid complete attention in every class I had. That way I knew mostly everything there was to know for exams and tests, and studying at home was as quick as reviewing my notes before an exam. I figured that if I had to be in class anyway, I might as well make good use of the time. Another way to maximize time is to prepare for things and take little moments throughout the day to think about what needs to be done. That can save a lot of time.

I used to spend a lot of time together with my friends. However, after leaving school everybody went separate ways and most of my friends are elsewhere now. I do have a few friends here and we hang out at least once a week. When I was younger we used to spend our time with music, computers, playing table tennis, riding bikes, and simply hanging out. These days we go out for food, watch movies, and also simply hang out and talk about whatever comes to mind.

I like sports, but these days I'm a bit lazy. When I was young I swam a lot, practiced tennis with my dad, played table tennis with my friends, and went biking. In High School I was on Crew (rowing team) and also on the swim team. In Curacao I did a lot of snorkeling and scuba diving. I don't really watch any sports on TV and don't really go to any games or sport events.

Lauri and I met in an interesting way. I guess it's similar to the way I met all of you. While in College I was playing drums and got in contact with Olodum, a Brazilian music group. I decided to make a web page for them and Lauri saw that page and signed my guest book. She signed it in Portuguese and I replied saying that I didn't understand what she said. Well, that's how everything started. Lauri is 18 now.

Starting when I was little I always loved building things, especially when it involved any kind of electronic components such as motors, light bulbs, switches, etc. I loved my model rail road when I was little. However, once you build something with materials like wood, glue, and cables, the material becomes used and it usually cannot easily be used again. Once I discovered the computer, things were different. Writing programs doesn't really use up the computer, and you can write one after the other without worrying about materials etc. Early on I wrote programs that performed simple mathematical operations and I had a lot of fun doing it. Then I played with graphics and more advanced mathematical applications, and I had even more fun. By that time it was clear to me that I would love to make a career out of computers and programming, so I went to College to study it. Then the Internet became more popular and opened many new ways to be creative.

Yes, I want to have children. Probably two or three would be nice. We will probably wait a few years with that since I want to get ahead a little with my career and also wait for Lauri to finish her college. I'm looking forward to playing with them and showing them the world.

On Curacao I had an old Volvo, and people there drive on the right side of the street, just like here. Here in Seattle we have a new bright blue Volkswagen Beetle. We love the car and it's a lot of fun to drive it.

We like going to the movies. On average we probably go about twice a month, sometimes together with our friends. I like action movies and Lauri likes dramas.

Right now Lauri and I live in an apartment close to where I work. It's nice, but we really miss the nice big house we had in Curacao, with palm trees and white tiles. Perhaps soon we'll try to move into a house again. Also, in apartments you can't be very loud, and I love listening to loud music. I guess I'll have to wait for a while before turning up the volume.

I think my travel enthusiasm goes back to when I was young and part of my family lived in Turkey. To see the family there, I visited Turkey many many times. That's how I started liking travelling, being in contact with different places, different languages, different customs, different people, different foods etc. When I was little my parents also took me to Italy, and I liked that a lot as well. Then I was able to compare Italy to Turkey, and knowing about different countries became a lot of fun. After that I took every opportunity to travel and to go somewhere, and the opportunities haven't run out yet. I'm looking forward to many more trips and I look back at all the great things I experienced on my trips and living in different places.

When I was little I used to read a lot. These days my reading is limited to computer literature, although I try to throw in some other things as well.

I never really went surfing. In Curacao the waves weren't big enough. I tried out windsurfing once, but that's about it. But who knows, maybe one day I'll get into that.

Since Curacao is in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, we eat a lot of fish and seafood there. Local specialties are Dradu (Mahi-Mahi), Piska Kora (Red Snapper), Karko (conch meat), shrimp and lobster. We also have many wild goats here, and Kabritu Stoba (goat meat) is another specialty. Plantains (fried bananas) are also very popular and are often served as vegetable side dishes. Keshi Yena is also very delicate and means "filled cheese"; the cheese is filled with chicken, raisins, and some other things I don't remember. Side dishes are usually white rice, fried rice with beans, baked potato and french fries. Funchi is another specialty and is made out of corn; it's similar to corn bread. All these foods are referred to as Creole dishes. I like Karko and fresh shrimp, especially when they are served in a garlic sauce. As a side dish I like mita-mita (half fried rice with beans, and half french fries). Besides these Creole dishes I like Pizza, steak, Lasagna, Paella and Turkish food.

I don't have a green card. Although it might be handy sometimes, I don't really mind not having one. So far I could do everything I wanted to without having one. However, it's sometimes an adventure to get the necessary travel papers and visas ready before coming to the U.S. For this trip, we had to fly to Caracas, Venezuela to go to the American Embassy there. It was quite an experience, but now I'm really glad that we did that. It gave us a chance to see Caracas and hang out there for a day.

I hope you enjoyed reading my letter. My favorite questions to answer were "Where do you find the time to do all of the things you do? How many hours a day do you sleep?" and "Why do you like to travel so much?".

Take care and I hope to hear from you again.
Greetings,

    Attila...