Dear Attila,

    Hello! How are you? We're the Trackers from Mrs. Chlan's and Mrs. Andrew's English class. We'd like to find out more about you and your family and life in Curacao. We have some questions for you.

Did you enjoy living in Curacao? answer Do you want to have children? If so, how many? Would you like a girl or a boy? answer What do you like to do with your friends? answer Do you have America Online? What is your screen name if you do? answer Do you have any pets? What kind? How old are they? How long have you had them? answer Who is your favorite relative and why? answer What kind of music do you like? What groups? answer How many languages do you speak? Which was the most difficult to learn? answer What kinds of books do you like to read? answer What do you eat in Seattle and what did you eat in Curacao? answer What's your favorite color? Favorite number? answer What are your hobbies/interests? answer What was your least favorite subject in school? answer Do you like video games? answer

    We enjoyed looking at your web page and we can't wait until you write back!!

Thank you for all your nice letters. It was a pleasure to read through all of them. I hope you will enjoy my answers to your questions! I'm very happy to have a bunch of nice pen pals like you!

I loved living in Curacao. Life is good there. For the most part, people of all backgrounds get along with each other, celebrate together, and dance together. The sun always shines and the sky is blue, the beaches and the sea are beautiful, and there are many things to do and to look at. At times it can get a little small, after you've visited every place, been to just about every restaurant and seen every beach. But luckily, there were always opportunities to travel. While living in Curacao I've been to Europe twice (mainly to Holland, but also to Belgium and Germany), to the U.S. three times, to Brazil, we visited the neighboring islands of Aruba and Bonaire, and went to Caracas in Venezuela.

Yes, I want to have children. Probably two or three would be nice. It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl, but eventually I want to have at least one of each. 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.

When I was younger the things I did with my friends was spend time listening or working with music, computers, playing table tennis, riding bikes, and simply hanging out. These days me and my friends go out for food, watch movies, and also simply hang out and talk about whatever comes to mind.

Unfortunately, I don't have America Online.

We don't have any pets. When I was little I had a bird, but after that I didn't have another pet. I'm allergic to some animals and start sneezing and my eyes turn red when I'm around pets. However, after a few days I typically get used to them. When I was little I got run over by a huge dog, and since then dogs and I don't get along. I was never the kind of guy who had 'friendships' with animals. I respect them, but don't really want to have one as a pet. I guess my attitude towards pets also reflects a little what people feel about animals elsewhere. For example, in Curacao dogs are used as 'alarm systems' and never come inside the house. In Turkey it's similar, animals there belong on the street, not inside the house.

I don't really have a favorite relative. I like everybody in my family, especially my parents, my siblings, my grandparents, and of course, Lauri.

Music is a big part of my life. I like all kinds of music, especially World Music, Brazilian and African music, Latin music, and New Age. I also used to listen to a lot of Heavy Metal when I was younger. That's what got me into playing guitar. Some bands I like are Olodum from Brazil, the Kanda Bongo Man from Zaire, Africa, Bob Marley from Jamaica, and many many others, too many to mention them all here.

I know four languages, three of which are spoken. My native Language is German, and if I wasn't out of shape, I would probably speak it best. Not speaking a language can easily bring one out of shape, but it only takes a few days or weeks to get back into it and remember the proper words and phrases to use. When I was young I learned Turkish, mainly picking it up during my many trips there. I can't write in Turkish very well, but I speak and understand just fine. Just like with German, I'm also a little out of shape. In school and while living in the U.S. I learned English. I speak it every day now for over five years. In school I also took Latin for about 18 semesters. That turned out to be very useful when trying to learn other languages. It also made me aware of languages in general. I also know very little Portuguese, Italian, Papiamentu, and French, but not really enough to say that I can speak it. The hardest languages to learn are the ones that I don't know yet. Actually, Turkish is pretty exceptional since meanings and sentences are build up by adding suffixes to the root of a word. This usually requires to string ideas together backwards before saying them. I also feel bad for a foreigner that's learning German. It's a difficult language with many exceptions.

Most of the books I read these days are somewhat related to the computer. I try and read some other things when time permits. When I was little I used to read a lot, all kinds of books, especially adventures etc.

In Curacao we used to eat a lot of meat and rice with occasional vegetables. When going out we ate a lot of shrimp and other seafood. Most of the foods and meals were pretty heavy with a lot of olive oil etc. It seems like the hot climate made us want that kind of food. Here in Seattle we eat more pasta and light food. We started eating a lot less red meat than we used to do in Curacao. Since Seattle is close to the ocean, we also eat a lot of fish here as well. Especially in the cold weather, hot soups are very delicious, so we eat more of those as well. We were surprised ourselves once we realized that we started to eat different kinds of foods than we were used to from Curacao.

My favorite color is probably blue. My favorite number... It depends for what, sometimes the bigger the better, but if I had to pick one, I would probably say seven and three.

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.

The subject I liked least in school when I was younger was probably history, closely followed by literature. I always liked science and math related subjects. Now I like everything, and I think that I simply wasn't in the mindset to pick up the things they were trying to teach me in history and literature. Now I would probably enjoy those subjects, but too late now.

I don't really like video games. I will try things out, and I did try out video games, but I can't say that I have a passion for them. They mainly waste time or coins.

I hope you enjoyed my reply and I'm looking forward to being in touch with you. The question I liked answering most was the one about the languages I speak and about what we eat in Seattle vs. Curacao.

Many many greetings to all of you,

    Attila...