The Cafeteria theme day delivered a brilliant performance by the accounting, at La Cabana Beach & Racquet Club.

Those holding the resort’s purse-strings showed their creativity and team spirit by bringing back the 60s, a decade famous for flower power, and countercultural values.

The accounting team was all dressed up flaunting big afros for the guys, and long stick-straight hair for the gals, wearing neon colored tie-dye tee shirts, their necks loaded with beads, playing rock ‘n roll music, peddling mock-cannabis cigarettes and exploring free-colleague-love.

It was a very successful cafeteria theme day, enjoyed by all including Assistant General Manager Jessica Franken and General Manager Joe Najjar.

Canada Day was celebrated in Aruba on July1st, 2008, at the home of Joy & Bill Carson. A number of days ago Joy & Bill ran a modest newspaper ad inviting Canadians living on Aruba to join them for a national day celebration at their home in Malmok.

The response was as usual enthusiastic, and while the Carsons are divided whether it’s the 10th annual or 11th annual, they are united in extending warm hospitality over great food, catered by Divi resorts.

Pictured here Canada Day in the Carson’s backyard.

As Bill & Joy are leaving Aruba following Bill’s upcoming retirement from Caribbean Mercantile Bank, the honor of hosting the annual event is up for grab. Who will be next year’s host for the traditional get together, is still an open question.

Mageia Italian Boutique across from the Radisson Aruba Resort Casino & Spa flaunted Italian high-fashion designer names over champagne and hors d’oeuvres Saturday night. The boutique invited town’s glitterati to view the 2008 Spring/Summer collection of feminine dresses, shoes and handbags with Aruba’s top models on the runway. The event unfolded at Confessions nightclub and was orchestrated by boutique owner Lara Crescenzo. The extensive show evoked the traditional glamour and prestige of prominent Italian fashion houses, defining trends and setting couture standards with lovely fabrics and textiles and the expressive uses of colors and textures.

Diageo, a giant consumer-goods company with a portfolio of world-famous drink brands, in conjunction with Romar Trading Aruba launched a bartender project this week, a free of charge Cocktail University as a form of community project.

According to Romar Trading’s Milton Harms, Diageo, the world’s largest multinational beer, wine & spirits’ company is launching the project internationally via its local distribution companies, and offering a 36-hour course with a detailed curriculum designed to train and certify aspiring bartenders.

Graduates of the beginners’ course may go on to the intermediate level and later to the advanced, and obtain a professional certificate at the end of the learning cycle.

The project was launched at La Bodega Romar Trading’s elegant wine store in Eagle in the presence of instructors Albert Tromp and Fernando Kock, two veteran Aruban bartenders whose mission is to mold the new generation of master-mixers here.

It’s 30% knowledge and 70% personality, says Albert, determined to stir his students just right.

Kavey Yarzagaray, Ryan Maduro, and Yair Britten make up a new musical ensemble. They recently entertained at a private cocktail reception at Ocean 105 and contributed with their music to the opening party of Casa Tua in town.

Kavey is a spirited Flamenco guitarist who received his musical education in Holland. He furthered his guitar knowledge by training with famous guitarist Tomatito.

Ryan who just graduated music school, also in Holland, is more classically trained, and plays classical guitar with great passion . Their two guitars are complemented by noise-maker Yair, an excellent percussionist who specializes in small, ethnic instruments, in particular noise-makers used by the aborigines in Australia.

The trio has an authentic, real sound, removed from electronics and amplification, a soothing and pleasant presence that is easy on the ears and delicious to the soul.

They are professionally handled and available for bookings via Shamila Oduber.

Overlooking the Daniel Leo Plaza, at the Aventura Mall lunchtime shoppers and nighttime strollers can enjoy indoor or terrace seating while sipping sensational sangria and delighting in hand-tossed, brick-oven pizzas, fresh pastas, fresh fish, steaks, and authentic, home-baked Italian desserts.

The beautifully styled eatery opened on Wednesday evening with an elegant crowd sipping and munching and congratulating owner Victor Nataf on the beautiful design of the restaurant, inspired by the typical Italian Piazza which is the center of public life in Italy. Chef Greg, who is no other but Victor’s son, oversaw the preparation of the world’s biggest, most delicious seafood paella which was chased by endless numbers of thin crust Pizza pies, the ones that made Casa Tua so famous. Invitees who arrived hungry, went home happy, vowing to return as paying guests.

Pictured here lively scenes from the party entertained by the We Fusion trio.

Restaurateur Daniel Kameijer and his crew including Marcel van Berkum, Carsten Goetz, Chef Erwin Husken and Chef Michael Van Dorst welcomed their many friends to the first anniversary party of Screaming Eagle restaurant with bottomless flutes of bubbly Veuve Clicquot and X-rated liquor.

The hip lounge-restaurant toasted to its first successful year on Saturday night with DJ Sander Baan imported from the Netherlands, who entertained the crowd of local unwinding and networking celebrities, among them Jorge Curiel, Aruba Trading Company, international businessman Rene Kan, Dutch investor Robert Nieland, surgeon Dr Tim Peterson, Radisson Director of Food & Beverage Rachel Noordermeer and many more.

The team of famed Flying Fishbone Restaurant in Savaneta expanded its reach last year to embrace the Screaming Eagle restaurant on Eagle Beach, serving dinner nightly in an elegant and trendy setting with a French fusion menu.

The Screaming Eagle delivers unusual food combinations, with never-before pairings, infusing pleasant elements of surprise to nightly dinner rituals.

And dessert lovers will also find a number of surprises to finish their meal off in style. Chef Michael Van Dorst participated recently in the Westin Aruba Resort Wine, Food & Art Festival 2008, receiving great praise for his artistry from celebrity Chef Eric Scuiller for an outstanding duck appetizer.

Screaming Eagle is open nightly for dinner, with inside and outside seating available on the open terrace. Check out the complete menu at: www.screaming-eagle.net

This year again the Occidental Grand Aruba, sponsored graduation ceremonies for two schools, Sint Jan Kleuter, a kindergarten, and Laura Wernet Paskel, an elementary school, both schools in Kadushi Largo.

The two schools enjoy an on-going relationship with the resort. Not long ago, the management of the Occidental Grand Aruba handed over eight computers to the Laura Wernet Paskel School, fulfilling a promise made earlier this year when the first two computers were donated, to furnish the school with a state of the art computer lab with a total of 10 stations.

Sr. VP of Operations Andres Pichardo reports it is part of the Occidental Grand’s corporate commitment to its destinations offering to support a worthy community cause. Cardoso explains that Occidental Grand Aruba adopted the schools since the beginning of last year, and has painted the exterior of the building also installing new windows, repairing and painting the school gate, and the courtyard, sponsoring a Sinterklaas party for the whole school in early December including Sinterklaas gifts, and sponsoring a fabulous Christmas dinner & show with all students in attendance, besides the generous computer lab gift, and this time around, spectacular graduation ceremonies.

The closing of the school year party, explains General Manager Jesus Cardoso, also marked finishing painting the entire school exterior.

Pictured here the kindergarteners taking a big leap, at the mark of their graduation. Their festive send-off to elementary school at the Occidental Grand Aruba Grand Ballroom was a memorable event.

If you love the popular musical, you’ll be absolutely charmed by the Occidental Grand Aruba’s entertaining rendition of Grease, now being presented in the resort showroom. The Occidental Grand Aruba invites you for a visit into the world of Rydell High, Chicago in the 1950’s, the heyday of the American youth subculture, the greasers.

The musical is kicked off by the on-stage entry of the sassy Pink Ladies, followed by their male counterparts, the oh-so-cool Burger Palace Boys.  Omar Chaves, the resort’s Fun Club Director stars as Danny Zuko, the love interest of the reserved and good-girl Sandy Dumbrowski. From his thick sideburns, tight black shirt, and greased coif to his buff arms, suave dance moves, and sweet talkin’, Omar is a dead ringer for Danny.  This hunk is sure to charm all the ladies in the audience!

The international cast does an excellent job of maintaining the integrity of the original musical with excellent stage backdrops and props; signature rock & roll and solo tunes like “Greased Lightnin’,” “Beauty School Dropout,” and “All Alone at a Drive-In Movie;” and tremendous dance numbers.  Audiences are guaranteed to witness one or two pant-ripping splits as well as 100 or more lifted skirts!

As the adolescent greasers explore love, friendship, teenage rebellion, and sex, the audience will laugh as the cigarette-smoking macho boys provide silly antics from start to finish while the gum-chewing Pink Ladies egg them on.  The performance is engaging, all the way to the end when Sandy presents her transformed self during the last number—badaboom!!!  With her mile-high hair and tight, black cat suit, Sandy will knock Danny’s—and the audience’s—socks off!

All ends on an optimistic note during the closing number, “We Go Together.”  Whether you head out after the show for a fun-filled night at the casino or to your cozy bed, the Occidental Grand Aruba guarantees that you’ll leave the theater humming this doo-wop favorite.  The entire experience is one that you do not want to miss.  The Occidental Grand Aruba proudly invites you to share with them the Grease experience in Aruba, every Wednesday, for just $20 per person, and tickets are available at the Occidental Grand Casino from 12 noon every day. Stay at the casino after the show and experience live entertainment, loose slot machines, gaming table action and free flowing cocktails.

Viva Las Vegas, CirCaribe, Grease, Best of Broadway and Latin Explosion are five full scale theater productions unfolding at the Occidental Grand Aruba in the great ballroom, every night at 9 p.m.

The Occidental Grand Aruba features top notch entertainment nightly for just $20 per person, and tickets are available at the Occidental Grand Casino from 12 noon every day.

The resort’s talented Fun Club crew puts on a different show every night, starred by an amazingly-talented cadre of performers from Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba and Aruba. The shows are emceed by Omar Chaves the fun club director who does a fabulous job bringing it all together, with dance Captain Eduardo Parraga as the lead dancer and Prima Ballerina Violeta Petrova, from Bulgaria, who is the Choreographer.

The dizzying costumes, the lights and the jazzy remixes of the world’s most popular songs allows the dancers, mimes, acrobats, stilt walkers, fire eaters and aerial artists to wow audiences every evening on the Occidental Grand Aruba’s big stage.

After the show you are invited to stay at the casino with live entertainment, loose slot machines, great table action and free flowing cocktails.