THE WEEKEND
Essentially, this past weekend was tops!
FRIDAY
I was invited (very kindly) to a girls dinner at a most remarkable restaurant called Sea Breeze at the Elbow Beach Resort. I didn't know what to expect, but it turns out, I should have expected awesome!
On Friday nights, they have tapas or sushi, and we ordered just a ton for the table. Eight women ate the following (quite a few in multiples):
1. Grilled Oysters (garlic butter, parsley, parmesan and romano cheese)
2. Papa's Mushrooms (fried button mushrooms, goat cheese stuffing and spicy mayo)
3. Boeuf Au Poivre (Angus beef strips sauced with pink and green peppercorns)
4. Tempura (soft shell crab, vegetables, tofu and prawns)
5. Fried Bay Scallops (breaded and tossed with special lemon sauce)
6. Mini Potato Skins (white creamer potatoes, cheddar cheese, chives, sour cream and tomato)
7. Shao Mai Dim Sum (Chinese shrimp dumplings with sweet chill sauce)
8. Baby Spring Rolls (bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots, onions and sweet chill sauce)
9. Onion Rings (crispy battered onion rings with truffle mayo)
10. Edamame (Japanese soy beans, sea salt flakes and lime)
11. Lamb Kofta (spiced Levantine lamb patties, Greek yogurt and mint sauce)
Now, you'd think that would have been the best part of the night, but you, well, you would be incorrect.
It gets better, in quite possibly the best kind of way.
At said brilliant venue, there is live music on Friday nights. This live music was provided to us by "Prestige", a well-known duo of Bermudian men, who for three hours, play the keyboard, sing, and most importantly, dance.
Please, check out this video and tell me the this is not just exactly how one should spend a Friday night!
Cannot handle it. The whole night, the taller gentleman was dancing like no one was looking, and it was just enlightening! So many people got up and danced, including myself and the two lovely ladies that stayed late to watch "Prestige" until they were done.
After they wrapped up, we got their card (clearly there will be an event where this happens again!), and then went for a walk on the beach. It was midnight-ish by that time, and I will say this, there is nothing like a walk along the beach at midnight! Nothing, nothing, nothing.
The lovely beach walk was followed with a cab right back downtown, and to a restaurant that turns into a pseudo-club on Friday night. It's the Pickled Onion during the day, but appears to be referred to as PO on Friday night. I suppose it's more "cool" to say that you're going dancing at PO than the Pickled Onion.
Actually, that didn't happen until we essentially highjacked a party bus and rode around the block with blaring music. Okay, we didn't literally highjack the thing, but one of the women knows the guy who runs it, who happened to be sitting there in it, and so she asked if we could have a little ride around town. The dude abided.
The PO. The PO is a very interesting situation, is how I can thing to classify it. Basically, it's a Kelsey's, crammed to the roof with people drinking and really just pushing each other over to try and find a space to stand. That was, well, not the fun part. We danced a little, I sipped on a diet Coke, and then we left. That whole 95% humidity thing really does get the best of you after a long day and night.
SATURDAY
I slept in, a lot more, and then got myself together. I went to Dockyard to enjoy a delicious sandwich from Pastry Shop (as mentioned previously, it's literally just called Pastry Shop), and then to hang out on the beach for a bit.
One of the most inspirational things in life is when you run into people randomly, and somehow manage to connect immediately. I was sitting at a table just off of the beach, sipping on a diet Coke, and a woman came by to the table next to me. She and I struck up a conversation, and I was just enamoured with how much we "clicked".
She was from the cruise ship that had docked around the corner. She'd decided that she and her three kids (boy 7, girl 10, girl 12) on a cruise after her and her husband got a divorce. She lives in Georgia but is originally from Afghanistan. She told me that she was originally a stay-at-home mom, and had supported her husband through his very successful business. She decided that at a point, she needed to do her own thing, so now she is a licensed real-estate agent, trying to start up her own company. Her divorce was amicable, they didn't go to court, simply settled amongst themselves. She still sends pictures of the kids to him, and he sends child-support, everything done very respectfully.
We chatted for over an hour, I met her kids, who had been off quietly playing just in the distance. The 10 year old came over, ordered her own food, went and picked it up, came back and sat with us, quietly, giggling when we said something funny, and minding her own business, respecting her mothers conversation.
She's 10.
Find me another ten-year-old on vacation with their mother who acts like that, and I will find you a unicorn that can knit you a rainbow scarf out of Skittles, while sitting on a cotton candy cloud (oh man, now I want one!)
We traded information and I caught the ferry back to Hamilton.
With that lovely experience under my belt for the day, I was in a brilliant mood. I decided to head over to the movies to see Spider Man.
I was about an hour early, so I remembered that there was a beautiful cathedral near by that I hadn't actually had the time to take a proper look at. It is called The Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity. I may not be a religious person, but you cannot argue the beauty of this place of worship.
I also took a shot of the City Hall & Arts Centre that's right by the bus station. There is a beautiful sculpture of a mother and her kids on the stoop.
SUNDAY
Sunday was beach day. Sunday was also what I will now refer to as "burn day". Folks, I put sun block on when I left the house to walk to the bus station, and then reapplied it when I got to the beach. Arms, legs, back, all of that good stuff. Turns out, if you spend over an hour in the water, your sun block might as well have been butter. Burned.
I will say this, spray sun screen is the way to go (clearly a learning experience from this past Sunday). The fact that it runs around $24 a bottle here though, is not ideal.
Let's not talk about that anymore.
After just a brilliant day at the beach, I got back into town and decided to do some groceries and head home. This is a shot from my walk up the street to my place. So beautiful!
I've mentioned the bus a lot but haven't shown the station at all. Below are a couple of shots. It's very simple actually, and they are almost always on time (at least in my experience).
MUSIC
This song sums up Bermuda to me at the moment. The tone, the feel, just the beauty of the song. I smile every single time this comes on my iPhone, which is often, because I have it looping with maybe three other songs.
Another of my Beres favourites.
FOOD
Yes, more food talk. You know you love it!
Over the past seven weeks (yes, I've been here that long as of Friday. Craziness!), I had found many treats that I like. The unfortunate thing is that when I find something that I like, I tend (no tending, it happens) have it a lot. The prime example of this, is this.
Damn you Humpty Dumpty for making these delicious, devil-filled happy rings! The only place that I could find these sons-of-bitches in Canada was Bulk Barn, but here, they're everywhere! They're in every single grocery store and pharmacy. Eff!
Oh look, the son-of-a-bitch has a companion!
The good news, I can have a meal like this to "make up" for the above indiscretions.
What we have here is local Rockfish, baked with shaved almonds and banana. I too, was confused. This is apparently common here, but I'd avoided it until tonight, when I was apparently feeling somewhat adventurous.
The very obviously whipped potatoes were actually good, whether they were real or not. The fish was seasoned nicely, but I felt like the banana flavour was way to powerful against the white, flakey fish. I like the idea, maybe just not the execution.
With that, I'll leave you with this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU4Zeiwvy6g&feature=related (man I love Blanche's strut!)
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