Goodbye Heat, Hello Surface of the Exact Opposite of the Sun

Honestly, what kind of person leaves Bermuda in November to go back to Toronto... in November?

This kind of girl, that's who. I won't go into detail about my return, but what I will say is this:

a) Toronto, let's DO this!
b) Going from 32 degrees to -4 within three hours was harsh!
c) I'm wearing skirts all winter Canada, if you have a problem, I'll meet you behind the portable at recess

All in all, I had a blast in Bermuda, it was five months well spent. Sure, it could have been longer, but simply put, it wasn't.

Stuff happens, life changes, we learn lessons and we do the best we can with what we've learned. That's what I have done, and I have no regrets.

That said, seeing the following, my favourite pictures from my time in Bermuda, do leave me with a slight feeling of regretting leaving so soon. Not enough to have changed my mind, but, I mean who could look at these and not wish they were there (case and point, it's 6 degrees in Toronto at the moment, and 30 degrees in Bermuda. I'm just saying).

This was my first day in Bermuda. It was a bit overcast, clearly, but who the hell cares?! The place looks like a movie set!

This was my second day, on which I ventured out to Dockyard. I went up to the woman at the ferry dock desk (boy was she pleasant!), and asked where I could go. She didn't care to speak to me, it appeared, and merely pointed to the map on the desk. It might as well have been in a mix of Chinese and Pig Latin spoken by a mute monk, for all I could get out of it. So, I asked for two tokens, and hopped on the next ferry. I had no clue where I was going, which for people who know me well, is odd, because I have this irrational fear of being lost. It would appear as though I have overcome that, what with having moved to a tiny, minuscule dot in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Woot for that!

This is at a man-made beach at Snorkel Park. I don't care if it's man made. If man can make something that beautiful, then kudos to him/her!

This was at the Yacht Club with all of the yachts docked after a long race to Bermuda. Trust me, this was the closest I ever got to it. Fancy just doesn't suit me. Oh, and the bajillion dollars you need to go there, that too was a factor.

Bacon. Egg. Cheese. More bacon. That is all.

We were out on the Sally Bum Bum (yes, you read that correctly), and saw some kids at a summer camp. What fun they must have been having. If I take a moment to recollect my summer camp days, I'm pretty sure they involve a damp sleeping bag, a canvas tent that leaked when you looked at it wrong, and me dropping a toilet brush down an outhouse hole, and being told that I had to go in and get it. Ahhh, summer camp, sure was exactly like I see it in this picture!

Just a beautiful shot from the Sally Bum Bum. I don't want to ruin it for you, it being such a beautiful picture and all, but the dude who rents these things out (and is the el capitano when you're on it) decided that the time that I called to book it again would be a good time to blame me for his knee hurting and then be rude to me on the phone for twenty minutes. Needless to say, he and his bad knee never saw me again.

When I go back to visit, I may try calling him again. Perhaps if I approach the call like this, "Hi there! Firstly, I would like to apologize for your knee. Though I have no clue who you are, I can see why you would think that this ailment that you have is my fault, and was brought on by me calling you, on the telephone, with no weapon, about a boat. I mean, clearly common sense lead you there. I see the error of my ways, and I do apologize. Please, allow me to hand-carve you a set of crutches. All sorted? Good. Alright then, let's talk about that overpriced boat ride!"

I'll just be sure to leave the sarcastic tone out. That's something that I'm good at.

This was the night of a concert in the park. I think it may have been my favourite night in Bermuda. This is absolutely something that I intend to be there for again.

The Crystal Caves. Absolutely insane. Go and see them if you can. Be sure to bring 17 towels to wipe the sweat from your everything.

One of the beaches on the other end of the island. Sweet mother of all things salted, that was a long trip. But, how can you complain, I mean look at this!

This is from my last day at Elbow Beach. I took myself for lunch, had a delicious caprese salad and some bruschetta (it was a tomato extravaganza!). Are there better views that this, folks? I mean aside from the next shot?

I think if I had to visually define Bermuda, this would be exactly it.

How does this colour exist in nature? I literally don't understand.

"Fall" in Bermuda means 34 degrees celsius and these as their plants. Just stunning. Oh, I forgot to mention unfair.

This is a shot of Elbow Beach Resort, looking down from the middle of the hill to the bottom. If the day comes that some man decided that he doesn't mind killing spiders for me for the rest of my life, we will get married here. Oh, he's also have to deal with me being bossy. Because, that's uhh, clearly not going anywhere.

Woodbourne Crescent, I think I'll miss you most of all.

I'll end this post in the classiest way I know how. I shall end it with an end. The rear end of a man. I don't know this man. I walked behind this man from the grocery store on my last day and thought to myself, "Wow. Well done sir!"

Stay classy, Bermuda.

Caves Are Awesome!

I had never been in a cave. Caves scare me. I'm not a small person, and there's no better place for a large person to get stuck, than in a cave!

Having said that, I had a lovely friend in town visiting, and we decided to go to the Crystal and Fantasy Caves.

Three things stood out to me after the experience:

a)  It is HOT down there, uncomfortable amounts of sweat were apparent, plus more sweat.
b)  The caves look fake, like someone put it there so I would give them $27 to see them... but I have been assured that, that is not the case.
c)  I am so very terrible at science!

We went to the Crystal caves first. This is the story of how the caves were discovered:

"In 1905, two young teenagers named Carl Gibbons and Edgar Hollis were engaged in a spirited game of cricket. One of the lads struck the ball with ferocity and it disappeared into a hole several yards away. This ball was a prized possession and no effort was spared at attempting to retrieve it. As one of the boys crawled  down deeper and deeper, it became apparent that this was not your ordinary hole. What the boys had discovered was, in fact, the entrance to a spectacular natural wonder. When the Wilkinson family, owners of the property since 1884, were told of this discovery, they wasted no time in setting off to explore the entrance and to find out how deep it went. Bernard Wilkinson, the fourteen-year-old son of Mr. Julian Wilkinson, was lowered into the hole by his father using a strong rope tied to a tree. Bernard descended 140 feet with a lamp from a bicycle to light his way. What he found was beyond his or the Wilkinson family's wildest dreams. It was an underground world of delicate splendor with magnificent crystal formations of every size and shape surrounding a clear lake 55 feet deep."   

- Crystal Caves

We had a lovely tour guide for the Crystal Caves, and then a hilarious tour guide for Fantasy Caves. He showed us a few trees on the walk over in the beautiful garden they have there, and one was the allspice tree. The leaves smelled like everything awesome. The flavours are made up of (and I assure you, I know that I must sound like a tool for not knowing that allspice was a singular spice, from a tree, and not just a big mushing of a bunch of spices, making it the "all-spice"...), nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves.

Enough random spice talk, here are some shots of the Crystal Caves mixed in with some shots of the Fantasy caves, because I can't remember which is which. Beautiful either way.

 

 

The "icicles that come from the top are stalactites, and the ones that come up from the bottom are called stalagmites. I knew nothing about any of this going in (thought science through high school would expect I did). 

I found this nifty little diagram, just like one that I'm sure I saw in school and promptly forgot about, because who's going to see a cave? Me. 

Today's little cave lesson is complete. If you're coming to visit, definitely check them out (with out without me, though my huffing and puffing up the steep stair climb out is quite funny to see, though less funny to me).

A Month of Random Things

Well, it's been a month. I feel off of the face of the blog earth for a month. Apologies for those who enjoy the blog, and you're welcome to those who don't!

Alright, I'm going to cover three things in this posty post. Storms, tourist lack and food.

TROPICAL STORM LESLIE, YOU JERK!

Leslie, who was supposed to be a hurricane, but was thankfully downgraded to a tropical storm, was something else! I'm told that it wasn't even as big as some storms get in the winter here, but to me, a non-islander, I was pretty sure that I would be indoors for a month, with no electricity, and only a bathtub of water to keep me alive. Oh me, such a flare for the dramatic.

Essentially, in the days leading up to the then, hurricane, it was a mad rush to buy the necessities. There were flashlights, matches, candles and water at the front of every grocery store, all of which you could see dwindling minute by minute. I personally made three trips to the store to stock up. I went a little crazy/awesome with my food purchases. The junk food I bought was gone the night I bought it, which, I should note, didn't have the storm even approaching yet. I needed comfort from the impending doom, hello! And those raisins, yeah, they're still in the exact same place, still wrapped in plastic.

The wind from inside the house sounded insane. We all have shutters on our windows, and made sure to lock all of those down before the storm really got going. Again, apparently this wasn't much of a storm, but for me, the naive girl from Toronto, it was kind of a big deal. 

This is the wind from outside our front door, just before the storm really picked up. It was eerily hot and muggy, which I don't usually associate with wind and rain, but then again, brainbuster Malcho, it was a tropical storm!

The day after the storm, the clouds did some fun stuff!

And then it was done. I have boxes of candles, boxes of matches (they come in these bunches, tons of matches, they must be the cheapest thing on the island), three flashlights and enough D batteries for seven.

TOURIST LACK, AND SIDEWALK FREEDOM!

So, I know that the tourists in Bermuda, from the cruise ships mostly, who dock for close to a week, are kind of what help keep Bermuda's businesses going. This, though valid information, does not matter when half of my lunch hour is spent dodging human beings, walking FOUR abreast on the sidewalks.

It's hilarious. That type of hilarious where you have to summon the gods to keep your hands at your side and your mouth shut.

It's like wherever these people migrate from, other people don't exist, never have and never will. When they walk off of the cruise ship, it's a friggin' free-for-all. No rules, manners are out the window, and lord forbid they try to understand that they're not in their hometown.

You took a huge boat on purpose, for a lot of money, purposefully, with intention, to LEAVE your home!

If you haven't noticed, this is a rant.

I was in the coffee shop getting a sandwich (D'Angelini's makes a mean chicken fajita wrap) one day (most days, let's be honest), and this woman walked in, ordered her latte, and stood there, tapping her hand on the counter. Her hand was basically whispering the Jeopardy theme song.

I looked at the woman making the coffee, and I'm pretty sure that she was 3.2 seconds from launching the hot milk at the woman's face. I feel like she deserves an award for having not done that.

Then it came time to pay for said latte. Let me set the scene. We're not twenty steps from the ferry dock at this point, where most if not all of the cruise ship goers are shipped every day from Dockyard. So, it's a very obvious tourist trap, just like Dockyard, where they came from twenty minutes earlier, and likely paid $24 for a dry chicken sandwich. Given that the ships have been coming to Bermuda for 27 years, I would think, and sure as hell hope, that Bermuda has thought of taking slight advantage of their tourist destination.

Just saying. Scene set.

The latte was $4.50. Yeah, not ideal, but yo, been to Starbucks, or another anything but your kitchen lately? She made a comment, "under her breathe" to her husband, saying, "Really? $4.50, Bermuda isn't that nice! That's ridiculous, I mean, I can't believe this!"

I shit you not.

Oh, it kept going.

Respecty McTonsofclass got her latte, and promptly walked over the to "dressing station", and complained that there wasn't any whole milk. I stood there, looking directly at the container of whole milk, just waiting for this situation to get more awesome. The lady chose to share her non-medical inability to see with the woman who had made her latte, and I swear, I have never seen a better face on a human being.

I literally had to put my hand over my mouth to stop both, a) yelling at Ignorant McShutyourface, and b) laughing to the point of public urination.

I'm going to stop there because I'm reliving this as I sit here, and getting enraged!

Anyhow, digressions galore, this is what Dockyard looks like when the ships aren't in. It's a thing of non-ignorant beauty.

 

 

I see this boat (following image) every time I'm up at Dockyard, and it makes me wish that I had the ladyballs to jump on the boat, magically learn how to sail it (I literally almost types "how to fly it", is how much I know about boats), and just sail away to the middle of the ocean, and rock out to a lifestyle with Ariel and Sebastian. King Triton, not invited! More dingelhoppers and snarfblats for me!

This is the boat. It has hardwood "floors", stunning bits and pieces (I should really do my research on boat parts before I choose to try and describe a boat, jeeze).

FOOD, MADE BY A MAGIC MAN

Finally, a new restaurant that I found. It's called Beluga, and they're all about hand-crafter, meticulous sushi. Their downfall, they're located in a mall. They have a bar setup and quite a few tables, but, the ambiance isn't ideal.

However, they make up for it with this!

This dish didn't have a title. Well, I called it the Magical Dish of Happiness and Fire in my head, but chose not to, until now, share that with the public for fear of a straight-jacket.

Take me away.

I've made friends with the dudes (at least I tell myself that), and I said to them one time, "Whatever you think is delicious, I will have!" They made me this! Essentially, the last one was scallop (at 2pm, if these things were a clock...), and I was told to alternate from the top rolls, then a bottom roll, then top, and so on, until I got to the scallop last.

I followed the rules, and whaaaaaat? Best sushi dish I have had, ever, in life. Also, as you can see from the shot above, it involved fire, which, I mean, come on!

Excellence, For Your Perusal

A vague title, yes, but it's because I have a ton of pure randomness to share, so the title would have been far too long to include it all.

We'll start with food, which, you know, not rare!

MARKS AND SPENCERS, aka "THE DEVIL" (in a good way)

Marks and Spencers had only been a myth, up until I moved here. I'd never been in one, and somehow managed to not go into the one here for two and a half months. And then, it happened. One lunch hour, I remembered a family member who visited telling me how amazing the food was there. Unfortunately, they were bang-on!

I've been trying to find pictures of the heaven bits (not their real name, though it would definitely apply!), but there aren't any good ones!

What I can show you is this...

This is my food drawer at the office, right beside my desk, filled with just bad personal choices.

The first is on the left, some "Popchips" like things, cheese and onion flavoured. Those are relatively healthy, at 90 calories a bag. To the top left is something I spent $15.99 on just for the tin (love it!), and was then told there were giant shortbread cookies in it. Bonus!

Below that are the best little pieces of heaven, ever. The left of the two are these, well, you know the Crunchie chocolate bar? Some genius (not sure why I didn't think of it!) put that candy sponge deliciousness into little pieces, like a chocolate covered raisin. Woah, did they get into my face quickly! Speaking of chocolate covered raisins, those are on the right. Also delicious, but if I had to choose which to take with me on a deserted island, I would chose the crispy bit thingies, pas de questionnes (yes, that is the extent that I speak French, even though I could have looked up the proper spelling on Google. Let's blame it on I don't care).

ROMEO & JULIET, OUTDOOR BALLET STYLE

Alright, let's get some stuff straight here before I go on.

a) The only reason I understand Romeo and Juliet is because Leonardo DiCaprio is handsome.
b) The only reason I understand the ballet enough to not ask questions all the way through, is because I'm a grown-up and know not to. If I were ten, there would have been questions.

I went to this ballet because the last ballet I went to was when I was very young. When I say young, I mean it in that I asked my father during the Nutcracker, about ten minutes in, "... when do they start talking?"

Yeah.

Anyhow, I tagged along with a lovely group of woman, we had dinner first, and then cabbed 'er on over to Fort Hamilton for the show. It was a great show, under the stars, lovely ballet dancers, and a lot of man-bums. I'm sorry, it needs to be said! Spandex, like, extreme spandex, and little ballet-man bums, it was distracting!

Clearly, Bermuda has not made me a more mature woman.

Moving on.

When it was done, we caught the most adorable little tourist train back to town. This is the only show I got, as my iPhone doesn't appear to favour the night.

Behind that tree is half of the set! Any time Juliet spends in her bedroom/chambers, which is a fair amount, was directly behind that GD tree!

Near the end, when she's all, "Ohhh, I must drinketh this poison...", I moved, I wanted to see this woman dance. Again, I'm an seriously lacking in ballet knowledge, but I think she was brilliant. The stand "O" at the end of the performance would be a hint, at least to me.

A small rant begins below:

I'm tall. A lot tall. So, when I go out to venues where there are even-levelled seating, I always sit at the back, to spare those who may be shorter behind me the rage of having to duck back and forth behind my head. I've been told that this is a rare thing, thinking of other people in that regard, in those situations. Fine, so I'm nice sometimes.

Because of this niceness, I did this at the ballet. Sat at the back, and a few of the lovelies that I was with sat back there with me. Very nice of them.

Off I go to get a drink, can of Sprite, thank you, and I come back to a man taller than me, sitting directly in front of me! I'm sorry Karma, have I done something to offend you?

So, I'm the idiot ducking from side to side behind this jerk (maybe he's nice, but at that moment, he was a super jerkface), and then not being able to see Juliet because of that pisser of a palm tree.

I'll say this, tall guy, if you read this (yeah, pipe dream that is), be nicer to the human population. Self-awareness, hellooooo!

Rant over.

SATURDAY & SUNDAY WEEKEND FUNDAY!

Poetry at it's best folks...

This Saturday was excellent. The ballet was the end of it, so that we've already covered. Let's chat early Saturday. I slept. Boy did I sleep.

I realized quickly that I was no longer 16, so I got up and went about the day. I walked to the ferry dock area, and had a delicious toasted croissant with ham and cheese from D'Angelini's. They are lovely people in there. Well, most of them.

Then I sat by the water...

(There sure were a lot of rich people on that here yacht/catamaran situation. I could almost hear them laughing at the "little people" on the shore. This is of course a gross generalization of rich people, who in most cases have probably worked very hard for their money, but, it's how I felt at the moment, when I was sans a great boat ride afternoon!)

After the water sitting and rich people watching, I decided that I should check out a mall near by. See, a "mall" in Toronto is this monstrosity of a building, filled with things that only a fifth of the population would actually buy, yet somehow the stores stay in business. In Bermuda, the Washington mall is a very small iteration of that, with more than mildly useful items.

What I love about Bermuda is that almost every store along the two main east/west running roads can be entered on either of the two parallel streets, Reid or Church. It's brilliant.

I remembered that someone mentioned a candy store, that also sold toys. Yet another series of great choices began. I bought some candy (through truly, I knew I would be at the ballet with a group of women who love candy, so it wasn't a wholly selfish decision, and boy this they love the candy!), and then I bought the best, most useless child's toy ever invented...


















Yeah, I own this now. This Koosh ball, make of plastic strings, and brilliance. Note the "ages 3 and up" label.

Hells yeah.

After reverting back from being six years old, I walked into this spectacular maze of stores that I'm not even sure has a name. I had no idea about it until my family was out shopping one day, found it, and then took me later on. It's this miss-mash of Hallmark-like stores, book stores, furniture stores, and just some overall excellent things. I found this chair...

I love this chair. Guys, it's a "leather" (for the price, there's absolutely zip way that it's real leather) rocking chair. And I fit in it. And it's comfortable. And it must be mine!

We'll see what happens with that. I'm mulling it over.

Let's break from Bermuda talk for a moment and discuss my love for random chairs. Back in the day, well, a couple of years ago, I was walking by this store in Toronto, on the same street that I was living on at that time, and saw this chair.

I bought it, because, HELLO, it's beautiful, and the kicker, it was $1400 for $199! Yeah! Who in their right mind would turn that down? Well, a normal person. I had nowhere to put it. Then I ended up having somewhere to put it when I was condo-livin' downtown Toronto, that was short lived, because as you all well know, I now live in Bermuda. My Ma is guarding that piece of magnificence for me until I come back. Lovely of her! I refused to sell it, unlike every other piece of furniture before I left.

Moral of the above, I suppose, is that I shouldn't buy this excellent "leather" rocking chair. Right? I mean, not only do I not really need it, but, I would have to ship that jerk back to Toronto, at likely three times the cost of the chair itself, whenever I'm back.

I suppose I could just charge up the ol' laptop, take it with me to the store every weekend, and hang out in the chair? No one will have a problem with that, right?

:(