Pros and Cons of "The Mude"

This post is going to be about the awesome, and the perhaps not so awesome about Bermuda.

My love for lists runs through my veins, so I am going to start off with a list of all of the pros and cons of my time so far in Bermuda. (The unequal spacing on this list is going to drive me insane! There is no chart or column setting on this GD Blogger site. Something to look into, folks!)

PROS                               CONS
1. It's Bermuda                              1. I just called it "The Mude"
2. Amazing people                       2. The customer service leaves everything in the world to be desired
3. The stunning views                 3. Cockroaches. I may cry like the a child the next time I see one
4. The food                                     4. The cost of food
5. The boat trips                            5. The rude man who runs the boat trip, and ruined the fun! Jerk.
6. Lunch by the water                 6. Half a chicken wrap costs $8.50 (double money-mention, I know!)
7. The amazing beaches             7. That bathing suits exist
8. A break from the "usual"      8. Bermuda is very tiny, I'm warned it'll become too "usual" very soon
9. Missing family                           9. Family vacationing in Bermuda!
10. New friends                          10. Super, super, super missing Toronto/Vancouver/Windsor friends
11. The sun                                   11. The sun burning me without asking permission

PRO
I WILL EAT THE FACE RIGHT OFF OF THESE ITEMS!

These Aero masterpieces I saw for the first time today in the grocery store. I did not purchase it, because it's very clear to me that I would eat all four of the cups, at once, in a more than mildly unattractive manner.

These were recommended to me by my boss, and boy was she correct in thinking that these are amazing! These chips are delicious. They're like a mix of all-dressed (which I dislike), cheese, ketchup and excellence.

Let's also discuss the logo. The logo is basically identical to the Lay's logo, but clearly does not say "Lay's". Upon further research the world wide web states this:

"Lay's (known as Walkers in the UK and Ireland, Chipsy in Egypt, Poca in Vietnam, Tapauchips in Israel and Sabritas in Mexico)..."

And now, of course being a logo lady (the graphic designers' technical name), I needed to find evidence of said subsidiary brands to compare! Here ye be:

What a fun little brand adventure we just had together!

Now on to the other delicious food here that may be the end of me, well, at least the end of my self-pride and comfortable fitting clothing.

If you don't eat the whole bag at once, I will refer to you as "the best forever", make you a custom crown, and feed these to you like grapes, but not in a weird way.

That gem of a calorie-filled jerk is followed (usually quite literally) by this son-of-a-bitch.

This smelly jerk is just like the one in Canada, only with better branding, a smaller chocolate bar inside (thank god!), and a more compact construction of chocolate, peanuts and caramel. A true delight.

These next temptation-demons were introduced to me by an English chap (so caught up on the lingo!) at work, who is quite an excellent dude. He put two on my desk, and when I asked what they were, he said, "Only the best candy ever. English candy, just eat it, you'll see." So, I ate it immediately. I know you're shocked. Catch your breath from that shock I just gave you, and take a look. Apparently there is only one flavour. Cool. Variety is for losers!

PRO

I HAVE BECOME A GENIUS!

Sometimes it's good to start off a heading with a lie, and that is what I have done here.

This is a pretty excellent plan for hanging up a pajama-like thing when I ran out of hanging space, basically in the whole house. Look mom, Girl Guides for 12 years totally paid off!

You all have my permission to be impressed:

And on the serious, read that book if you get a chance. And no, I don't meant the three Bermuda ones that I bought in hopes of knowing a lot about Bermuda when I got here, only to realize that there is no way that a book can teach you the awesomeness that is Bermuda. But, they do have maps, so that's a plus!

CON

THE SALT MELTS

It's so hot and humid here guys, that the salt melts. So...

If you go to a restaurant here and expect the salt to just "shake out" when you shake it, you're going to need to go get dance lessons from the Ying Yang Twins to pull it off, because it's going to take some work! It pains me to know that while the salt sits there beside me, I can't get that damn devil-seasoning onto my food!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJEzl31zL-I

Joy, Jealousy and Jesus

As you may be able to gauge from the title of this post, it's been an interesting end of week and weekend.

Let's begin with the first of the "J" series, because it's the most excellent (in my opinion)!

JOY

This past Friday was the agency summer party. The boss decided that it would be an excellent idea to take us all out on a boat called the Sally Bum Bum. Don't worry, I giggled too. In spite of the silly name, it might be the best thing that has ever happened, in life, forever. Basically, it's this old, young-at-heart guy that runs the company (the have three or four boats, two are mini-versions), who's name is Captain Leon. He's a little whippersnapper, and made me laugh. Everyone had their bathing suits on (for those of you know know me well, you know that this is my nightmare), and the boat (technically a catamaran) would stop off at the most beautiful of tiny little, barely-populated beaches. Along the way, we saw just the most beautiful scenery.

 

Can we, for a moment, discuss the people who have houses along these beautiful rocks and beaches? Can we also, for a moment, discuss that they have more money than Tyler Perry (richest man in Hollywood, is friends with Oprah, is all you need to know)? I mean, to own a place like the image above, I can't even imagine the money. They must looks out the window, laugh, swish their wine around and say, "Dear, have you received those gold-plated trillion dollar bills in the mail yet? And by "the mail", I of course mean our unicorn with a platinum, self-replenishing horn that shoots pure gold streamers, and flies via my magic "I'm a big smelly jerk" dust?"

As you can see, this is where the jealousy begins. Good segue, let's go with it.

JEALOUSY

So the rich people, sure, jealousy, whatever, I'm over it. That just popped into my head, it wasn't the jealousy that I was thinking about when I wrote the name of the post. The jealousy that I was thinking of was this woman on some water board, standing still, with her paddle, right near our boat during the party. Whatever, yay for her, she has a good "core", abs, and a fancy little water board (for which I am certain there is a proper name), blah, blah.

The best part, which made everyone at the party mad (but funny mad, not legit mad), was that this chick then started doing effing yoga on this board thing. The rage that came out of this one woman at the party, I am still laughing at right now as I type this. This woman, a true Bermudian yelled out, "Get the hell down, who do you think you are, we're not impressed! Woo, you can stretch!" She then turned to us and we all started this loud rampage against the woman, saying (within our group of actually lovely people) that we were going to swim over and push her down (a joke!). This woman was clearly very fit, very good at whatever it was that she was doing, and not a one of us could have come close to it. I'm sure she's a lovely woman, but she was out "showboating" in front of a group of people, us and her own group, and it was just silly. The woman on the board lost her balance and fell in the water, and the woman from my office bursts out laughing, causing is all to burst out laughing.

I... nearly... peed...

The good news, apparently everyone pees in the ocean! I have been taught by four people, on completely different occasions, how to "properly" pee in the ocean. One  woman actually taught me how to "pee like a lady" on the beach, like, in the sand. This woman shall remain nameless, but I think she reads this blog, and if she's reading this, thank you for this invaluable lesson! Not sure I'll us it, but it sure is great "survivor" information!

Did I mention that Bermuda has the best people ever?! Would I have ever been taught four different manoeuvres to pee in or by the ocean in Toronto? No. Brilliant.

JESUS
This is perhaps an odd topic for me to talk about, given I'm not a religious woman. However, Bermuda is a rather religious island, and I have a lot respect for others and their beliefs, as long as they don't try to make them my beliefs.

One woman did come over to me at the grocery store on a Monday night and with a big smile on her face, and said, "He's coming you know. Jesus is on his way, he'll be here to save you very soon."

I, well, don't know if I had done something in her presence while choosing grapefruits that made her think that I needed saving, but, she shared that information with me nonetheless.

I digress. I went to the ferry dock area in Hamilton one night, just to get a breather after a busy day at work. It's on the walk home, I figured a little sit on the bench beside the water would be a great place to have some personal thinky time. Well, I was not the only one, because what looked to be an entire congregation was there, raising money for their church and just having an overall great time!

As I said, not a religious woman, but I stood and watched the singer and dancers for close to an hour. Passion is passion, regardless of what it is about, and I respect that these folks live with such passion in their lives.

Boobs

Alright, well, you can tell from the title that this is about to be awesome.

I'm just going to come right out and apologize to any members of my family who may be embarrassed by me as a human by the end of this post. Or close/any friends, for that matter. I have full confidence that you'll recover.

I was just talking to a dear, dear friend from Toronto (who's about to have a baby, woot!), telling him a little tale, and he said that I absolutely had to post it on my blog. So, here I am, heeding no warning from that little angel sitting on my left shoulder. I'll start from the beginning.

When I got off of the plane in Bermuda, I wasn't scared, I wasn't nervous, I was excited off of my face. That's not even a thing, but me thinks you get the point.

On just my second day on the island, I was walking along a busy beach when I was stopped by a handsome gentleman (perhaps gentleman will be debated by the end of this story) who complimented me on my height, and my smile. I thought, "Wow, in just two days and I've met a nice guy to raise a family with." Psych! (Fresh Prince style), that's not at all what I thought, but, it was nice to receive a compliment nonetheless.

Then, as the conversation continued, he commented on my boobs, to my boobs, four times in a row, without getting the hint from the 6'4" woman towering over him, who'd tilted her head and made a "... for serious?" face, that perhaps there were more appropriate things to be said.

That conversation ended there.

Later that day, actually the same day, just three minutes later, I walked over to the bar to purchase a diet Coke when the bartender said, "What can I get for you sweety?" It wasn't so much how he said it, but that he appeared just physically unable to say it to my face.

That conversation ended there.

Sidebar. Lightbulb moment. I think I may have a t-shirt made that says "My other face is my bOObs", because that appears to be the consensus. Only $14.99, get 'em while they're hot (for serious, it's really hot here)!

Let me interject at this point and state that I have been asked by three separate people here in Bermuda, whether I am extremely religious. When I said "No", "Who me?" and "Oh, you must mean the nun standing behind me?", and then asked why they thought that, they said that it was because I wore long skirts and shirts that covered almost everything. So, no, I'm not running around all front-cover-of-Maxim or anything.

About a week later I was sitting at nice little pub, enjoying a cold glass of water on the patio, quite enthralled with people watching, when a man just came over and sat down... across from me... without an invite, even a little. A bold man, a good thing, but for serious? Blah, blah, blah, you know where this goes, boobs, boobs, blah, boobs.

Then, I went on the ferry last weekend, and was chatting with a guy who collects the tokens and BOOBS! You know the rest, this post is officially soggy.

I'll end this extremely out-of-character post by saying this, men (and women), boobs exist, get over it. Or be smart about it like women are, buy dark sunglasses, and keep them on :D

- Miss you Jer and Christi!

The Weekend, Music and Food

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4k4nhYp5zI

Another of my Beres favourites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngZnVwVK8P8

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!)

Movies, Money, Festivals and Food

This will be a smattering-of-mumbojumbo type post. Let's use some headers! Yes? I agree.

1. MOVIE TIME

I'd previously mentioned a movie theatre that I went to in the main part of Hamilton, the Speciality Theatre, where I saw the new Tyler Perry movie. That was fun. It was small, but fun.

I decided that this past weekend, I was going to go and see the new Disney movie, Brave. The reasons for this were three-fold:

a) I wanted an excuse to take the ferry

b) I wanted an excuse to have one of those Dulce De Leche desserts again

c) I wanted an excuse to sit in a dark room with air conditioning

All of those things came true, making me a very happy girl! The movie was okay, the story a little lacking, but the animation is amazing. The red hair, the accents, all have the Hayley half-stamp of approval.

However, and this is a spectacular "however", the theatre, well, it left a little to be desired. I gave the man my $12 (while he made some weird old-man comment about my height, and I think I heard him say, "I'm the meanest man in the hood...", then he old-man giggled. He had to be over 70 years old. It was odd.), and walked down a short hallway that I was certain was going to reveal a lovely, cushion-seated theatre. This is what happened, and this is with all of the lights on!

It felt like I was in a Disney movie, as the princess that was locked in a dungeon. It was also, along with the old "meanest man in the hood" man, odd. All of the seats were on the same level, which rocked-the-house-dope for me, but left all of those little children with an issue, given that I am, as we all now know, a giant.

2. MONEY

The Design

The money here is stunning. The first thing that I noticed was how gorgeously designed their bills are. They accept American essentially as Bermudian here because it's almost always on par, but the design of the money leaves the US bills in the dust (as does all of the other money ever).

The Bermudian money is so colourful, so brilliant, so, well, Bermudian. They're designed it vertically, which makes them not only genius', but also the best ever!

Look at that!

For those of you who know me, tell me that this is not exactly what the money that I would fall in love with would look like!? I know, a lot of people love money because they can buy things with it, make their lives "better" with it, but for me, this is a piece of beauty, a work of art. I didn't spend my Bermudian money here for a week because I wanted to look at it, it was too pretty to "give" away.

There's a little tin/foil/plastic piece just in the top three-quarters of the bill (that dark space you see above each animal), and it's a security measure of some sort, much like the new $100 in Canada, that look like plastic entirely. 

The "Process" (and you know I loves me a process)

I've mentioned before that it's a terrible idea to go to the bank here at lunch hour, because for some reason, not an intelligent one, the bank tellers also take lunch at that time. I have simply given up on human banking here, as of right now, and am using their machines quite frequently. This isn't news, I know, possibly not even that interesting, but there is one machine here (actually two at the main branch), that is different than the one in Toronto. In Toronto, I can just walk up to any bank machine for my given bank, and put a cheque or cash in, tell the machine how much, and that money is in my account. If it's a huge cheque, it takes time to clear, but otherwise, the bank is immediately trusting that you haven't put a flat, dried-up old sock in an envelope and called it $2000. 

In Bermuda, they have these two machines that you just put cash in (when transferring from Canadian to Bermudian from your Canadian account, and then depositing that Bermudian into you Bermudian account... seven times in three days... for two weeks... more on that to come!), just as cash, not even in an envelope, the machine immediately counts it (you can hear it happening), registers how much it is on screen, how many of each bill is there, and asks you to accept. You accept, and it's your money, no process after, no waiting for it to clear. 

It's impressive!

TD's Poor Excuse for a Banking Process (that apparently other humans will put up with, but not me)

Yes. Dems be fighting words. When you move to another country, you expect to come across some bumps, some things that will need to be sorted, you know, some randomness that you really couldn't foresee. In preparing for that I had everything planned  (yes, that is counterintuitive, and some would argue counter-intelligent). I'd spoken to the bank, made sure that I could take out a first and last months rent amount if I found a place immediately, was assured that I could, had my weekly limited raised to a bit more than that amount, was assured that it had been done and applied to my account, alerted them that I was moving to Bermuda so that there were no flags when I used my TD or VISA card here, was assured that it happened and was applied to my account, took out some travel money out to sustain me for a few days, and made sure to check my weekly limited before I left, which I was again assured had been put in place.

So, it was to my amazement that not a single element of that was of any use or mildly implemented when I got to Bermuda.

Essentially, and I will keep this short, they would not let me have my money unless it was in small segments, a week at a time. The moment that this was most annoying was when I had to send my deposit and rent to my landlord, and just didn't have the money, here. It was all sitting in Toronto, wrapped in a nice little bow, but I was not allowed to touch it. Certainly not by transfer. A wire transfer was possible, but that could take two to five days to come through, so the issue was still there.

TD, in the end, after I spent $60 on my new phone bill (just received it, what a treat) calling them to sort all of this out, and my father going in to the actual branch and discussing with them that perhaps their process is whack (though I'm sure he used better words, and more loudly), had to change the entire account type that I had in order for me to take out what I needed. We're not talking millions here folks!

It would appear that I am the only person who ever moved to another country and by some mystery, actually wanted the money that they saved, and entrusted in a bank to keep for them until they needed it. Weird!

A warning, all of those things that I just typed. 

Funny how the only thing that I've had to really piss and moan about in Bermuda, is an issue that happened because of people and a company in Toronto. 

3. FESTIVALS

This will be short, because the video does the talking. I left work after 7pm tonight, so Harbour Nights (the weekly, Wednesday night festival) was in full swing. This is what I walked out of my office to!

I am in love with Bermuda for everything that is happening in this video.

4. FOOD!
Breakfast
The same people who had the balls to ask to take the "picture with the giant", actually make a very good breakfast sandwich. I decided that the sandwich was worth more than the possible embarrassment of walking back in there, so I went and got one this morning.

I'm just going to say it, is there a surplus of pig on this island? I mean, look at all of the bacon! This in no way should be construed as a complaint! Look at how the cheese and egg slope over the bacon! Every bite was a little taste of heaven slapping me in the face with excellence!

Lunch
I don't have a picture of the food from this place (called D'Angelini's, I think that's how they spell it), but the view surpasses any picture of a chicken wrap that I could put up here.

Also available for lunch, apparently, as I discovered at the grocery store tonight, Lunch Tongues. The good news? They come with gelatine! Lunch tongues without gelatine? Who wants to live in that world? Not me!

Dinner

I went to Flanagan's again. The place with the Rockfish served Tuscan style. I haven't taken a picture of the actual food yet because, well, I choose to eat it when it comes to me, immediately. No time for pictures, only time for food-in-face-hole.

However, here is a picture of the view. Gorgeous, except that huge cruise ship that is just as intrusive to the view here as it is at the office a few doors up.

The Elbow

Last night I made the decision that today was going to be "Elbow Day"!

I had planned on doing some shopping beforehand, to get some use out of the day, and not just be a beach bum. I went to Masters, a rather huge hardware store in Bermuda, that resembled more a small version of Canadian Tire, with much less happy people working there (not that the Canadian Tire staff were always handing out rainbows and sunshine). I'd gone to get a Magic Bullet blender (best invention ever, not a fact), and a clothes-horse to dry my gear. They had neither. Then I went to a beach store called Making Waves to buy a beach blanket, a beach chair, and a bag to carry it all in, and they had not one of those things. I then went to the baking store, they have everything that you would ever need to bake or open a bakery, except the pastry cutter that I needed.

That part of the day was a fail. A sweaty, sweaty fail.

It was time to make the most of the afternoon, so I walked to the bus station, but came across some awesome on the way!

1. Turns out there is a Pickle Barrel in Bermuda! No food, but the good news, it's pink!
2. Bermuda has signs specifically for horses and carriages. Love!
3. The "Quickie Lickie Laundromat"? I'm... what?

The bus arrived the second that I walked up to bay 7 ($2.50 each way, unless you get a day or monthly pass, of which there are three different ones, I believe), and because the world was making up for my shopping letdowns an hour earlier, the driver had the air-conditioning on. He, at that point, was the best person ever, in life.

The sign on the clear divider in front of where I was sitting has the rules for the bus. Actually, I believe it was titled, "Bus Etiquette". So that we're all on the same page here, in terms of what I've been saying about Bermudians being extremely polite to each other, the fifth item on the list says, "Always use headphones on low volume." Respecting peoples' ear space is a concern here. It's incredible.

Moving on to the actual beach! Elbow Beach! After a short bus ride, say 15-20 minutes, you arrive at the Elbow Beach Resort & Spa.

If you think we're going there on this little blog beach trip, you're off of your hand-crafted teak rocker. We're going down the street, to the right of the sign on the picture, to the "common entrance" (it doesn't actually say that anywhere, but I mean, it's implied), you know, for the people who can't pay with bricks of solid gold. 

This is what it looks like.

Not too shabby, but it's no spa with dudes and warm hand-towels! The first time that I went, I walked down the Elbow Beach & Spa entrance by accident, and they were nice enough, but did hurriedly get me off of that part of the beach and over to the "public" section.

Whatever, cool and the gang!

Moving on. I finally got to the part where I could actually see some water. The absolute beauty of the beach continues to shock me. It shocks me to the point that I wonder if my mind sometimes makes colours more bright and vibrant than others' minds. I just seem to get such excitement out of colour. I wonder if the blue that I am seeing are actually that blue in everyone else's minds. If the sand is really the stunning light tan that everyone else see's, and if the amazing greens are as green as I perceive them to be. I suppose it doesn't matter (and everyone see's everything differently anyway), but it just feel like it can't possibly be this beautiful. I feel profoundly lucky to be able to not only experience this, but to be able to get to it any time within twenty minutes. Truly amazing.

Also, I bought a floppy hat and huge glasses. Woot! The hat was brilliant because it not only blocked the sun from burning by head, but it also blocked the sun from the book that I was reading.

Yes. I was reading a book. This may come as a shock to the people who know me well, and while I haven't "taken up" reading, I figured the beach was a perfect place to read a book that I have been trying to get through for over a year. When I say "over a year", I mean it literally, like, three years.

I digress. The book is called Stumbling On Happiness, and no, it's not a self-help "how do I be happy" book (though, I mean, I've read those too). This book is about the psychology behind the brain's understanding of happiness. One quote from the book that I love is, "To see is to experience the world as it is, to remember is to experience the world as it was, but to imagine - ah, to imagine is to experience the world as it isn't and has never been, but as it might be."

It's not all that hoity-toity, but dude makes a good point. "Dude", as I refer to him, is Daniel Gilbert. Read it if you have a chance, it's really quite good.

 

This last picture? Yeah, I just love these two.