Barritt’s Ginger Beer held a cocktail contest in spring 2011. Matt created a drink called ‘Here Comes the Boom’ and won us a four-day, three-night trip to Bermuda! We weren’t planning on taking an international trip this year because we’re getting married in September, so this was a very welcome surprise.
(The entire photoset is here on Flickr.)
Read from the beginning below, or jump to each day:
There’s only ever one good reason to get up at 4am, and that’s vacation. Still, it’s always pretty painful to experience. Minneapolis was in the throes of a 95+ degree heat wave, so at least it was nice outside when we went to the cab. We hadn’t had a break from heat in a long time.
Our 6:30am flight (on which we got our own row: SCORE) took us to Atlanta, where we had just enough time to use the bathroom and eat breakfast before heading off to Bermuda. The flight time was a total of 5 1/2 hours, which wasn’t bad at all. We also got to fly through tropical storm Bret; I wasn’t really aware that we were in a storm til the captain announced it while I was in the bathroom, and suddenly I almost got knocked over. Hey, I peed in a tropical storm! Exciting!
We landed around 3pm, got to exit the plane via the back door onto the tarmac, and headed off to stand in line at customs and immigration. After customs, we picked up our bags and had to stand in another line to hand in our tourist cards. From there, we were free to go get a cab and head to the hotel.
It’s about a half-hour ride from the airport to Hamilton, the main city. The island might be only 21 square miles, but the three main roads are all narrow and winding, and the speed limit is 35. We got a great tour from our cab driver along the way, too. Also, we immediately noticed how every roof in Bermuda is the same: they’re all white with many tiers, and an angled runner spanning the whole roof. That’s to collect rainwater, since they have no other source of fresh water on the island. (It’s the reason everything is so notoriously expensive, too: it’s almost all imported.)
Since the Barritt’s people were booking flights and the hotel for us, we hadn’t found out where we were staying til just a couple days prior. The minute I looked the place up on Tripadvisor, I knew they were treating us very well. The Rosedon was gorgeous.
The lady at the front desk was so nice I wanted to hug her. She explained about their beach shuttle, free breakfast served wherever you prefer, the daily tea at 4pm, and their honor bar and kitchen, where you could take whatever you wanted and just leave a note for the charges. The porter took us to our room, which overlooked the central courtyard behind the mansion, and the swimming pool. We unpacked a bit, then decided to walk into Hamilton and do some looking around. We wanted dinner and rum, in whichever order they might present themselves.
We knew that Bermuda was pretty traditionally British in that the shops were only open til 5 or 6pm (and not at all on Sundays, so I was glad for the timing of our trip). We didn’t realize that restaurants were similar to those in Europe as well: they served lunch til around 2, and then closed down til dinner at 5:30 or so. We were really hungry, but only had an hour or so to kill. We wandered up and down Front Street, then went up to the rooftop bar at Muse for a drink. They were closing down for a private event shortly, so we finished and headed to the main-level bar instead. There we encountered the first Bermudian who was not the friendliest person on earth: the bartender. She poured us a couple rum swizzles, though, so we didn’t mind.
Round about 5:30, we walked over to the Hog Penny for dinner. It’s a famous pub, so we had to check it out.
The server was awesome. The food was pretty good (it’s occasionally tricky to find anything vegetarian there, but I did alright), and the drinks were great. It was there that we learned the proper way to serve a Dark & Stormy: it’s not the same proportions as, say, a rum and Coke, which is how it’s usually poured in the US. It’s more like a gin and tonic. Short glass, Gosling’s, a bit of ice, topped with ginger beer. Way more potent and less sweet than we were used to. Perfect.
After dinner, we decided to stop and take a look around a local liquor store, to have something for our room (and the pool). We picked out a couple of beers we hadn’t seen before, then made a discovery that would change our lives: Scrumpy Jack. Just based on the name alone, we had to buy it. We also found something called WKD that I made Matt buy, because it reminded me of the C-Ice he had to drink in Mexico. (It was also Irn Bru and vodka, so he didn’t object.) The amused cashier told us that in Bermuda they called it ‘champagne wickets’. In retrospect we were pretty sure it was actually ‘wickeds’, but we liked the idea of it being a reference to the upcoming Cup Match. ‘Champagne wickets’ stuck.
We put on our bathing suits, grabbed a couple cans of Scrumpy Jack, and headed to the pool to swim. There were two duck fountains perched on the edge, and tiny birds kept visiting them to drink from the water shooting out of their beaks. It quickly became a requirement that a lap would involve a trip under the duck-fountains. You had to avoid getting sprayed in the head, though.
Around 8pm, we showered, changed, and headed across the street to the cocktail lounge at the Fairmont Princess. It was very fancy, and we saw a huge concentration of local businessmen there in Bermuda shorts. That never got old. Also, Matt met Mark Twain in the lobby:
We had a couple drinks there, then headed back into Hamilton for dinner (lunch was at 5:30, so 11pm seemed about right). Our first stop was Pickled Onion on Front Street. As we sat down, our server told us the kitchen was just closing up, but that he would go see what they could do. We got our food order in at the last second, which was good since we were about to fall over. We then ordered drinks and watched the cover band set up. They were amazing.
And while they didn’t know ‘Seven’ by Prince (my request, of course), they played ‘Kiss’ for us Minneapolitans instead. (One thing we noticed very quickly about Bermuda: almost every place only played the greatest pop hits of the 80s and 90s. No local music, no reggae, almost nothing popular. Very strange.)
The Pickled Onion was fun, but I wanted something more… local? So we headed down the street to The Beach, which I assumed would be awesome because their tagline is “the shame of Front Street” and they advertise that they’re open til 3am. It was definitely more local, but not as interesting as I had hoped. The bartender was kind of crabby. They were playing American hip-hop (and showing videos on TVs). Regardless, we had rum and were sitting 50 feet from the ocean, so there was nothing to be too distressed about.
On the way back to the hotel, Matt and Bally hopped in the birdcage for a picture, and to celebrate 23 hours of awakeness!
We got up before 10 on Friday and called to order breakfast. They delivered trays with coffee, eggs, a scone, toast, kiwi, butter and marmalade, and orange juice to our table on the patio. The above was our view. Fantastic.
Matt read about the upcoming Cup Match in the paper. There was a lot of cricket drama. Since we heard about it from everyone there, we really wanted to go. (Next time.) Gerald the maintenance guy stopped by and chatted for a long time, too. Everyone in Bermuda is so unbelievably nice! We loved it.
We walked down to the ferry terminal in Hamilton, bought tokens, and waited for the ferry. It arrived, and so many cruise passengers piled off that we couldn’t believe the boat was still above water. We boarded, went up to the roof, and enjoyed the view of the harbor, which was full of little islands, tiny sailboats, and some amazingly huge yachts.
It took about half an hour to get to the Dockyard. It’s not far, but most of the harbor is a no-wake zone. We saw the Clocktower Mall from the ferry, and also two ships in port. One of them was the Celebrity Summit, which we’d taken on our last cruise. SIGH.
We got off the ferry and headed to the Bermuda Maritime Museum, which is housed in the old fort and ramparts at the Dockyard. By the time we had walked around for 5 minutes, we were completely drenched in sweat: it wasn’t that hot (maybe mid-80s), but it was insanely humid. Even moreso than the record humidity we’d left in Minneapolis. We were grateful every time we encountered even a tiny bit of air conditioning.
The commissioner’s house was really interesting. They had a ton of exhibits about Bermuda’s history, some current artwork, and a tour of the fort underneath. Some of the rooms had A/C, too, so we enjoyed our time there. The view of the Dockyard was excellent as well:
Behind the main buildings, we discovered the reason for the sheep gate.
We also saw Snorkel Park from the fort wall. It’s the most popular place for cruise passengers to visit, because it’s an easy walk and has a bunch of entertainment. It was the only truly crowded place we saw the entire time we were there, too. It’s hard to imagine anything there being packed, even though the island is tiny. We were a little off-season, though. (Locals told us the best time of year to visit is September and October; we chose to go earlier in the year not just because of the wedding, but because the ocean is only warm enough to swim in during the actual summer.)
The fort reminded me a lot of San Juan, but more recent:
We did a little more wandering around the site, and stopped by the dolphin encounter to see the dolphins swimming around and to get some much-needed water.
Then it was lunchtime! We headed to the Frog & Onion (which contains Dockyard Brewing Company), and promptly ordered a beer sampler.
I also got a vegetable curry that I’m still fantasizing about today. Once our sampler was gone, we got a couple of pints in souvenir glasses (mine came in a mini growler!), and then headed to the souvenir shop. After that, we stopped by the booths in the mall for some samples. The best one was of a Dark & Stormy made with Barritt’s, which required us to tell the story of why we were there. The lady gave us their business card, and it had the name of the guy who’d booked the trip for us on it. Awesome.
We shopped around the craft market for souvenirs, then wandered over to Clocktower Mall. We then headed back toward the ferry dock, and decided to see about renting scooters and driving ourselves back to Hamilton. The people at the scooter shop assured us that our many souvenir bags would fit in the compartments, so we headed out for our road test.
They showed us how to drive them, and directed us to go around the loop by the museum and ferry dock. It was a one-way street with a maximum speed limit of 20, but it was still full of tourists, cars, and other scooters. I headed off slowly and shakily. Rounding the corners was nowhere as easy as I expected, nor was stopping. When I finished the loop, the guy there told me to wait a minute for Matt. When he didn’t appear, the guy told me to go do another loop and practice, so I headed off, slightly less shaky this time. (Part of the reason it was so intimidating was not just the traffic, but the fact that you have to remember to drive on the opposite side of the road.)
When I got back the second time, I saw Matt standing there with a bloody knee. He’d hit the brakes at the corner, but the scooter had other ideas and sped up. Scooters were definitely not for us! We walked over to the store to find a bandage, but they didn’t have anything appropriate. Matt said he’d be ok, so we went to the store by the ferry to get two-day transit passes instead. I was kind of relieved about the scooter decision, because I’d seen the traffic in Hamilton and at the roundabouts, and I would’ve been terrified trying to navigate that.
We sat on a bench to wait for the ferry, and Matt dabbed at his knee with a napkin. There was an old local couple sitting on a bench nearby eyeing us. The lady ran over when she saw what was up, knowing right away it was a scooter accident. She rushed over to a garden, yanked off a piece of aloe, and brought it over to Matt. Nature’s medicine!! She said she was a nurse, and showed him how to apply it. We loved her a lot. (Another running theme in Bermuda: locals telling us to not even bother with scooters, because they get in accidents constantly. In related news, Bermuda has a excellent bus system.)
We thanked Cynthia, our new nurse friend, and boarded the ferry back to Hamilton.
We walked back to the hotel so Matt could fix up his knee, and by then his ankle was hurting a lot (the scooter had rolled onto it). Since the ocean obviously has healing powers, we decided to go to the beach. We walked back into town, found the main bus terminal, and hopped on the bus to Horseshoe Bay. We had a map with fairly nonspecific stop markers, so I tried to keep general track of where we were. I knew we were close once we passed Elbow Beach, and I made a mental note of the location of the Swizzle Inn on the South Shore, too. The bus pulled over at a stop and I caught a glimpse of the Horseshoe Bay sign, so we hopped off and headed down the path to the beach.
There were a few families headed back up the path, and all of them were panting and looking like they might die. That wasn’t a great sign, but it was worth it for what we found at the bottom of the giant hill:
Horseshoe Bay was gorgeous. The rental building and snack shop had closed (it was after 4pm), but we had everything we needed. We headed right into the water, and it was perfect. Also, the pink sand thing is no joke… the sand is flecked with little bits of red. We put some in a baggie to bring home with us.
We bobbed around for a long time, and watched people cliff-diving off the far rocks. When we were finally done swimming, we went to see the little sheltered cove where all the kids were swimming enclosed by rocks. It was like a kiddie pool for the ocean.
We wanted to go to the Swizzle Inn, and since it was nearby, I figured we could just grab a taxi (there had been a few of them waiting at the beach) and go up there for less than $10. The taxis had all left, though, so we had to climb up the huge hill to the road. Panting, we went to look at the bus schedule. The next bus wasn’t coming for another half-hour, so we hailed a cab and had him take us to Swizzle Inn.
The place was nearly full when we arrived, and we had to wait forever for service. We stared longingly at other people’s food and rum swizzles. Finally, a server came to take our order. After that, everything was quick: we had a picture of rum swizzles in short order, and were very happy to be alive. Their limited vegetarian options meant that I ended up ordering nachos, but they were surprisingly good. Matt had a bowl of Portuguese red bean stew and some conch fritters.
Two pitches of rum swizzles and one meal later, it was time to head back to Hamilton. We hopped on the next bus, which was gloriously cold from the air conditioning. We exited on Front Street, and got back to the hotel about 10:30.
We stopped at the front desk to request the shuttle to Elbow Beach at 11 the next day, and also find out where the ice machine was. The old guy working there took us to find the ice, which happened to be located in the same room as the honor bar. (We’d looked for it earlier in the day, but only managed to find the kitchen.) Matt mixed us some Dark & Stormys, and wrote down our order on a piece of paper for the front desk. From the looks of the spindle there, a lot of the visitors had been taking advantage of the honor bar.
We went to our room, put our beers, Scrumpies, and Matt’s WKD in ice, and sat out on the patio listening to the incredibly noisy birds who sang all night long. (I’ve since learned that they’re called kiskadees.) We ended up with a bunch of empty bottles around 12:30am, so went inside to go to bed. I was in the bathroom half-undressed when the smoke detector went off. I put my pants back on sans-underwear and called the front desk.
The same old guy appeared about 5 minutes later. We were sitting back out on the patio, unable to take the horrible screeching noise. He and Matt went in, and it seemed like they were in there forever. At one point I thought the alarm had finally been turned off, but it turned out that the kiskadees were actually just drowning it out. (Seriously, they’re LOUD.)
The alarm shut off after twenty minutes or so, and I went in to find the smoke detector laying on the cabinet. We could finally go to bed!
We got up at 9 on Saturday morning, had an equally great breakfast on our patio again, then walked into Hamilton to go to the Gosling’s liquor store. We wanted some beer to take to the beach, and to find out what unfamiliar rums they might want to sell us. The guy there told us that since we were flying out, we would have to buy duty-free at the airport, which was fine with us. They had regular and duty-free prices listed for everything, and the difference was huge. We decided to just pick up some Scrumpies for the beach.
We stopped at a couple other souvenir shops on Front Street (knowing it might be our last chance, since they’d be closed later), then headed back to the hotel to get the beach shuttle.
We ended up riding there with a group of women from New Jersey, who were pretty entertaining. We told them the story of how we got there, and they were all very excited about it. When the driver found out we were from Minnesota, he started exclaiming about the Twins, and told us how he was one a very good minor league ballplayer in the U.S. (he lives part-time in New York). He told us he’d be back to pick us up at the beach at 3:30, and we told him we may or may not take the bus back earlier, so he shouldn’t wait on our behalf.
Elbow Beach was gorgeous. Only slightly less gorgeous than Horseshoe Bay, which had cemented itself in my mind as my favorite.
We walked down to the Australian guy with chairs and umbrellas (we named him Crocodile Dundee, of course) and rented a couple. We sat and enjoyed a couple of Scrumpy Jacks, and marveled at how very hard our lives were.
We went to swim for a while, and Matt practiced his wave-punching. I couldn’t believe how clear the water was there.
We went to hang out in our chairs for a while and have another Scrumpy. There weren’t many people on the beach, but watching them was still pretty entertaining. A bit later, we went to go snorkel.
There are a couple reefs that are really near the beach, and there were way more fish there than I expected. Smiley fish was my favorite:
Once our backs were sufficiently sunburnt (we’re terrible with sunscreen) and we were starting to get hungry, we walked over to the Elbow Beach resort next door. Nobody seemed to mind that we were over there using their bathrooms, showers, and changing stalls, which was awesome. While I was changing, a guy working there asked Matt how his day was going. He said it was excellent, and the guy told him his wasn’t because Amy Winehouse died. Then he walked away, leaving Matt to wonder if that randomness was actually true.
They were preparing for a wedding reception at the downstairs bar, so we went upstairs for a rum swizzle and appetizer. They were setting up tables on the lawn there, too. I don’t even want to imagine what a wedding at the Mandarin Oriental in Bermuda must have cost.
We headed back up toward the South Road to the bus stop, wishing we’d taken the more direct route from the beach: the climb through the resort was brutal. We were very grateful, once again, for the air conditioning on the bus. We rode back to Front Street, stopped to shop at the soccer store, and then walked up to the grocery store we’d seen near the bus station. A guy was getting out of his car, and told us he was out working on his tan (he was really dark-skinned). We laughed and said we were working on burning, so he told us the solution to that was to keep moving, kind of like a rotisserie. Awesome.
Our main goal at the store was something I knew I would have to find on the island: one of my favorite snacks, Go Ahead. It’s a fruit-filled cracker made by McVities in England, and as much as I’ve searched for them, I’ve only ever found them on previously-British islands: the Bahamas and Barbados. Not only did they have them at the grocery store, but they had a NEW FLAVOR. I grabbed six packs of them to bring home. We got a couple other items for the walk, and some ibuprofin for Matt’s ankle, and headed back to the hotel, hauling a big bag of souvenirs and another big bag of wet towels and bathing suits in the oppressive humidity. I don’t think it’s possible to stay hydrated enough there. (Sometimes you have to rely on Scrumpy Jack, too.)
We dropped everything off at the hotel, cleaned ourselves up, and headed right back into Hamilton to the bus station. We were going up to St George, which is known as ‘the oldest continually-inhabited town in the New World’. And also a UNESCO World Heritage site, which makes me nerd out a lot.
The bus ride was supposed to take 50 minutes, but we got there in half an hour. We hopped off in town, and got our wander on.
I was annoyed that I couldn’t get a good picture of the state house (the most-photographed building in Bermuda), because there was a truck parked right in front of it!
We also found Sir George Somers’ heart. Yep.
We walked up the hill to see the Unfinished Church, and managed to get ourselves completely drenched in sweat again. From there, we went back down into town and out to Ordnance Island to see the Deliverance.
There were a bunch of kids jumping from the bridge, and an old guy coming out to yell at them occasionally. Also, a ton of cars would cross the bridge, make a U-turn, and head back into town. Strange.
We had a list of a few restaurants/bars we wanted to see in St George, so we went to the most famous (and nearest) first: the White Horse Pub. It was fairly early, so there were only a few groups eating out on the patio. We got a pitcher of rum swizzles, and Matt got an entree that had wahoo, snapper, and rockfish. I went with one of the few vegetarian options: a cheese pizza (I wasn’t sad about that… I really wanted pizza). The place didn’t seem to have much going on and the service wasn’t great, either (I’m sure it’s probably way better late at night), so we formulated to plan to conduct a St George’s pub crawl that would include Blackbeard’s (at a nearby resort), Tavern on the Sea, and Wahoo Bistro (the only other bar we’d seen there… the other two we had read about).
All the tables at Wahoo Bistro were full, so we grabbed the two seats left at the three-seat bar. The guy next to us introduced himself as Ian, and also introduced the bartender, Geezer, a crusty, awesome old French guy. We ordered drinks and got to talking to Ian about how awesome Bermuda was. He was British, but had been living in St George on work visas for quite a while. He said he worked as a tailor two doors down, and had only stopped in to talk to Geezer about a suit. His bag of groceries was sitting on the floor of the bar.
Ian was awesome. We talked all about where we’d gone in Bermuda, what we should come back to see, the Cup Match, and other places we’d traveled. Then we moved on to American politics, traveling the US, and finally covered the fact that Amy Winehouse had, in fact, died.
While we were talking, Ian had Geezer make us ‘the best rum swizzles in Bermuda’. We realized why that was when Matt noticed that his was no normal bottle of Gosling’s, it was overproof. They were fantastic, too. Oh, and Ian bought us the round.
We told him we were planning to go up to the bar at Blackbeard’s next, and asked how far away it was. He was a few beers in at that point, so his directions (drawn with his finger on the bar) were somewhat confusing. He finally told us he would take us out and point us in the right direction. We thanked Geezer and headed off down the street with Ian. We turned on the same street we’d taken to the Unfinished Church, and he pointed us up that way and repeated the directions. (The main thing we got from it was ‘walk through the golf course, and DON’T TURN LEFT.’) We thanked him, and he wished us well and kissed me on the cheek. I almost died of cute.
We climbed back up the huge hill past the Unfinished Church, and found the road through the golf course. We then went down the hill on the other side, and just like Ian had said, we found Tobacco Bay. It was amazing.
From there we followed the narrow road past some buildings that appeared to be abandoned, and finally saw our destination on top of a hill near the fort. As we approached, we could hear actual awesome hiphop, for the first time on our trip. It sounded like they were having a hell of a party.
We climbed up yet another hill to Blackbeard’s, and walked around the back where the music was blaring. Something seemed kind of off, though, and I noticed the sign just as a British guy approached us to tell us we’d wandered into a private party. WHAT THE HELL.
There was nothing else nearby, so we had no option but to walk the mile or so back to St George. Before heading back, though, we climbed a hill on the golf course and watched the sunset. We also watched a cat as he climbed into a sand trap, scratched around, and pooped. Hilarious.
We climbed back up the hill to St George’s and headed to the Tavern on the Sea. We got a table on the patio, and ordered a couple of Dark and Stormys. After a couple of drinks, it was getting close to time for the last couple of buses to Hamilton, so we walked up to the bus stop. The main drag was crazy all of a sudden… there was a constant stream of cars and scooters going back and forth, loud music, and people parking all over the place to go into the carryout restaurant across the street.
The bus arrived and we were on our way back to Hamilton. There weren’t many people riding, but the crowd was generally louder and more entertaining than previous rides… it was Saturday night. We approached Flatt’s Village (about halfway to Hamilton) and suddenly there was a huge line of traffic ahead of us. We saw police cars, and a bunch of cars in front of us started making u-turns and going back the other way. That wasn’t really an option for the bus, obviously.
Apparently there had been an accident on the road ahead of us, and the whole thing was blocked. Once we got nearer to the site, the police started directing cars off onto a side road to go around. The road appeared to be a beach access driveway, and was mostly sand. The bus couldn’t fit on that, either, so we were stuck waiting.
We sat there for a long time, and finally the driver got out and walked up the road to see what was up. The guys in the back of the bus were trying to convince us that the bus could totally turn around (there was no way). The driver came back and we sat, watching cops walking around and cars passing on the beach road. They were only going the one direction, though, so everyone coming the other direction was probably just sitting around, too. Finally the amusing dudes in the back said they were giving up and going to walk, so they hopped off the bus and headed up the road. Matt said, “we’re going to be seeing them again soon.”
After at least half an hour, the cops came up and started waving the bus forward. We passed a smashed-up van being loaded onto a tow truck, and the line of traffic waiting to go the other direction. There weren’t many cars there, so most of them must have given up and turned around. We got to the first stop in Flatt’s, and there were the guys who had gotten off to walk. They boarded the bus again, laughing.
Shortly after that, we picked up a big group of teenagers. They were really loud and really drunk, and made their way to the back of the bus. The driver said something to a couple of them as they got on, warning them about being rowdy. That didn’t seem to stop them, though. They weren’t really doing anything wrong, just laughing and yelling, but the driver was really annoyed by that. The massive delay plus the kids was making him angry, and he was driving so fast that we couldn’t believe it, tearing around narrow corners and stomping on the brakes. He yelled back at the teenagers to warn them again, but a couple of them just laughed.
They hit the bell for a stop, but then realized they’d pushed it too early and wanted the next one instead. The driver was having none of that, though: he pulled over and told them to get off the bus. And not just the couple of kids who requested the stop, but all of them. It took them a few minutes to all give up and sullenly leave. As we pulled away, we watched them gather on the side of the road, laughing, and suddenly a rock hit the window right by our seats. It scared the hell out of me and made my ear ring for a long time afterwards. Holy crap.
FINALLY, we made it back into Hamilton. We started recognizing buildings, but didn’t have a good sense of where we were in town. The bus stopped at an intersection, and the engine died. The driver couldn’t get it started right away, and everybody started exclaiming about it. He finally got it going again, and tore around the corner to what we realized was the bus station… having to walk from there wouldn’t have been the end of the world. As he hurtled at top speed toward the parking bay, a couple started crossing the street in front of us. The man stopped and backed up, but the lady kept right on going despite the bus honking repeatedly at her. He slammed on his brakes, barely missing her. We pulled in to the station, and everyone on the bus could not get off there fast enough.
Matt and I walked through an alley back toward Front Street, trying to decide what bar to go to. We went with O’Flanagans on Front Street, since we hadn’t been there yet. We went upstairs and grabbed a table as far as possible from the insanely loud DJ. There weren’t many people there except gathered around the bar, so they weren’t absorbing any sound. We sat there for a very long time with no indication of a server coming by, so we decided to go to the Outback Sports Bar instead. We got a table there, and Matt went for drinks. We then realized they were showing the Judah-Kahn match on giant screens all over the bar, and that almost everyone was there to see it. So we sat there and got to watch a pretty awesome fight in Bermuda, which was unlikely.
I was way too sober and about to doze off, so we decided to head back to the hotel afterwards, and get ourselves to bed. I passed out right away, but kept waking up with crazy chills from sunburn.
Sunday, we had to get up at 8:15 and finish packing. We had breakfast, and I collected a lot of new friends with bits of my toast:
We were going to miss this view every morning.
We checked out of the hotel and went out front to wait for our cab. Standing in the sun was painful, even with our sunburns covered. A driver came up, and though he wasn’t the cab we requested, he took us to the airport anyway.
He was great to talk to. Like everyone, he told us about all the awesome things to see in Bermuda, and how we had to come back for the Cup Match. He then explained how their employment program works: lots of kids go to Canada or the US for school, but they’re guaranteed a job in their chosen field when they return to Bermuda. He said that he and his wife owned a house in Nova Scotia just so their kids could go to school in Canada for resident rates.
We got to the airport around 10, and the check-in desk wasn’t open for our noon flight yet. There was a long line of people waiting, and eventually the Delta agents showed up and started checking people in. We got our boarding passes, and were told to take our suitcases with us to security. In between there and security was the duty-free shop, so we hit that up for some Gosling’s Old Rum and 140-proof Black Seal (no 151, sadly) and other souvenirs, then re-packed the bags with those items. We dropped them at security, then went to customs. (The US has their customs right in Bermuda, for some reason. I’d rather get it out of the way early, so I’m a fan!)
We stopped at the shop for snacks and souvenirs. I noticed they were selling Go Ahead there, too, so I had to grab another pack. We then went to go wait for our flight in the giant shared airport lobby.
In case you’d forgotten, this is why we went to Bermuda for free! Matt and his awesome Barritt’s cocktail:
Our flight was delayed slightly, so we boarded only about 20 minutes late. On the tarmac, and through the back door again. There was a lady who was separated from her kid on the flight, so she was asking the people next to her in our row if they could switch. Since that would split those girls up, we offered to move over so they could be across from each other. The flight attendant said he was giving us all free drinks for that, and we weren’t the slightest bit put out by that since we’d improved to a window seat anyway.
Leaving Bermuda was painful. Look at it:
We did indeed get our free drinks, plus the rest of the leftover mixer and another sealed bottle (which we saved for the second leg of the flight). We got to Boston a little bit late, and sat on the tarmac watching them unloading a soldier’s coffin from the plane we would be boarding shortly. Sad.
We got on the next flight, and were overjoyed to have an entire row to ourselves again. We had our free drinks thanks to Delta, and got home with plenty of time to unpack and hang out in the house for a while before returning to work.