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!