Good evening and good night.

As things become more 'everyday', it seems less and less newsworthy. That's why I haven't been doing many blog entries - or "blur" entries as my mom said today.

So I thought hard and realized that there are things to write about, and those things would be all the little, cultural things that I've been learning since I arrived.

One of the biggest things is how friendly and polite the people are. I've had to re-condition myself to actually make eye-contact with people, and actually say hello - or rather, "Good morning/afternoon". They know you're a foreigner if you just use "hello". Just a few days after I arrived, I was in a park and some boys raced past me on my bike. In my head, the warning flags went off to be cautious as I would back home. However, one of them took the effort to call out "Good evening" . How polite! Even the most unsuspecting person will make eye contact and greet you, so I've had to get passed some of my Canadian ways in that sense.

Maybe I'll save the rest for other days.

Here's a couple of photos.
One is of the first cruise ship of the year to arrive. I took the photo from right by my office.
The second (you may have already seen on flickr) is a photo I took walking home from work one night.

Don't Get Burnt

It's been quite the weekend. On Good Friday in Bermuda, they have a kite festival. Thousands of people go to the beach, Horseshoe Bay to fly kites, or watch other people fly kites. I went on my rented scooter with some friends, along with the kites we'd purchased.

I haven't flown a kite since I was about 12, but I still managed to get it going for a while. However, the warning on the package to wear gloves was a good one. The string slid though my hands and burned me. The first time, I let go, and the kite went flying down the beach.

So I thought I'd give it another try. Apparently, I hadn't learned my lesson the first time and let go AGAIN. At this point, I figured it was time to call it a day with the kite. We spent another couple of hours watching other kites and chatting.

Speaking of burns... the string burn was not the worse burn I got that day. None of us put any sun screen on. 4 hours of standing in the sun = one crazy red face and lobster arms. When I woke up the next morning, I was shocked at the scary reflection in the mirror – bright red face with white eyes where my sunglasses had been.

However, it didn't stop me with my plans for the day. I made a pit-stop in town to get some SPF 45 and some soothing relief for the pain, and then headed out to the far east of the island. I did a self-guided walking tour of the historic town called St. Georges, but made sure to keep applying lots of sunscreen.

I'll be posting more photos to my flickr account soon. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/clairen)

Bikes & Hikes

Still continuing to settle in slowly. I moved to the apartment that I'll be in for the next few weeks. It's in a small condo building where the regular tenant has left the island for a few months. It's quite nice except that it smells musty from having been shut up for a couple of weeks (apparently that's normal because of the high-humidity), and there's no cable TV or internet. Let me tell you, I've been watching a lot of movies. I discovered this girl's DVD collection and last night had my first experience watching a movie that had been filmed at the theatre. At the beginning you could even see someone's head! I felt like I was doing something bad... but soon got over it!

Saturday, fueled by the fact that there was no coffee maker at the apartment, I walked into town to have a look at the shops, get a coffee and a cell-phone – hey, I have priorities. Both missions were successful, and I even saw a friend of a friend who is selling their scooter for a good deal. I took it for a test drive, leaving him in the parking lot, and managed to get lost just going down one street. He must have thought I was running off with it. Anyways, I've got first dibs on it and I think I'm going to go for it.

I got dropped off at the bike rental place and got one for a couple of days so that I could get a bit of practice. I just have to keep repeating to myself that I need to drive on the left! So far so good. Since I had the bike, I picked up some groceries, and then headed out to Spanish Point, as it's not too far from where I'm staying. Sunday morning I took another quick excursion to another park nearby before my work-mate was due to pick me up.

We had lunch and then met some of her friends to do the annual Palm Sunday hike. There were lots of people who all came out to explore a part of the island through areas you can't normally walk through – we were in Smith's parish (I think). It was very hilly and took about 2 hours, so I definitely got some exercise.

First day of work

Had my first day of work today. All was pretty straight forward. Got thrown into real work almost right away. Still trying to figure out the ropes. Guess that will take some time, but all-in-all it was good.

Anyways, took some photos this morning of where I'm staying - although I'll be moving tomorrow to a temporary apartment.

Went to a quiz night with a friend of Melinda's and some of her friends after work. Turns out, the bar was almost right underneath where I'm working. We won and the prize money paid for our bill. Bonus!


The front entrance.














Inside










View from the back

First Night

So I'm typing this from my room at the guest house in Pembroke Parish, Bermuda. I still can't believe I'm here. It's so cool here—palm trees, flowers, and everything is so green. My guest house is really nice—basically it's a bachelor with a small kitchen and overlooks the swimming pool. It's warm here at 70 degrees, but probably not warm enough to take a dip. At the office they told me that they thought it was a cold day, but I was too hot with light jacket on and was walking around outside in short sleeves.

My flight left from Detroit at 7:15am this morning. So, in order to be there 2 hours in advance, we had to leave at 4, and so had to get up at 3am! That's a new record for me. Of course, I couldn't get to sleep because my mind was way too active, so I got about 1 hour sleep.

The flight was fairly uneventful. I went Detroit to Philidelphia and then from there onto Bermuda. Originally, I was concerned about having under half-an-hour to get from one flight to the next. However, I lucked out because not only did we land a 1/2 hour early, but at the last minute, we had to dock in the gate right next to the one I was going to be leaving from.

Customs was also quite smooth sailing. Was sent to talk to immigration, and my bags were set aside for me when I was cleared. Thank goodness as all 3 were 50-70lbs each. They had me pay duty on a few of my electronics that I was bringing with me such as my laptop and camera. Someone had warned me about that though.

Next stop was into the city of Hamilton by taxi to the office. I got introduced to the other employees. One of them took me to show where to grab a sandwich which I got to eat outside overlooking the water. I got lost going trying to find the grocery store but eventually got there for some supplies. Shampoo is really expensive here. Should have bought coffee!

I start work officially tomorrow, and my boss is picking me up at 8:45. At least I won't be as spacey as I was when I met them today. I must get to bed early! I'll post some photos tomorrow.