Tag: bermuda

I am in Bermuda this week on business, and let me say that it is quite a bit warmer than when I was here in the winter. The humidity is what kills me, it is like trying to breathe underwater. The hotel I’m in has a pool, not surprisingly, but the water is probably warmer than the air. Some people might think that would be wonderful, and at another time it would be, but when you are trying to cool off it isn’t helpful.

The island is still as beautiful as ever, and it is great to see some of my old friends and colleagues again. If I get a chance, I’ll try to grab some more island photos, but I don’t have a lot of free time, so no promises.

Grabbing a bite to eat is more of an ordeal when you are a 90 year old Galapagos tortoise. On our visit to the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo yesterday, we witnessed this large male tortoise slowly make his way to a banana which was about 15 feet away. It wasn’t an easy journey. These land based reptiles lack some of the underwater grace of their marine cousins, turtles. After a few false starts, this big guy managed to get over a rock that was in his way and make it within inches of the prize. Only I guess that last step was the hardest because when he finally plunked down, he was still just short of the banana. Not to be outdone, he stretched out his neck and made a few chomps in vain before finally snagging the fruit and bringing it a bit closer to feast on it — or smear it over his face, it depends on how you look at it.

This tortoise arrived in Bermuda in the 1930s and was one of the first Galapagos tortoises to be bred in captivity.

After living in Bermuda for four months and nine days, I am disconnecting my Internet connection today and packing up my belonging to fly off to Vancouver. It is a bittersweet departure, as I am both looking forward to the new adventure and challenges of living and working in Vancouver, but at the same time, I have managed to make a number of friends here in Bermuda, and I am sorry my time here has to end.

Thank you Bermuda, your friendly welcoming nature made the past months enjoyable. And thanks to my Bermuda coworkers who also made my arrival and transition easier.

On a slightly geekier note, today is Pi Day (3.14) and Albert Einstein’s birthday. Enjoy.

Despite a forecast of rain and overcast here in Bermuda, March seemed determined to come in with a weekend of rather pleasant weather. And as my second to last weekend on the island, I tried to make it as enjoyable as possible. I ended up renting a scooter again on Saturday, which greatly enhanced my mobility and thus my opportunity to get out and take advantage of the nice days. Among other outings, it was my third weekend in a row at the beach. The water was chilly but manageable. I was thinking that this would definitely been the most often I’d been at the beach in such a short period of time, but I momentarily forgot about my five day beach odyssey in Montenegro last summer. Those beaches didn’t have sand though, so the experience is different. However I look at it, my “beach density” is at an all time high.

Other highlights of the weekend involve getting lost in a posh-looking golf course, limestone caves, a BBQ and a dinner party. You can see photos of the BBQ in my darkroom. It is the story of my life when it comes to living somewhere temporarily. It is always the last couple weeks that I start to find my place. Perhaps the prospect of leaving goads me into action. And next week my parents and brother are here to visit so it will likely be fairly action packed. A nice way to close out my time here before I fly out to Vancouver.

Sand that is. After spending the morning lazing around, I decided to take my lazing to the beach since I had a good time last week. I didn’t feel like making the arrangements to meet up with anyone, and I didn’t really know what my plan was so I just head out on my own. This time I took the bus there. Walking the last little bit to the beach from the bus, I was glad to feel that it was still quite warm. Sheltered by walls and the foliage of the island, I didn’t realize just how windy it was.

And was it ever. There were a number of kite surfers at the beach… kite surfing, and I wandered down the sand a bit to try to find a sheltered area. There wasn’t one. Well, I did find a ledge behind a large rock formation which afforded some relief, but I have never before experienced such constantly blowing sand. It was getting into everything. So I walked down to the water, got my feet wet and that was about it. Not nearly as nice as last weekend. I caught the bus back and showered. And I’m still finding sand.

I can finally say, after about 3.5 months in Bermuda that I have been to the beach. And not just to take photos, but actually swimming and sunning. My colleague Jordan mentioned that he was planning to hit the beach today, and wondered whether or not I would care to head over as well. I figured it was about time, and as long as the weather was decent, it would be a good time.

After a long hot trek over, on which I was met by Jordan, we arrived to the white sands of Elbow Beach. There we were met by another colleague Victoria. Jordan and I, still quite warm from the walk up to the beach, ended up going swimming for about ten or fifteen minutes. Afterwards we sat on the beach chairs and chatted. The clouds would block our sun from time to time, but it remained nice. The white sands and turquoise water were both quite surreal. I’m certain that this is the first time that I have been swimming at a beach in February. I have dipped my feet into the Mediterranean in December, but I would hardly call that swimming. And I wasn’t laying around in a bathing suit.

To all of my friends and family reading this amidst sub-zero temperatures, I apologize. ;)

Ultimate in the sense of last. Tropical in the sense that it could be, if it weren’t winter. But it certainly has been pleasant and I have nothing to complain about weather-wise. I am now starting to plan my relocation to Vancouver. Fortunately, I’m somewhat used to picking up and relocating, having drifted around Europe in the pursuit of my masters.

I am hoping that I am able to squeeze a bit of Bermuda into my time here. That should happen my final week, at which time my parents and youngest brother are coming down to visit me here. I am quite looking forward to it honestly. I always enjoy showing people around and area I am familiar with, and of course my parents are a captive audience. I’ve been planning an itinerary of touristy things to do when they are here… many of which I haven’t done before. So expect more photos from that one week than the rest of my time here combined. I know I have been neglecting my photos and I promised myself that if it is a nice weekend, I will try to get outside and snap some more photos.

PS: Happy Valentine’s Day…

I’m not the type of person who is always going out on the town. At the moment anyway, I tend to just work and then head home, watch a bit of TV, waste some time online or chat with some friends and family. Sometimes I’ll really geek out and program something for my website. However, this past week was quite different.

It started Tuesday with a trip to the Bermuda attempt of an English pub, the Robin Hood. Nice place, and the food is good pub fare. And it is close to work. A few of us went there for drinks, which ended up lasting a few hours. And while we usually end up talking shop, it was a nice release from work, and the norm.

Wednesday brought a dinner out at Cafe Cairo. The atmosphere there was really quite unique, at least within Bermuda. As the name suggests, the place was ostensibly an Egyptian/Middle East restaurant, and while I have yet to visit that region in person, if I were to make a guess at what I might expect, this might have been close to one end of the stereotypical spectrum. My hummus starter was very tasty, and while my ravioli was also really good, there wasn’t much to it. I finished my meal in half the time as everyone else in my party and I was actually making a conscious effort to eat slowly because I knew I didn’t have much. And anything ordered between five and seven are 25% off.

Thursday was a busy day at work, which turned into a late evening at work. Fortunately I was able to get away in time to grab a take out sub and fries from Portofino and then meet a colleague from work and his visiting friend for a trip to Liberty Theatre to catch the late showing of Cloverfield. It was a very interesting film, which apparently ran quite a nice viral marketing campaign. I may post my thoughts on the movie as a separate post. Another late night walking home, another night of just crashing into bed.

And that brings us to last night, Friday. After another crazy busy day at work which caused me to miss our weekly work “Happy Hour”, I joined a couple of guys from work for a night out. It was a quick decision as they walked by saying I should join. After the day I had, I just wanted to go to bed, but what the hell. It was mostly IT, as are a lot of my sojourns, but this time we were joined by a “user”. A new woman who arrived in Bermuda while I was in London. She will be moving back to Vancouver shortly after I head there. The Pickled Onion was our first stop, where we had a couple of rounds of drinks and a few appetizers. After that we hit up two more places, Fresco’s and Docksider’s Pub The Beach. It was a nice time and I got to experience some Bermuda nightlife in some of the places I walk by going home many nights. The others in my group, bolstered by the social lubrication and artificial stamina of alcohol, were heading into a club when I had to part ways, citing extreme exhaustion. That was exactly the case. A returned to the office to retrieve some of my things and then caught the last bus out of town, quelling some of my walking time.

All said, it was a great week, and I would like to extend my thanks to those colleagues and friends who extended their invitations to me. Cheers mates.

I should start by wishing everyone who recognizes it a happy new year. I’m not going to put up any predictions this time around because they are depressing to look at in a few years time when they still haven’t been accomplished.

I spent my New Year’s Day on an airplane. After an icy and snowy drive to the airport in Halifax courtesy of my parents, I managed to catch my ridiculously early flight to Toronto without too much issue. I knew ahead of time that my connection to Bermuda was delayed… by three hours. A small delay would have been good because I was a tad late coming in from Halifax, but the real drama started when I finally did get on the plane in Toronto.
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There really isn't much more to say. And this is a cold day here in Hamilton. I was one of the few people on the bus this morning without a jacket. Perhaps if people knew what my alternative was, they might not stare at the brave soul without a coat. But the nice thing about it being five degrees cooler than yesterday was I wasn't sweating by the time I got to the bus stop, even though I left the house later.

This post has a double purpose, the first of which is to mention that I have taken a couple of steps towards thwarting the occasional comment spam I receive. I have received more comment spam here in the past couple months than I ever did at EuropeAdventure.ca I think. But then again, maybe I was filtering there too and I just don't remember doing it. Basically I have been getting long comments full of links to various sites of questionable provenance and containing quite a few other keywords which aren't exactly age appropriate. Not that I try to pass this off as a family site, but I really don't want to offend anyone... too badly. Anyway, I have added some filters which will silently categorize comments as spam and then I can review them to see if there are any false positives and likely just expunge them all in one fell swoop.

The other note I wanted to make was that I saw "I Am Legend" last night with some co-workers. It was the first time I've been to the theatre here in Bermuda. It wasn't exactly a convenient location, but like the other couple of theatres here, it was only a single screen affair. The movie itself was good. It showed a lot of potential, but I think it fell a tad short. Literally. It was only an hour and a half and could have been more. Kind of left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. YMMV.

It happened almost a week ago now. I was having dinner with a couple of co-workers last Saturday in a restaurant in Hamilton. It was the same night as the boat parade I mentioned in an earlier post. We were just chatting and waiting for our food when Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones walked by in front of the window on Washington Lane. A few people might have turned around and looked (like me) but most people seemed unfazed. I guess they have a house here in Bermuda and people are used to seeing them.

And once again, I have ventured into work in order to keep people up to date on my life for some reason. Perhaps it is related to my need to check in with the world outside Bermuda now that I have a full appreciation for just how small it is. Today was my day of the scooter, at least my first day, I can't say how many more there will be in the future.
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Well, I'm not going to take long with this because it is Saturday evening and I'm at work. Long story short, no Internet at home now because I moved. I live beside the pool above. I was supposed to get Internet today, but my ISP — Logic Communications — had some "technical difficulties" and now I have to wait until Monday. Not the end of the world, but it seemed to me that they just forgot to process my form and it was almost the end of the day.

However, I guess that is OK, because I also rented a scooter today and I plan to explore this tiny island a bit more tomorrow. Hopefully. And now without Internet at home, there is no excuse. Photos will follow once I get the Internet rolling at home.

I did manage to take in the Bermuda Christmas Boat Parade tonight which is why I'm in town... well that and renting the scooter and supposedly picking up my wireless modem. But I ran into some co-workers and had an early dinner and then caught the first part of the boat parade. Now to leave town before everyone else tries to as well. Cheers.

Since I have started working, I have been familiarizing myself with the Microsoft product line a bit more, out of necessity, and while it will never be my first love, I came across an interesting set of computer designs today in one of my feeds. Now, I don't think that Microsoft designed these, but certainly such devices being associated with the company provides an interesting twist on conventional views.

MS Longhorn Concept PCs

Definitely some nice design there. Good to see someone stepping up to that particular plate.

On an unrelated note... a very soggy day in Bermuda today. Of course it would happen on the one day that I wanted/needed to bring my laptop into the office. Note to self, buy a rain coat.

As you can see, I have made some changes to the visual style of the site as well as changed some of the information flow. Nothing huge, but there could be more on the horizon.

The reason I am posting is to mention that tonight I am going on a cruise around the Hamilton harbour. I'm actually going for work, the cruise is being held by a company that does business with my company and is celebrating 5 years of existence. I'm actually fairly low on the pole for chances to attend, but since those slated to attend can't make it — send the new guy to get a feel for the island. It will be dark so I'm not going to be taking any photos or anything, but it should still be a nice journey.

On my way back from Hamilton today, the bus was forced to slow almost to a stop at one point because of several roosters which were running about on the road. I have no idea where they might have come from, we were in front of a large gas station which didn't seem like a place you would find roosters, but who knows... this is Bermuda. I think that there might have been a couple of hens about as well, but I couldn't see what was on the road on the other side of the bus.

After roughly three weeks I think that I am finally feeling like I am living here. I'm still not completely settled because I am still living in temporary accommodation, but I have a place lined up and that makes me feel better about things. I also took care of the other essentials when living and working in a new country, like setting up a bank account and getting a local mobile phone.

I've also managed to get to know some of my co-workers a bit better, which is inevitable given that I spend most of my day at work. And not just within my department, but getting to know a nice cross section of people working throughout the entire company. And I've also started exploring Hamilton a bit more. Just a bit so far, but it shouldn't be long to cover more of it, it really isn't a huge place. That said, I am a creature of routine. It might sound weird from someone who has lived in several different countries in the past couple years alone, but I like having a pattern. So as my pattern evolves over the next while, I will try to keep everyone who is interested apprised. But be warned that I don't really have as much time as I once did, so my updates may be a bit sparse. And I will try to refrain from as much boring introspection as I can.

Most of the time, a change in life is a good thing. It can signify growth, enhancement and the progression toward a goal. Conversely, there are negative changes as well, but often perception is key. But one thing we can be certain of is that change is different, and for some, different is not a good thing. I personally like to think I am a very flexible person, perhaps not physically that much, but emotionally and cognitively. I have lived in now five different countries in the past two years. Each move was a change, and each presented a different set of issues and uncertainties. And of course, each prepared me for future moves and future changes.
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Want to make a good impression at your new office? Stay until midnight your first day there. I guess that is what I'm doing, although I will admit that I'm not really doing much work. I am actually waiting for my friend and colleague who is working, so as to get a drive home.

But aside from this late night adventure, I am coping well with the transition to this beautiful island. Unfortunately I have the task of locating suitable housing and then further determining some form of transportation into work. I have been looking at some of the listings, and I might be willing to share an apartment or house to reduce the cost. And then depending on where I am located, that will determine how likely it is that I will get a scooter. It is looking like a real possibility.

I am of course referring to what I have packed for my move to Bermuda. I find it odd that given how much I have moved around in the past I still get quite anxious with each move. Have I packed enough? Too much? Have I forgotten something critical? I guess these are things even a seasoned traveler must contend with. And I think that I qualify as seasoned.

But then the reality of the situation sinks in, most often when I have cleared security at the airport and the resulting catharsis is quite nice. At that point, things are out of your hand, anything left behind will have to be dealt with some other way. But until then... there is always time to try to find what it is that is nagging in the back of your mind.

I haven't mentioned much about it publicly, but I figure people might start to notice, especially since the change in environment will spark a renewed interest in writing, which on its own should be suspicious. What I am talking about is Bermuda, and the fact that I am moving there Tuesday morning. My flight leaves so early Tuesday morning that I suspect I will go to the airport Monday night... meaning that I don't have much time left here.

I am moving there because of work, and while I won't go into details, I will say that it isn't permanent. As any non-Bermudian working there will tell you, they don't allow people to stay all that long. Which is fine, since I enjoy the opportunity to move around and see different things. Of course, all of this means that I am in the midst of packing and organizing my belongings into those items which I will need in the near future, things which I will want to bring over perhaps on a trip home at some point, and those things which I will likely never want again. Not an easy task, although one I have undergone several times previously because of my studies in Europe.

I suspect I will be writing a bit more often for a while as I experience a number of new things in my new location, until the day to day routine gets the best of me and I have less to say.