So here it is, Friday afternoon, a few minutes before 2pm and I’m searching for things to do.  [PORTION OF PARAGRAPH REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF MY EMPLOYER]
Anyways, I guess I shouldn’t be complaining. Other than the [ISSUE DESCRIBED WHICH HAS BEEN REMOVED], things are amazing here. Last night, I went and got my hair cut and colored. I think my jaw must have hit the floor when the stylist who was nothing short of an expert, charged me $75 (+ tip) when the same request would have set me back $250 or more in Calgary. After getting home, I finally got our home network “completed” (I put it in quotes, because we’re geeks; it’s never going to be completely complete) by getting the second wireless router configured and hung in our front hallway, which now gives the entire house near-100% signal no matter where you go, and will let laptop users roam through the house and not even have their connections interrupted momentarily (God love WDS and it’s connection hand-off features). And then, to top it all off, this afternoon, Matt and I went for sushi at this specialty market and oh boy, it was good. I had 6 bits (I don’t know what they’re called; 6 units of salmon wrapped in rice and kelp) and after enjoying it throughly, I ended up going back for another 6. Who would have thought that I’d end up enjoying fish, and raw fish at that?

Tonight there’s some party going on at the dockyard which should prove to be interesting, if not a little dangerous (drinking and large bodies of water just don’t seem to go well together in my head). Unfortunately due to the fact that Bermudians are incredibly religious, not only will we not be able to drink tomorrow (Veteran’s Day here), but we won’t be able to drink on Sunday either, meaning that we have to pack enough in tonight for 3 nights. :) The reason we can’t drink on Sunday isn’t because we have to work on Monday (we don’t), but alcohol is not legally allowed to be sold on Sunday anywhere on the island, due to it being the day of Church. Alcohol is normally sold at grocery stores (there aren’t really any “liquor stores” here), but they completely rope or drape off the entire liquor section on Sundays.

If I don’t wake up still as drunk as when I go to bed tonight, I will be incredibly surprised, and probably a little disappointed in myself. Pray that I don’t end up in the hospital, or on a different island or something!

LET THE GREAT EXPERIMENT BEGIN!

PS: I’m gonna go out picture taking this weekend, assuming the weather is good. And this time I’m going to take some actual pictures, and not just snapshots.

Well, as promised, here are the pictures of Bermuda that I’ve taken so far. Most of them are more snapshots, since the weather hasn’t really been good enough for a long enough period of time to just go shooting, but I will continue waiting for a good day to go out and take some nice pictures.

Enjoy!

They say “time flies when you’re having fun.” Given that tidbit of information, I can safely say that time has not only flown, but it’s gone into space and reached the edge of the universe. At noon local time today, I will have been here for exactly 15 days and I can say with all my heart that the only unit of time that it feels like I’ve been here for 15 of is possibly minutes.

One of the reasons that are helping me have such a good time here are the people. Bermudians have a custom where you pretty much say “good morning” to everyone you see. Whether it’s your great grandmother, or someone walking down the street that you’ve never met, you better give them a “good morning” (or afternoon, or evening, as the case may be). They also expect you to say it with enthusiasm, so “good morning…..” is out, “Good morning, Ricardo!!! How are you today?” is in. It sounds strange, but after getting in the habit of being happy to everyone you meet is not only infectious, but it can actually make a person genuinely happy, as they begin to believe they’re happy even if they may not be. I’m no shrink, but this sounds like a much better way to cure depression: drop the patients in Bermuda for a couple weeks.

Another reason that makes time go by so fast is the scenery. I know I’ve talked about it 15 times before, but I just can’t get over how beautiful everything is down here. Being able to literally drive to work next to the ocean, and still be surrounded by palm trees and plush greens on the other side, you can’t help but be amazed at how lucky this little island in the middle of the Atlantic was to be discovered. Between the view of the natural landscape and greenery, and the incredibly unique architecture, it gets hard to come work some days as it seems like all your brain wants to do is take it all in.

I could on and on about the same things over and over again; just writing it out is more than enough to give me a mental picture that will last for hours. I also don’t want to bore my readers (thank you, the both of you) so I will try not to rehash things I’ve already said.

As some of you may know, here in Bermuda, we drive on the left hand side of the road. Call it the “wrong side” if you must, but after scaring myself half to death by worrying how different it would be, I’ve realized that I may have been overreacting just a little. A mere two weeks after arriving on this tiny rock, I’ve already caught myself watching American/Canadian TV and movies and thinking to myself “Dude, they’re driving on the wro—wait a second…..” Yes, that’s right, I’ve become that accustomed to it in 2 weeks.

Anyways, I should probably get back to work, but before I do, I found a much better map of Bermuda, so I marked the most important places on it, to give you a better idea of how things are laid out.

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