In a very good Ber-mood-a

I promised you loyal readers that I would be back today with a blog about Bermuda, so here it goes…

THURSDAY, AUGUST 19th

We had a 4:30 wakeup call because we were departing the Gonzalez household at 5:00 am sharp in order to get to JFK two hours before our international flight to Hamilton, Bermuda.  Most of us slept on the way to the airport.  We were all pretty tired from the night before, as Carlos cooked us a steak dinner and made us mojitos.  By the time we finished with dinner, it was 10:00, and I still had some packing to do.  I finally laid my head on the pillow around 12:30.

For those who have been following this blog, then you’ll know of my extreme disdain for LaGuardia. Hmmmmm, you’re probably anxious to know what I thought about JFK.  Wait for it…wait for it…a little longer…did you know that you share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world…OK that’s enough teasing and making you wait.  JFK was a complete 360 from LaGuardia.  It’s clean, has people that direct you where to go and English is the airport’s first language.  The terminal is booming with restaurants, bars, shops and has free Wi-Fi (a huge, HUGE plus for me as I cannot live without the Internet)!  The two-hour wait to board our plane flew bye!  Put it this way: I’d take a single engine plane from JFK instead of a first-class ticket from LaGuardia if it meant never having to fly out of LaGuardia again!

The flight to Bermuda really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  I don’t like the ocean and flying over the ocean definitely isn’t for me, but the last blog post prior to this took up the whole flight to Bermuda.  However, I really had to force myself to write that blog because of the airline we were flying.  If you have never flown JetBlue, I suggest you make that your airline of choice the next time the need for a vacation arises.  JetBlue is by far the best airline I’ve ever flown with.  There are no checked baggage fees to begin with.  Every seat in coach has extended legroom so even if the person in front of you reclines, it really doesn’t affect you.  Every seat is equipped with a television (with about 30 of the most popular channels [ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN U, ESPNews to name a few]) and XM radio.  It that doesn’t entice you, perhaps American Airlines $25 checked baggage fee and small ceilings where someone like me can’t stand up straight, does.

A typical digression in my blog, but sacrificing the opportunity to watch television on the plane to write a blog should show all my wonderful readers how serious I am about updating this blog with relevant/irrelevant (take it as you wish) content.   I really try to put a lot of effort into my writing.  Yes grammar is sometimes shaky, but as if writing 2,000 isn’t exhausting enough, going back through those words and trying to fix every single mistake is really tough, especially because I can’t wait to get the blog post up on the Splitter.  Nevertheless, it really does mean a lot for people to visit my blog.  I keep track of my stats (and they are terrible), but I see that some people are regularly checking out my site, and as long as I can make those regulars happy, I’ll continue to write.

Back to the flight…Not sure if some of you heard the news a few weeks ago about the JetBlue flight attendant who opened the exit door, used the planes inflatable slide, and escaped to his car before ultimately being arrested.  Well, our flight attendant, we shall call him Mizzy (as in miserable), kindly reminded all of us on our flight of that incident after he overheard a couple of passengers talking about it.  Mizzy got on the phone and asked all of us passengers to “move on from the incident and not mention it because he knew that particular flight attendant”.  Mizzy continued to say that he “loves JetBlue, today is a new day, so let’s not make fun of people who can’t defend themselves”.  That was the first time I can remember on all my flights that a flight attendant actually confronted his passengers!  Right then and there, I knew Mizzyhad a bug up his @$$.  But wait – the story of Mizzy gets better.

As we were beginning our descent into Hamilton, Mizzy came over to Cindy (window seat), Carlos (middle) and me (aisle) with Custom and Immigration forms.  Mizzy asked Carlos how many forms we needed.  Carlos told Mizzy that we needed three.  A few seconds passed and Mizzy again asks Carlos how many we need.  Carlos replies, “I told you, we need three.”  Well, was Mizzy ever offended at Carlos’ response and he sure let Carlos know he was.  Mizzy lit into Carlos, telling him, “Excuse me sir, you don’t need to say I told you so.  Have some respect.  There is no need for you to speak to me like that.  Does that make you feel better about yourself?  You don’t have to say I told you so to me.  That is very rude.”  WOWWWWWWWWWWWWW, I’m thinking to myself: Did that really just happen?  Carlos just got flipped out on by a miserable flight attendant!

Mizzy wasn’t done.  He turned his attention to Justin, who was in the row across from us.  Justin had his headphones in and was focusing all his attention to his TV monitor watching Green Zone and didn’t realize what had just happened.  Mizzy asked Justin how many forms he needed but Justin ignored him.  Mizzy flipped out again and yelled “I’m done with this” before storming off to the back of the plane.  Yours truly couldn’t breathe at this point because I was laughing incredibly hard.  Ahh, good times on JetBlue.

Here’s my take on the situation.  Mizzy is right and wrong.  Carlos didn’t have to say I told you so, but a flight attendant who gets offended by something so small shouldn’t be in a job where he/she deals with people.  Let’s leave it at that.

When we walked off the plane after landing in Bermuda, we had to walk on the tarmac to get into the airport.  It was extremely hot, but refreshing to know that I would be spending the next three days of my life in Paradise albeit with no cell phone and Internet access.  I can’t last two minutes without my phone and its Internet access!  How would I manage three days?

We had roughly a 45 minute ride to our hotel.  We arranged a taxi driver to pick us up at the airport.  After we all got into the taxi, the taxi driver got into what I know as the passenger side door and we began to move!  I was freaked out for a second, but then remembered the whole opposite side of the car, left-hand lane thing that they do in Bermuda.

The ride to the hotel was beautiful.  Crystal clear water surrounded us.  Flowers with buds were aplenty.  I was in Bermuda when I was 12 so I was trying to see what I could remember from that trip.  Granted, it was nine years ago, but I still remembered a lot.  In fact, Cindy and Carlos were there five times before this past time, so I quizzed Cindy how many square miles the island was.  Cindy’s answer was 26, which I knew was wrong because I remember being told at 12 years old that it was 21 square miles.  Cindy disagreed but don’t worry, you’ll find out who was right a little later.

We finally arrived to the hotel around 12:30 Bermuda time (11:30 Connecticut time).  Carlos checked us in, but of course, Justin/my room was the only room of the three that wasn’t ready.  I was a little upset at that because I like to get organized right away.  I wasn’t really fond of the thought of having to spend the rest of the day at the beach before I was able to get organized.  Anyhow, we placed our stuff in Cindy and Carlos’ room and got ready for the beach.

The whole purpose of the trip to Bermuda was because Cindy and Carlos were renewing their vows.  With that said, I felt bad for them that the view outside of their room was of tar beach.  For those of you that don’t know what tar beach is, if you looked outside of Carlos and Cindy’s window, all you could see was the tar top of the building next to the hotel.  It didn’t exactly say honey room suite.  Whatever though, at least they had a room, right?

We ended up taking the 1:30 ferry to the sister hotel of which we were staying.  After we got to the sister hotel, we took a trolley to the beach.  All that transportation was free, about the only thing in Bermuda that was cheap.  Did you know a gallon of gas in Bermuda costs $7.40?

The beach was pretty much sparkling.  The water was crystal clear and the sand almost white.  The beach was pretty small, but it never really felt crowded.  We threw our belongings onto lounge chairs, headed for the 82 degree water and never looked back.  The water felt amazing.  I could actually look down and see my feet!  I was standing on silky smooth sand!  Sorry, Long Island Sound, but I don’t think I can say the same about you.  Fish, which Los told us were Amberjacks (which they weren’t but it sounded good), swam right around us.  Don’t worry, I wasn’t freaked out; I actually tried to catch them to no avail.  Those things are fast!

We spent the afternoon alternating between tanning and swimming.  Justin and I even attempted a little one-on-one volleyball.  We left the beach at around 5:45 to catch the 6:15 ferry back to our hotel.  As I heard some random guy say on the ferry and I figured I’ll share it with all of you in case you want to get rich, but there is enough gold in the ocean to make every person on Earth have nine million dollars?  The problem is getting the gold out of the ocean this man says.  There’s a chemical in the water that needs to be extracted and that’s the issue.  I’m feeling very skeptical here but hey, you’re welcome to try it out and find out if he’s right.  Let me know how it goes!

We got back to the hotel around 7:00 and Justin and I went to the front desk to get out room keys.  The man behind the front desk told us that we were to go down the hallway, bear right, go down the steps, walk outside across the lawn, take a right, go in the door, walk all the way down the hallway – all of that just to get to our room!  Ughhh yeah, can you repeat that, sir?  In no part of the directions did he mention elevator?  OK, well whatever, a room is a room, right?  Who cares if we had to swim across the Atlantic just to get there?

Well, after our ten minute adventure, which consisted of Justin and I dragging our luggage down about ten steps and had us joking that we would need to get up at 5:30 just to be able to meet for snorkeling at 7:30 Friday morning, the wait and walk were totally worth it.  Our jaws dropped when we opened the door to room 064.  It was super nice.  Apparently they thought Justin and I were on the honeymoon (lol I’m just kidding but compared to Los and Cindy’s room and Cait and Rob’s, our room was the Ritz compared to their Motel 6).  There were two beds for all of you who took that honeymoon comment to heart.  We had duel shower heads (one that was in the center of the shower and came straight down and a hand-held one), and the shower had a stone floor.  We had a complementary Keurig machine for coffee and tea.  We had a patio that when we basically opened the sliding door, we were standing in the pool and a great view of the ocean.  We had a 36 inch flat screen!

I called Cindy and Carlos to tell them.  They didn’t believe us.  I told Cindy that we had a 40 inch flat screen and she basically hung up the phone.  The four of them wouldn’t believe all of it until they saw it.  In fact, they thought we were joking so they waited until after we went out to dinner to see our room.

We had 9:00 dinner reservations at The Hog Penny.  We left about 8:30 because it was about a 20-25 minute walk from mine and Justin’s palace/Cindy, Carlos, Caitlin, and Rob’s motel (haha).  The walk down Front Street consisted of severe déjà vu for this guy.  We walked by a giant cruise ship called the Veendam and it was all starting to come back.  That was the very same port we were in nine years ago!  It literally looked just the same!  I was trying to locate the shop my brother Jason bought his first cologne in.  It was the very same port where Jason was “watching Meet Joe Black in the library” while my mom and dad were franticly pacing the street looking for him.

Dinner was really awesome.  I started with the French Onion soup (made from Bermudian onions).  Delicious.  We drank Dark and Stormy’s (black rum with ginger beer).  For dinner, I had the pot roast.  It was by far the right choice.  I even tried some of Carlos’ bonito (fish) and Cindy’s wahoo (fish).  Not bad, not bad.  For dessert, since I don’t eat that stuff, I ordered Peach Cider.  Little did I know it was 500 ml’s and came in a can that looked like an energy drink.  They ran out of peach so they gave me pear.  The cider wasn’t bad, but 500 ml’s of it was!  I wasn’t going to finish the whole thing, but Carlos poured the rest into my also empty glass so I had no choice.

The rest of the night was spent listening to the live band that was playing in the restaurant.  The band was just two guys and this was only their second time playing together.  Judging by the way they played songs by The Eagles, Lenny Kravitz, The Beatles and amongst others, you would never have known it was only their second time playing together.  They were really good and even honored my request of “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Margaritaville”.

We left the restaurant around 11:00 and headed back to the hotel.  Carlos, Cindy, Caitlin and Rob decided that they wanted to see our so called “palace” for themselves.  The minute we opened the door for them, immediately we heard “this isn’t fair”, “how come you guys get this and we don’t”, “holy $h!+, you really do have a flat screen!”  They were literally stunned that they only lasted about five minutes before they left out of pure jealousness.  I told them they were more than welcome to sleep on our lounge chair on the patio and Rob yelled back, “I hope your air conditioning breaks!”

Cindy went right to the front desk and asked if the hotel could move her and Caitlin’s room to be in the same area as we were.  You’ll have to wait till the next blog to hear if her request was accommodated.  After they left, it was time for bed.  Lights out and I was out at around 11:40.  Wake up call was at 6:55 in order to get ready for snorkeling.

Well folks, that pretty much sums up the first day.  This blog is almost three thousand words and this was probably the least active of our three days in Bermuda.  There will be more to come.  Don’t forget, you need to see if Cindy’s 26 square mile answer was correct and if Cindy got her room changed!  Plus, you’ll read about my first time snorkeling and how that went!

Catch up with you all pretty soon for Friday, August 20^th!

-Matt-