About six weeks ago my roommates and I, on a whim, bought tickets to Bermuda for Labor Day weekend. (They had visited a beach with un-swimmably cold [read: typical New England] water the day before and were determined to find someplace warm to swim.) So, last weekend, we went.
(This island getaway-style vacation was a first for me; the one thing my travels usually aren’t is relaxing [had some fun with verbs there], and I’m not entirely convinced that relaxation is actually possible for one so high-strung as myself. However:)
Bermuda is gorgeous. And riding scooters is fun.
So, things that rocked:
1. The water. Pure turquoise. AMAZING:
2. The sand. On the more coral-heavy beaches, it looked like candy canes blown to smithereens:
3. Rock formations that create natural jacuzzis:
KME enjoying the impromptu hot tub:
4. Flowers, flowers everywhere (at least until the tropical storm hits this weekend):
The camera didn’t really capture the haunting dusky purple of this plant:
5. The Horseshoe Bay sand sculpture contest:
6. A conversation with a native Bermudian, part of which went as follows:
Native Bermudian to me, with concern: Have you put on sunblock? Because you’re really white.
(Thanks, Danish/English progenitors!)
(My roommate may have used the PicMonkey “spray tan” effect on this picture–I think I look darker than I really was.) (This was the first day; I do now have some respectable color.)
6. The Swizzle Inn, where portion sizes are extravagant, to say the least. Here’s KJS’s veritable vat of pasta:
And KME’s giant plate of nachos (this was the JUNIOR size; the poor girl needed help eating them [sigh]):
7. The sunset over Elbow Bay (the colors in this picture have not been modified [as far as I know]):
8. Playing in the rough surf until the lifeguards made everyone get out (the one I talked to said they’d already done a dozen rescues that day). (The video of this is too big to upload; as I’m technologically declined I’ll have to get KME to fix it.) It was fantastic. I had to really dig in several times to avoid being sucked out into the ocean (don’t worry, Mom and Grandma; there wasn’t any real danger), and every time a wave came in it would push me forward several steps, despite sincere efforts on my part to stay planted. At times I was standing in delicious waist-deep swirling turbulence; the water felt like a living force. SO. FREAKING. COOL.
(I told KME and KJS how much I loved this part; their answer: “You would.”)
9. Riding scooters up and down the island:
10. The random swing we found hanging from a tree (and we all tried out):
There were a few things that didn’t go so well; look for stories about those, most likely with (only semi-)disguised swear words (you’ve been warned), very soon. But altogether it was a lovely vacation, and I did manage to relax a little bit, and if you ever have the chance, and you can talk yourself out of thinking it frivolous (I’m such a freaking ISFJ sometimes), and you have some good sunblock, you should TOTALLY go.
