Hustling

So for the next eight weeks on a Monday eve, I will mainly be hustling. Not 'making money doing something slight shady' as defined by Urban Dictionary, but dancing, 1970s NYC stylee disco. And it goes a little something like this...

Despite discovering many, many skill strengths in lesson one, I have discovered one major 'development point', I simply can't be led. I think this stems from listening to far too many Alanis Morisette and Destiny's Child lyrics. I'm all "the dance shoes on my feet, I bought 'em" when I should be all submissive. I need to learn how to be twirled... without trying to take over.

Meanwhile in salsa class I have progressed since xmas to the dizzy heights of 'Beginners 3' (thanks to Sabor Dance School!), which basically means I'm almost ready to be a backing dancer for J'Lo or in reality I can spin without falling over or head-butting my partner and I sometimes even end up on the right foot. Genius!

There is something about being an expat that makes you want to upskill even if the hustle or salsa are not particularly in-keeping with Bermudian tradition. Although I don't think gombey dancing is really me.
I'm also taking tennis lessons but more of that another time. Something to look forward to y'all.

For now I must rest these sweet dancin feet as on Saturday I am mainly walking for 8hrs in the annual Bermuda End-to-End, a mere 24.1 mile stroll from East to West. Right on that note, off I go for my nightly surgical spirits foot bath. Thou shall not blister!!!!

Peppercorns and tasers

Two of this week's headline news items demonstrate how (really) old and new co-exist here on the island, with the annual Peppercorn Ceremony and the introduction of taser guns by the police force.

(Thanks for the pic Bernews, more pics at: http://bernews.com/2010/04/photos-peppercorn-ceremony/ )

I've never seen anything like this Peppercorn ritual and I challenge anyone to name a stranger custom, although admittedly morris dancing and may poles are pretty weird. For the last 398 years, spectators in their hundreds and a few Ministers turn up to Bermuda oldest town, St. George's, to watch. Pretty impressive considering Big Brother lasted only ten years in the UK after the format become tired and audiences dwindled. They come to see Freemasons pay the Governor of Bermuda for a year's rent of Old State House, with... yes you've guessed it, a peppercorn! Pretty good deal considering the rest of us pay around $1,500 a month in a flat share. The strange episode was marked with a 17 shot gun salute.

And with that seamless link I move onto my next item, stun guns! One in every three police officers in Bermuda will now be armed with a taser as local gang warfare gets out of hand. I don't think it will be long before they have to up the stakes even further. In court this week was the case of a guy allegedly attacked by six men with a cane, a machete and an electric drill in some kind of revenge mission. Apparently he had holes drilled behind his ears and in his chest. When I first heard this on my radio alarm, I was still half asleep and thought I was hearing things but alas it was real and took place about ten miles away. Thanks for tuning in, don't have nightmares and do sleep well...

Passage to paradise

It would seem strange to write anything this week without referencing the great big Eyjafjallajökull disaster. According to wikipedia it's pronounced ˈɛɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥ - is it just me or is that not particularly useful information?! Yep, people were stranded in this little corner of the world too. We have two extra bodies under our roof this week; the parents of one of my housemates en-route (eventually) to bonny wee Scotland. But, there are worse places to be stranded right. Now... I am going to bring in one of the most overused quotes about Bermuda ever but hey it's the 100th anniversary of his death today, so it's ok I have a news hook:

“You can go to heaven if you want. I'd rather stay in Bermuda.”

Mark Twain

It may as well be heaven as passage to paradise doesn't come easy. Ash cloud refugees aside, immigration rules and regs for this little island are watertight. You get granted a maximum three weeks in heaven on earth on a tourist visa and if you want to work here as an expat you need to be granted a work permit before you land. You can't just rock up and seek casual bar work here, no siree!

Last week, they reluctantly upped the maximum term for work permits to ten years and then had a secret squirrels, Bermudians-only meeting (entry controlled by wristbands!) to talk about it. Ever get the feeling you're not welcome somewhere? Most expats seem to get a three year pass though and attempt to renew. There are tons of us expats here... we hold one in three jobs on the island. Bermuda is the third largest insurance hub in the world, after New York and London, and just can't home grow enough insurance experts to support itself. Anyone else spotted the curious contradiction in terms... heaven-like insurance hub. Hmmm I know I hadn't imagined being surrounded by insurance brokers when I go through the pearly gates.


Bermudians who are shacked up or married to expats are now being made to pay for their lifestyle choice as the Government announced recently they must get a $1375 license for the privilege or face prison or up to a $1million fine (no joke!).


Once you're in, life as a guest worker in Bermuda is far from a walk in (the very pretty) par-la-ville park. No, I don't spend my lunch hour at the pool bar, contrary to what one of my reader's overactive imaginations (Big Jen that's you!) would have them believe. I've never worked as many hours in one week as I have clocked up here and I've worked in the big smoke. There is this mentality that so long as you're not 'off-island' then you're on call to work weekends as on a 24-mile long island, you are never more than an hour away from the office. Boo.


Is it worth all the hassle to spend every weekend for six months of the year on Bermuda's pink beaches as the turquoise waves tickle your toes? Call me shallow, but hell yeah, heaven's worth it!

Bermuda on UK Tour

This was the week that Bermuda went on tour in the UK chasing the British holidaymakers' pounds to supplement its flatlining tourism industry. Pictured above, in their Bermuda Shorts no less, are various reps of the Bermuda tourism department and leisure sector outside Cafe De Paris (and fittingly KFC, given the Bermudian love of fried chicken!) in the big smoke's Piccadilly Circus. I can only imagine how that went down with the London pavement pounders, but I bet even the most miserable Londoner could muster a small grin on seeing this scene. There is just something about Bermuda that makes you smile, even in London!

It's funny that there aren't more Brits abroad here, seeing as the island is the UK's oldest and largest overseas territory, but the majority of tourists tend to be from the east coast of the States. Bermuda is part of U.S. popular culture... in Sex in the City, Charolotte and Trey honeymooned here, in Friends, Rachel and Barry holidayed on the island, as did bests buds Michael Jackson and Macaulay Culkin (!) and Bill and Hillary Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, was conceived here. I reckon if you asked most Brits where Bermuda was they would probably say the Caribbean and many close friends ask me how life is in Barbados or The Bahamas! It's actually 1,000 miles from the Caribbean, on it's lonesome in the Atlantic.

Bermuda isn't only somewhere between the U.S and the UK geographically, but also in spirit. OK, so there are red post boxes, we drive on the left, have an M&S and can buy Waitrose goods in the supermarket but here is where the similarities end! They even stopped flying the Union Jack in Hamilton Harbour last year, for some very dubious reasons may I add, which I was most upset about. There is also good ol' British Conservatism circa 1985 here. They struggle to understand the concepts of cross-dressing and homosexuality, and you'll see more twinsets and pearls than you will bikini tops and tattoos. Although I still feel like a English (wo)man in New York rather than right at home in a colonial England. Much to my own annoyance, I've started saying cell phone, trash, groceries, gas station and my trousers are now my pants and my bag is now my purse. All very confusing!!

I did however have a very English summer afternoon today attending the highly popular Annual Exhibition, formally known as the 'ag show', a once-a-year big deal for Bermudians. They turn up in their thousands at the Botanical Gardens to watch pig racing, pony jumping, goats being milked and the odd Gombey dancer (you know it's a pretty big deal if there's a Gombey around). I have never seen so many people in one place on the island before and soooo many cars. It really did feel like a trip to the Suffolk show in my younger years. There was the same road jams and many, many car parking stewards, all offering different directions, to give you that awesome sense of occasion.

Getting back on topic again, more Brits really should come here!! It's as beautiful as it is wonderfully weird and in all of my days, I've never seen anywhere as paradise found as Elbow Beach. Louise Nurding was onto something when she named her solo album after it, shame the album didn't live up to its namesake in stature. She and Jamie Redknapp honeymooned in Bermuda, so there is a couple of Brits that know where it is...

A mobile library, super-sized

Today on my lunch break I went shopping for a new book. Zzzzzzzz. What's interesting about that I hear you cry. Well, it was on a 132 metre cargo ship so that's a little out of the ordinary isn't it. Meet Logos Hope, the world's largest floating bookstore! This project brings a whole new meaning to the term mobile library. I remember the days when a mini-van arrived at school and it was exciting. That wasn't even that long ago as I'm still under 30, just.

Staffed by a multi-cultural volunteer crew, Logos Hope sailed into Hamilton Harbour last night from the Bahamas. It basically circumnavigates the globe selling books at lower than usual retail costs in the hope of spreading access to knowledge. How nice! Naturally the local bookstores were a little peeved with the competition, as it's a bit like Borders opening up next door, or the closest thing to it as Bermuda keeps the big chains out. No Golden arches or Starbucks here. Only Colonel Sanders was lucky enough to sneak in with his greasy buckets, owing to the Bermudians' love of fried chicken.

It's times like these when I am reminded a live on a tiny island dependent on imports. Bermuda imports 80 percent of its food supplies and quite often you can tell that iceberg lettuce has been at sea for a week, it looks sea sick, a funny shade of green and a little limp. The jolly green giant has failed to seal the freshness into this supply chain.

Talking of untimely deliveries... two babies were born in cars on the island this week. One of them outside a bank on the main strip of bars at closing time in the wee small hours of Sunday. I was tucked up in bed, but if I had witnessed that scene I might put it down to a extra strong Rum Swizzle and think my eyes were deceiving me. Perhaps I did really see a giant, fairy-lit onion fall from a crane or HMS Bounty, star of Pirates of the Caribbean, docked in the harbour. Actually both of these are true. O'er my hearties, the strangest things happen here in the Bermuda triangle!!

The End (to End)

Today I completed a 16 mile walk in preparation for Bermuda End-to-End on May 1. Considering the full route is 24 miles, I'm a little worried at this stage. But my walking amigos, Carolyn and Jen, tell me that there is food and drink (mine's a dark 'n' stormy) every ten minutes so that's ok then. Everything is going to be fine.

This is my second mammoth training walk and I've come to the conclusion that long-distance walking endeavours are seriously under-rated as a poor/unfit man's marathon BUT I dispute this. Yes, running is completely knackering, so I've heard on the grapevine and I live with three runners so that grapevine speaks to me very loudly; but the pain and misery ends relatively quickly. This walking malarky lasts for hours and, somewhere around the two hour mark, your hips are crying out for some WD40 and your inner thoughts communicate only in expletives.

I thought I was prepared today, having learnt some very important lessons about blister control following last weekend's jaunt and that Baz Luhrmann wasn't wrong with his advice about sunscreen. This week I have been mainly walking with a limp whilst bits of my forehead surround me. I even caught sight of my nose peeling out of the corner of my eye during a client meeting - very professional! However we were missing a vital element, H2O. Pretty important considering it's been in the high 60s today. As it was a nice day, the owner of the only garage for a five-mile radius on our route decided he had other places to be and shut up shop. That Shell sign was like a mirage of the worst kind. I could sense it was getting serious  when our usual anglo-american banter about how phrases like fanny pack translate and my mouth started feeling like a thick-pile carpet shop. Luckily MarketPlace came to the rescue.

For most of our route we followed the off-road path of the long-gone Bermuda Railway as this island lacks pavements but not crazy drivers blatantly flaunting the 35kph speed limit. The Railway lasted only a mere 17 years from 1931 to 1948. Apparently it was massively over-budget and unprofitable, not surprising as most of it seems to run off-shore, hence it's demise. It does however make for a handsome walking trail though these days and I have to say after three years of the London commute I'm not that upset to not see a train carriage for a while :-)

The worst bit is actually the end when you stop and everything ceases up like early rigor mortis. Thankfully my trusty steed, Dame Kelly the scooter, was there to carry me home. After half an hour in the bath and half a hour in the pose of a (crying) child I was able to shuffle enough to fix myself a nice Corona and reach the sofa, where I shall stay for many hours.

Easter on zee island

Easter weekend marks my rise from everyday life to the bloggersphere. I can't call it a resurrection, despite how timely that would be, as hey it's my first time, but I'm here in a new spirit to share expat tales from Ali in wonderland! It's been a mad easter bonneter's tea party on the island, complete with bizarre traditions, plenty of characters, overshadowed by evil.

We feasted on fish cakes in hot cross buns (still a little unsure about that one), drank gallons of dark 'n' stormy at the first ominous booze cruise of the 2010 season and flew kites on Good Friday at Horseshoe Bay as a symbol of the ascension of Christ. 

I thought it a perfect time to play the religion tourist and attend my first Catholic mass. Having been christened but not being a church goer, it was a new and interesting experience for me! Seeming as Bermuda boasts more churches per square mile than anywhere else in the world, I kinda wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so went along with my Scottish housemate. Such a warm atmosphere with a chorus of "happy easters" throughout the sunny church. There is also something really heartwarming about the phrase "peace be with you", a notion that a few individuals could do with embracing across the island.

This weekend saw the 41st and 42nd shootings of 2010, yep that's almost one on every other of the 94 days of the year we've had so far. Number 41 was particularly shocking, in broad daylight at a school's  fun day as the victim was flying a kite with his children. Sure there's nothing new about, seemingly gang-related, gun violence but what makes the figures particularly shocking in this case is the fact that Bermuda's population is estimated at around only 67,000, so that's one shooting for every 1,593 people. Compare that to New York, gang capital of America, which has seen 293 people hit by bullets this year, one in every 279,863 of its 8.2 million population. Scary huh. That said, until an expat is involved I don't think it will become a real life threat for our overseas workers' community, although it is beginning to look like only a matter of time...