Strange bars, "fake" tan and remarkably insecure banking

Bars

One of Bruce's colleagues recommended somewhere for happy hour on Friday, at the back of a little café in town. Turns out that you had to buy tickets for your drinks (a bit weird), and then there was virtually no one there (it was quite early), but there was a middle aged man doing the DJing, which was super loud. And he was doing shout outs. We left after one drink.

We then went to a 'pub', where the barman hissed at Bruce when he ordered our drinks and an elderly gentleman told us that if we were going to get divorced it would be much better for Bruce if we did so in Bermuda rather than in the UK.

"Fake" tan

My feet basically look like I've put fake tan on them really badly. I've been wearing the same pair of sandals pretty much every day, so I have odd white marks across my feet and some of my toes are half tanned, half white as ever. It looks completely ridiculous - unless I just keep wearing the same shoes...

My hair is also a bit of a disaster - it's now so curly and frizzy that I have 3 - 4 inches of extra head width on both sides of my head. Bruce now likes to tell me that I look very hairy; I have such a nice husband.

Banking

Convinced that this must be a hotbed of credit card fraud - not only do they not have chip and pin here, but no one even checks that your signature matches the one on your card. In fact, the person on the till doesn't even get a look at your card at all... you swipe it yourself and sign on an electronic keypad thing most of the time.

When the trip to the supermarket is the most productive thing you do all day...

... supermarket finds suddenly become the highlight of your day (excluding your husband getting home from work - obvs!). 

I'm not sure if it's just because we have gotten so used to just ordering from Ocado/Waitrose and it's actually been ages since I have had a proper wander around a supermarket, but some of the stuff you can buy is amazing! Fun finds include: 

• Teabags - eggnog flavour anyone?! I have also found red velvet flavour and black forest flavour - which both sound delicious too. 
• Reese's Pieces cereal - I think Bruce will judge me if I actually buy this 
• Whipped peanut butter and chocolate in one - completely delicious 
• Jelly instead of jam (guava jelly is yum)
• Jello 
• Really cool pink and white striped milk cartons - but apparently some of the milk starts out as skimmed milk, and then to get it up to the required fat content, they add vegetable oil - yuck! 
• An extensive selection of baked bean varieties - mostly including some type of bacon, but you can also buy honey baked beans, which sounds weird! 
• Appetizers for your cat - I thought the steamed tilapia sounded (and smelled) really nice, but Daisy and Bert weren't that keen. They quite like wild salmon florentine though!

There's also a LOT of out of date stuff on the shelves, so if you aren't careful, you buy ridiculously overpriced stuff that's already out of date. It's also funny what they don't have in stock - on a Monday, there is never any chicken available. 

Ridiculous things I have discovered about Bruce in Bermuda:

• He thought Jane Austen was the name of a book
• He thought water had to be boiling for it to evaporate
• He doesn't know how Beauty and the Beast ends
• He has attempted to get on a school bus on more than one occasion
• He has broken both a very expensive cat tree and our french press through a sheer lack of common sense
• He would like to be able to sing like a girl
• He doesn't know the difference between the washing machine and the dryer

The downsides to Facetiming your family

1. You have to actually look like you're listening
2. You can't really multitask
3. You can't hit mute and secretly have a conversation about something else

AND...

4. You can tell when they are actually more interested in watching The Voice (which they have on in the background) than talking to you - apparently it was super intense when Kylie was picking in The Battles round!

We love you HGTV!

HGTV is, quite possibly, the best tv channel ever. And that's even with a stack of MTV channels in Spanish (Teen Mom 2 anyone?)...

Our (my) favourite programmes include:

• Property Brothers
• Flip Or Flop
• Love It Or List It
• Love It Or List It Too
• House Hunters
• House Hunters International
• Property Virgins

These programmes are on back-to-back ALL DAY LONG. Sadly I've already hit my first repeated programme.

From these intellectually challenging programmes, we now have a good understanding of what makes a good house:

1. Massive "chef's kitchen", with granite countertops, double oven, colossal fridge and a huge island
2. A "master suite", complete with it's own deck/balcony and huge master bathroom (with a double vanity, naturally!)
3. Hardwood flooring throughout

Regardless of the rest of the property, if a house has these three things, the buyer will love it in absolutely all cases. If it doesn't have any one of these things, the buyer won't buy the house (unless it's Property Brothers and it's a "reno"). Oh, and you only need to see three houses in order to find your dream home - it's compulsory to actually buy a house at the end of the programme.

"Classic" HGTV moments to date:

1. The utter confusion of an American relocating to Dublin when faced with a sink with a separate hot and cold tap with no mixer.
2. A couple finding the house hunt too stressful actually breaking up on the programme. Obviously the realtor got them back together... and actually said that the last time she and her husband bought a house, they actually broke up for a brief period too!

I never knew that greetings cards could be so entertaining

On Friday, we must have spent at least 20 minutes browsing the greetings cards in one of the department stores... and the amount of times we burst out laughing was pretty embarrassing! 

Over here you can get cards for every possible person in your life and the overwhelming majority are filled with pre-printed gushing words to express how much you love your mom/dad/sister/brother etc. I don't think we saw any with the classic British approach of 'blank for your own message'. I was astounded that you can get mother's day cards to send to your sister, your aunt, your niece etc etc. But by far the best category was the 'former mother-in-law' category... with a suitable gushing poem inside.

I think it's fair to say that all the 'special people' in our lives will be getting rather more cards than usual over the next year... and they will be as ridiculous as possible.

When are you going to buy a boat?

Two weeks in and we finally have a reasonable amount of food in the cupboards, tv and internet are set up and we have a Bermudian bank account... but we haven't been for a swim in the pool yet and we still haven't set foot on a beach!

Shopping

Although we can get Waitrose stuff (and random ASDA things sometimes), we are definitely missing having food delivered. Without a car or bike (scooter) yet, I am going to Lindos (the supermarket) everyday to fill up my rucksack, but you need to go quite regularly anyway because fresh stuff has a short shelf life as it first has to be shipped in from the US. The prices of lots of things are also astounding - one orange pepper was $3.50, a large pot of yoghurt is c. $6.50 and a loaf of bread is around $5 - $6... having said that the wine seems to be not too bad...

Eating out

... is like stepping back into the 90s... you seem to be able to get sushi pretty much anywhere... as my mum would say it is 'all the rage'. The food is really nice though - we ate guinea chicks (like a really small lobster) last Friday and we went out for dinner last week with Bruce's colleagues and had a really nice meal (including sushi - obvs) at Harbourfront, where Bruce's boss actually has an entrée named after him!

We have also eaten in an Irish sports bar... just the type of place Bruce would never set foot in back at home. And we are getting quite fond of a dark 'n' stormy (rum and ginger beer) on a Friday evening!

Entertainment

On a similar note, the music on the radio is also very 90s... when we were without tv we had the radio on every evening and at 8pm the dj goes home and they put on a tape including classics such as Everything I Do, Nothing Compares To You and Tearing Up My Heart. And it's the same tape every night. AMAZING.

The news on the radio is also hilarious - the news cycle lasts about three days and there's basically not much of it!

Weather

It's a bit scary that it's early March and its clear blue skies and lovely warm weather outside... it's nice now, but I am not sure how we will cope in the summer months. All the Bermudians can spot the tourists as they are the people wandering around in t-shirts and shorts... Bermudians still have their coats on!

Although it is really nice today, we have also had some big storms and a good bit of 'tank rain' - that's where the rain really comes down and it fills up the tank under the house that is the water supply. It's basically like buckets of water are being poured from the sky - unlike anything we have ever seen in the UK.

Cats

Daisy and Bertie seem to settling in quite well - they haven't been outside yet, but they seem pretty happy with most of the house now and have found themselves some good hiding spots. They are particularly fond of the high shelves in the walk in closet upstairs and up the chimney (it's blocked off so they can't get out)!