Last night, we had a small visitor enter our room without being invited. At first I thought we had a cockroach lurking under the desk, but on closer inspection it was a tiny Bermuda tree frog. We hear them whistling outside our place quite loudly at night, so I suppose it was inevitable that we would get a visitor. As neither Nicole nor I fancied the idea of a tree frog bouncing into our luggage, bags, or mouths overnight, we had to coax it out. This was not as simple as it sounds, particularly due to all the bouncing. It was literally bouncing off the walls. Over the course of a very ribbeting 30 minutes, we devised a plan. Using a flashlight, an empty box of crackers, and two washcloths, we managed to gently escort it to the balcony and to freedom.
The following morning, when we were trying to check out, nobody was answering the phone at the front desk (a common scenario since we’ve been here), and both doors to enter the office were locked. We then trudged around with all of our luggage trying to find an open door — eventually just throwing the key outside the main door, and leaving a voicemail to explain. I understand things may be short staffed, or in this case not staffed, but this is a pricey hotel in Bermuda, not the Inn at Schitt’s Creek. If one were to hypothetically need a taxi to get to the airport, they wouldn’t be able to request this with the front desk. Because the phone lines to the taxi companies were basically dead, I ended up needing to download an Uber-equivalent app that requested a taxi. Also, taxi fares are evidently 25% higher on Sundays. Our 30 minute ride to the airport cost about 54$.
Fortunately, despite losing about 40 minutes in our timeline, we breezed through check-in, customs, security, and had time to buy a scented candle and an overpriced t-shirt with our remaining Bermuda dollars. What is the moral of this story? Two lessons: Don’t take a taxi on Sunday, and never stay at the Fourways Inn. It will likely be Nicole’s first one-star review, something that shouldn’t be taken lightly considering we’ve stayed at hundreds of hotels including one on this trip that didn’t even have running water.
I do not intend for one of my final posts to sound so negative, but it is also important to be honest about one’s experiences. The people on Bermuda were actually very friendly and should be remembered this way. Our hotel, on the other hand, was staffed by people who most definitely were not from Bermuda, and are actively undermining the good vibes the rest of the island is trying to spread.
With all of that sorted, we boarded JetBlue without incident. Shortly after takeoff, I did notice that our airplane icon disappeared from the moving map — a glitch due to the infamous Bermuda Triangle no doubt. We landed at New York’s JFK some two hours later. No test on arrival, no temperature check, or as some in the New York area might say, “Absolute bubkes.” To be fair, there was a small group at baggage claim handing out forms for contact tracing purposes. However, once they found out we were simply transiting, they didn’t care. So that’s that. Furthermore, we tried to get a covid test right away, but it’s impossible to schedule an appointment in New Jersey if you don’t have symptoms. If one could get an appointment, the average turnaround time is 3-5 days making such test results useless. And that’s where we’re at right now. I can honestly say I felt more at ease in the middle of a crowded mall in Dubai than I do back in my own country. And that’s the tea.
passports & pepto bismol 