A few stories about my first couple of weeks.

Since I've been here 3 weeks, I guess I'll have to share 3 stories with everyone. Not necessarily 1 for each week, but 3 good ones.

1. My first happy hour at the Princess Hotel.

So, there is this big hotel just outside of downtown Hamilton that has a glorious happy hour every Friday night over the summer. It's called the Hamilton Princess Hotel, and it's this giant pink building on the water.
The first time I went was my first Friday on the island. After a week of homesickness and being stuck in a really small studio apartment with no TV or internet, I was going a bit crazy, but Caroline (a fellow violin teacher) invited me to come out with the other teachers to go to happy hour and then to dinner. I was really happy to get out and experience some island nightlife.
I arrived at the Princess around 7ish, right when Caroline showed up. We walked through the lobby and around back to this awesome outdoor area right on the water. There were several hundred people hanging out, drinking, and listening to the live band that was playing.
As soon as I got outside, I decided that I needed a drink. Happy hour here is really interesting. Instead of bars where you pay the bartender individually, you first walk up to a small table where you purchase some tickets. Each ticket is good for one alcoholic drink, whatever you want. Then you take the ticket to one of the bartenders at one of the many other tables that line the patio area. Caroline and I decided that I needed to try the quintessential Bermudian drink, the Dark 'n Stormy.
The Dark 'n Stormy is made from Ginger Beer and Gosling's Dark Rum (made in Bermuda). Now, there are 3 things that I detest immediately of this drink - Ginger Beer (too strong a taste for me), Dark Rum (we usually don't get along too well), and using the abbreviation "'n" for "and". But, I decided that I had to have a Dark 'n Stormy. As much as I hate the ingredients alone, the Dark 'n Stormy is DELICIOUS! It's really hard to describe what it tastes like, but it ends up being a bit sweeter than either the Ginger Beer or the Rum - completely unexpectedly great.
Anyway, so we (me, Caroline, and Charles, who showed up a bit after we got there) hang out for a few hours, drink a bunch of Dark 'n Stormies (each drink is only something like 6 dollars), and head off to dinner with the rest of the teachers. Let's just say that the night ended with my first taxi ride out of town, and the next morning ended up with me drinking the remainder of my Powerade when I woke up around 1.

2. The guy that fell off of his scooter.
My second night in town, Caroline called me up and invited me to go out for a drink downtown with a couple of the teachers. Eager to meet my new colleagues, I was really excited to meet them and hang out. We chilled at a bar downtown for an hour or two, and then headed home around 10 or 1030. On our way home, I was focused on trying to kind of figure out my way from downtown to Paget, as I'd have to drive it the next day.
As we're coming off of Front Street, Caroline says "Oh shit! That guy just fell off his bike!" So we make a U-turn as soon as we can and Caroline comes to the guy's rescue. She's trained in First Aid, so she pulled over and sprang into action. As I'd had a few drinks, I stayed in the car so I wouldn't get in the way. Apparently the guy was swerving all over the road behind us (read: drunk, probably) and had hit the curb, fell off of his bike, and smacked his head onto a tree. He was breathing at the scene, but was apparently not really responsive.
Lesson #1 - don't drink and scoot, or you'll end up like that guy.

3. This isn't so much a story as it is unfamiliar British words that I've heard the past 3 weeks (and their meanings, as least I hope so).

Driving words:
Give way = Yield
Overtake = Pass
Dazzle = distracted (as by someone with high beams coming towards you)
Zebra Crossing = a crosswalk, I think
Pedestrian Crossing = Crosswalk

Time is especially weird:
Half nine = 9:30
Then they all use "quarter past" or "ten to" instead of (for example) 9:15 or 9:50

And don't even get me started on musical terms:
crotchet = quarter note (I think)
quaver = eighth note
then you start adding demi- and semi- to quaver to get notes of diminishing value. (I think)
semiquaver = sixteenth note (I think)


And of course the spellings of things here is the Queen's English:
Centre
Manouvre
Colour
etc, etc.

And finally, the dates:
Generally, it varies, and places specify which date format to use, but instead of
mm/dd/yy
it is
dd/mm/yy

so my birthday would be 26/03/08.

I don't think I'll ever get used to that.

Anyway, 3 stories (sort of) of island life. I'm sure I'll have about a million more after this week - it's the first week of teaching group lessons in the schools.