Day 1 – Sunday August 2, 2015.  Welcome Princess.

This morning we woke up at 6 am.

Everyone else got up earlier, but I was adamant that I wouldn’t get up before 6 for an 830 flight.  Our driver came at 615, we were probably out of the house by 630.  This wasn’t our usual Dominick; it was a different guy, but with the same kind of car, and magically this guy managed to fit all of our bags inside the car, and didn’t have to tie any to the roof (unlike Dominick).  He was also a lot better driver than Dominick.  At one point in the ride my mother was eating jicama, and the driver asked if that’s what it was, because he hadn’t seen jicama since he was a young boy in El Salvador and couldn’t find it in any stores.  Mom told him to go to Woodmere Farms.  And then she gave him a piece.

            We got to the airport by 650, and it was packed.  The check in lines were super long.  We tried to print our boarding passes, and obviously ours printed, but the rest of the family got a message saying check in was restricted.  The line moved very slowly, mostly because they kept moving people up to the front of the line who were late for their flights.  By the time we got to the front of the line, it was 823, and the woman behind the check-in counter (Jenelle) said we were too late, you’re supposed to check in an hour before, and they had closed the check-in process.  Tzvi was pretty livid, even though he had a boarding pass. The woman called the gate and got them to reopen the check in, but then she started telling us we needed to be at the airport more than an hour before.  Tzvi kept telling her that we were, but logic was lost on this woman.  After that she asked how many bags we were checking, Tzvi said 7, she printed 6 bag tags, and when she came up 1 short had to call to get the check in reopened again.  It was a master class in incompetency.

By the time we were done we were late, so Jenelle walked us to the front of the security line and we got through pretty quickly. Stephanie and Lisa both left water bottles in their bags.  A rookie mistake.

We ran to the gate because we were late, but of course made a quick stop to buy magazines, a New York Times, water bottles, snacks, and coffee.  Of course when we got to the gate there was a long line to get on the plane and we were by no means late.

The flight was about two hours, pretty turbulent, good snacks, but otherwise uneventful.  We landed in Bermuda and made it through immigration and customs despite the pounds of dried fruit and meat we were bringing into the country (the boys brought a lot of beef jerky).

We didn’t see a bathroom from the time we got off the plane to the time we walked out to the taxi area, and of course everyone had to pee, so we had to walk all the way around the airport to the check in area just to use bathrooms.  After that we got into a huge van with a woman driver, an amazon who lifted all of our bags into the van and then drove us the 40 minutes to the hotel in silence.  It took 40 minutes because the speed limit is 20 miles an hour.

We checked in, but only one of the three rooms was ready, so we had all of our luggage go to that room.  We left the boys in the room to eat their food, and went downstairs to the Jasmine Lounge where we had chips and guac, a good humus appetizer, and Tzvi and I both had “tuna sliders” which were just tuna sandwiches on mini buns.  After that we walked around the hotel a little, went to a couple of stores, bought a weird golf hat for Zeide (even though if he ever tried to play golf it’s doubtful he’d make it off the cart), and then got the keys for the other two rooms.

Our room is the nicest.  My parents and brothers have connecting rooms on the third floor, but both rooms have two queen beds.  Our room has a king and a sofa and is on the first floor, but is nicer.  We unpacked, got dressed, and went to the pool.

We took lounge chairs under an umbrella sitting next to a couple who looked like Italian New Yorkers.  The guy had a mobsterish looking goatee and the woman was in a bikini.  The guy saw Tzvi reading the NY Times and asked what was going on in New York. Tzvi said nothing.

“Are you from New York?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Long Island.”

“Five towns?”

Yup, we found ‘em. The Jews.  The woman said she figured as I looked like her friend (read: I looked Jewish) and she heard me say “Tzvi.”  They introduced themselves as Avrumi and Sarah, a couple in their mid thirties from Marine Park, who own a couple of gluten free restaurants in Borough Park.  As the conversation went on they became frummer and frummer.  At the start there was no kippa and she was in a bikini, and by the end of the conversation her hair was in a tichel.  They’re probably super frum back at home.

My mother started talking to him about her diet, because he said his restaurants serve healthy food, except he was pretty fat so I guess he doesn’t eat there often.  They also said they want to move to Cedarhurst but they couldn’t be so far from their restaurants.

We swam a little and then went back upstairs to shower and get ready for diner.  Dinner was at The Newport, a gastropub in the hotel.  Obviously my parents were late for dinner.  Dinner was overall very tasty, but very very slow.  Our waiter was Indian so it was hard to understand him, and he clearly had a hard time understanding us.  The chef came out to talk to Tzvi about his allergy and he was very boisterous, but eager to please.

The restaurant was decorated to look like the inside of a boat, a lot of wood, fake windows.  At the center of the restaurant a man was standing in the middle of four tables preparing specialty sampler boards.  We chose a few items off the appetizer menu and he made us a nice board.  Our board had mixed olives, honey stewed tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, onion marmalade, blue cheese, and gouda.  I obviously ate none of it but Tzvi says it was very gouda.  For our mains my mother and I had a spinach salad with chickpeas, sunflower seeds, and something orange that was either squash or pumpkin.  Pretty good, but too much dressing.  Tzvi and my father both had fish and chips, and we also got sides of vegetables that were pretty good too.  The boys had mealmart.  ßFor dessert Tzvi and I shared a blueberry and apple crumble with vanilla ice cream that came in a ceramic bowl and was delicious.

Now we’re back in the room watching the Mets on ESPN, going to sleep soon.  Overall a great day, exhausting, and really looking forward to going to sleep in this very comfortable bed tonight.