Robyn's Wanderings

Bounjour and welcome to this week’s blog post from Nicola Arnold…..all about Paris. There could not be a more appropriate follow to Quebec City so voila:

Voici ma bande annonce pour mon Paris je t’aime à moi. [Here is my teaser trailer for my very own Paris je t'aime]

Parisian pastries

Last night, we ate a marvelously rich & succculent French supper at Batifole in Toronto. ‘We’ being a friend from my university with whom I studied abroad for a year at Université de Savoie in Chambéry, France a few years ago. What better way to toast to our new working-worlds in the city and to reminisce about the days we spent hiking in the French Alps than to sit down for a meal that included such quintessentially French orders such as:

* Salade d’Endive, Prosciutto, Copeaux d’Emmental de Cave, Vinaigrette aux Figues.
* Le Cassoulet Royal; Confit de Canard, Saucisses Fermière, Poitrine de Porc Rôtie.
(Plus one of the daily specials that I am forced to describe less eloquently: Rhubarb tart with flaky pastry, shallots, cheese and garlic).

The venue? Authentique. The dishes? Délicieux. The memories? Nostalgique. The experience? Formidable!

A little quirk of mine? I am often aware (thinking to myself) of where I bought the that clothes I’m wearing. Last night, I was wearing a sweater that I had bought in France at one of my favourite shops – . Black & grey, with mismatching buttons. In university, if I was sitting for a French exam, I would try and wear something that I had bought in France for the exam. Authentic good luck would then come my way, n’est-ce pas?

Scarf? French. Jacket? French. Jeans? French. Boots? French.

To add to the French-ness of the evening, the easy-to-read-on-the-subway book in my bag was a comic-book style story about an American mother & daughter who live in Paris for 6 weeks in Jan/Feb 2007… full of hand-drawn doodles, funny commentaries on daily life in France, photos and of course food & wine!

Where am I going with this?

Yes, I’ve previously mentioned my experiences studying & living in France… A year in Lorraine. A semester in Paris. A year in Chambéry. But this January marks the 5th year that I was in Paris for a semester. And so far, for every day of 2012, I have thought about those 4 Parisian months. Lots of people love Paris… and lots of people don’t (Too dirty, not kind to English speakers, didn’t meet the hype I imagined, etc.).

But I lived there. Four months only, perhaps, but I had a neighbourhood. I bought groceries. I ran errands. In Paris.

See "Cite Universitaire" in the 14th arrondissement (center, bottom)? I lived there for 4 months.

If you are a fan of any of the following American tv shows, you may know that their dramatic endings involved (potentially) running off to Paris:
- Rachel Green lands a job with Louis Vuitton in Paris in the Friends finale
- Carrie Bradshaw battles between New York vs. Paris in the Sex and the City finale
- Jerry, George, Elaine & Kramer head to Paris for “one last hurrah” in the Seinfeld finale

Amongst others, I’m sure. City of romance, of lights, of history, and of baguettes! 

The Eiffel Tower from the Arc de Triomphe/Champs-Elysees

A la semaine prochaine, amusez-vous bien mes amis! [Until next weekend, enjoy yourselves, my friends!]

Rowing?

“Are those….? No, it couldn’t be.”

“What?”

“Look! The river is frozen and those crazy people are rowing across it!”

So Quebec City had started on a very cold, bitten start, but after some serious coffee breaks and some shots of Jagermeister, things were starting to look up!

Well at least it seemed better as we looked up at the Fairmont Frontenac and the rest of old Quebec City. That’s because we were in the lower town and loving it!

Talk about night and day.

Visiting the lower city

Bienvenue a Quebec City….finally!

At least that should have been the sign greeting me as I trudged from the snow of the Plains of Abraham, past the citadel and down to the cobblestoned streets of this city.

This lower city, as far as I am concerned, is really the only part of the town that counts! Ok maybe that’s harsh, but these streets are so darn cute!

Wandering the little streets of the lower, old town.

Sure their is old Quebec City and then there is the lower part of old Quebec City! Even better? Well starting next week is Quebec City’s Winter Carnival! Yes, on January 27th my misery that was the Plains of Abraham (visit the previous post with the snow covered land) will have an Ice Palace, the nightlife will awaken and there will even be a canoe race?! Yes, a canoe race. Go figure.

But back to my visit. I did not have a winter carnival, but in the lower city I did enjoy the tiny pubs in old wine cellars and all of the restaurants named after animals.

Yes, we could not visit Le Lapin Saute (sauteed rabbit), but Le Couchon? Oh yes, we could eat with the pigs. Luckily it was amazing food and worth the wait. Ever had a pulled pork, burger? Well, I have now.

Outside Le Lapin Saute

But the best way to visit Quebec City? Well it certainly wasn’t rowing across the St. Lawrence River! But it was crossing the St. Lawrence River….by ferry.

Yes, we boarded the ferry and thoroughly enjoyed watching the ice flows break on the bow of the boat. And making it more perfect? It was during sunset.

Watching the sun set from the ferry

Ahhh…watching the ice and snow go by while warm and cozy on the ferry was the way to go! Of course when we arrived back onto the “mainland” there was little that could keep us from leaving the beautiful lower town, then maple syrup.

Before we could leave, however, there was of course the famous Fresque des Québécois, which tells the story of Quebec City.But can you tell where the mural ends and the real people end?

Murals of the City

Wanderings beyond this beautiful image we continued back to the Maple Syrup museum and managed to buy all of the maple salt, coffee and syrup I needed to return to Bermuda and try to brib…..I mean welcome the immigration guys (remember the camera?).

Ok well that is the end of Quebec City. Would I return? Probably not in the winter….ever again!

Au Revoir!

Driving to.......Quebec, City

For nine hours. This photo is what I watched for almost nine hours.

Oh, sorry. I should also add that this was during a good patch. Why? Well as you can see…you can see! As luck would have it, almost as soon as we hit Montreal the snow/sleet/hail (ok, not hail but the other two) started pelting us with all of their might.

What does a Bermudian driving in this kind of weather do? Well defer to their Canadian travel buddy of course! One too many close calls with big trucks and I was done.

But I get ahead of myself.

As you may recall from my immigration posting a few days ago, I had left the sanctuary of Bermuda and it’s 70 degree Fahrenheit weather to travel to Toronto for the Christmas to New Years break. Not satisfied with six days in Toronto, my boyfriend and I decided to also fit-in a three day trip to Quebec City.

Why not, right? Wrong. This is the tale of the three day trip that really should not have been and it all started at the rental counter.

Patience is a virtue that I don’t often exhibit, but I calmly waited as the couple in front of the couple in front of us took 40 minutes to organize a car they had already booked. I even waited as the next couple took 20 minutes to organize their car.

But when it came to our turn and the female from the very first couple decided to return to the counter, interrupt our conversation and ask something trivial about GPS (if you are too lazy to open a map then you most definitely should not be cutting in front of me), I had, had enough.

“Sorry you were saying we could put two drivers onto the car rental?”

“Uh…” said the embarrassed salesman, “Yes. Sorry mam, I need to finish with these customers first.”

Yeah you do, but “first female” did not seem impressed. Oh well.

Seven hours into the drive and we could see the home stretch until Montreal raised its roadworks and complicated the entire situation. An hour, multiple U turns and the snow started…..oh crap.

Nevertheless, with sore bums and tired eyes we finally find our resting place. It appears to be a cozy, little inn that is close to restaurants and shops.

The only problem? At 9.30 p.m. the only place nearby that would serve us was the grocery store where the lonely workers are sweeping the mud covered floor for the millionth time. No fear, we can picnic.

At 3.30 a.m. I realized that something had been picnicing on my legs! Bed bugs.

Now, I have traveled around the world. I have stayed in hostels in Thailand that cost me $2 a night. I slept in a tent for four nights in Patagonia.

And yet the time that I get attacked by bugs? Well that has to be in Quebec City in a place that cost about $175 a night!

The worst part? The night manager claimed he could not move us to a new room that night! Luckily, the bugs had been satiated and I was too tired after nine hours of driving to stay awake.

In the morning it was a matter of negotiating with the manager and luckily the previous evening was forgotten as we entered the snowland called Quebec City!

Wandering the snowy land!

I could not feel my toes…..but it was beautiful.

We wandered through the Plains of Abraham where the British and French had some of their first clashes in 1759-1760. There are two towers (Martello 1 and 2) which we were told would give us insight into the military clashes.

Both were closed.

Never fear. It was a cool view of the St. Lawrence River that passes-by Quebec City and it was easy enough to slosh through the snow to the Citadel. A key part of the city’s fortifications, we clearly found the wrong entrance to the Citadel, so instead we finished the walkway that continues along the river and expelled us in front the of famous Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac.

Walking along the citadel!

Luckily there was a coffee shop (read: Starbucks) right there so we could jump in and defrost our feet before continuing on. Yes, I had to do it. I had to have my Starbucks, but so did my fingers!

My Frontenac!

Wandering on….well sloshing on, we landed across the street in the Fort Museum. This was going to be a slow trip. The Fort Museum, Robyn?

Yes. Actually it was quite interesting and one of the most hilarious little shows I have seen in a while. Fake smoke exhaled from toy guns, little lights flickered from boats in the middle of battle and the history of Britain’s win over New France…but don’t worry they were such ardent culturalists that they kept the French.

Anyway, enough of the history lesson. Now it was time for lunch.

Lunch!

We found a pub and a Texan couple to keep us company as we defrosted and set-out again onto the streets of Quebec City.

After stuffing ourselves it was time to find a different Quebec….bye, bye the unwarm welcome and on to……Well you’ll have to come back to see what we found (I promise it gets better).

It’s a new year and our Wanderer Nicola is still finding ways to make us jealous for her travels. In her second round of sunsets around the world we visit Norway, Croatia and, of course, Bermuda! The sun has set on 2011, so Nicola show us what to look forward to:

Happy New Year, one & all! Who can resist a celebration that includes fireworks & champagne? Wow, it’s hard to believe that I wrote my 2011 NYE post just over a whole year ago… on a flight from South Africa to England to Amsterdam. Watching the sun set over Africa and the sun rise over Europe from my window seat.

Speaking of sunsets, remember this colourful entry? Interestingly enough, I received a message from a friend (who also happens to be a photographer) complimenting me on the sunset blog photos. It can be difficult to know how many people these columns reach, so I was pleasantly surprised! Given that the subject was sunsets, though, I cannot take much credit for the snapshots. With the winning combination of clouds, colours, beaches or mountains, sunsets basically set themselves up for splendor!

Simayal, in the foothills of the Himalayas

If you’re itching for a movie to watch as the sun fades behind the clouds, try Before Sunset, and watch Ethan Hawke converse with Julie Delpy in Paris, France. Europe, dusk til dawn, and a conversation that is just as electric at the scenery around them (sequel to the original film, Before Sunrise). City of Love & Lights, after all…

In Bermuda… sunsets really out-do themselves. When you live in a rock surrounded by the deep blue sea you have a lot of natural beauty to boast about. Whether you are at Horseshoe Beach, Grotto Bay or St. George… boating, at a beach or on your balcony…

We all watch & wait with anticipation for sunsets, and you can tell a good one is coming your way wherever you are. For the fidgety, anxious, move n shake kind of people, it seems that sunsets (and sunrises) are a moment of fresh air. A chance to take a break, and let the magic unfold. See what you think of these quotes about our glorious sundowners:

While visiting to Croatia in summers, we drag ourselves out of bed (somewhat begrudgingly) at the crack of dawn to walk along the coastal towns. Of all the early starts you could have, a Croatian summer is worth the lack of sleep-in. Besides, as the temperatures creep up into the 30′s Celcius, you want to take a snooze in the afternoon. And then you marvel at the sun setting behind the mountains & hills of the islands along the Adriatic Sea.

An evening walk on Elbow Beach, Bermuda

In Bermuda, we are able to make beach & sunsets go hand-in-hand.

Idyllic? Yes.

Do you remember reading (or watching?!) Charlotte’s Web? The sun setting has us exclaiming words to extoll the sunset in all it’s glory, much like the vocabulary that we learnt from our friend Wilbur the pig: ”terrific,” “radiant,” and even “humble”.

Sail into the sunset in Oslo, Norway

To sum it all up, Lord Byron has the closing words: “It /sunset/ was the cooling hour, just when the rounded Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill, which then seems as if the whole earth is bounded, circling all nature, hushed, and dim, and still, with the far mountain-crescent half surrounded on one side, and the deep sea calm and chill upon the other, and the rosy sky with one star sparkling through it like an eye.”

Travel bureaucracy

Almost every country has it. It?

In Vietnam, for example, I was told by a guide that if he wanted to leave the country on a holiday he had to have a substantial amount of money in the bank (and proof of it), a good job to return to and apply to his government for a pass.

In India, I was told of a boyfriend trying to go to Canada to visit his girlfriend. Though he applied for a visa, he was denied.

What is this? I am talking about travel bureaucracy. It’s everywhere and it’s not only about leaving a country, but also entering.

For example when I tried to travel between Laos and Cambodia only to be required to pay  an “entry fee” to every man standing along the border in a uniform! Ok, so it was only US $1 per man, but still annoying.

And Bermuda? Well my home country is no different. Seemingly ridiculous procedures surround entering and leaving the country too.

I had always heard some stories, but on my recent trip to Toronto I actually got to be on the receiving end. I’m such a lucky girl!

I will give the Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport customs guy one excuse: it was Christmas Day and I am sure he did not want to work, but lots of people have to work on Christmas. Still, I will give him that small leeway for his response:

“Hi, I need to register my camera,” I said.

“Do you have proof you bought it in Bermuda?” said the small man in a crisp blue uniform as he poked his head out of the barely-wedged-open door.

“Uh, well it was a birthday present, so no I don’t have a receipt.”

“Well, I’m not saying you are lying, but we will not give you a registration. Too many people sneak items into Bermuda.”

Bermuda might be beautiful, but.....

OK, I should explain the policy. Bermudian residents are required to purchase items in Bermuda or be prepared to pay duty of 35% on items acquired abroad.

To avoid the duty, we can register electronic devices (usually the only items we are taking that are the most expensive and hardest to prove you had before you left) before leaving the Island. This registration is delivered in the highly modern form of a yellow slip of paper!

Yes, there is no way you will ever lose that (sarcasm is free).

The yellow paper, however, is not a minor detail. Instead it is a Bermudian resident’s “get-out-of-35% duty” card!!!! Can you imagine?

Why, you ask do we have to pay such a high price? Well, the argument is that if government increase the price of purchasing items abroad, Island residents will be more likely to “Buy Bermuda” (I have my opinion about this economic policy, but that is a different blog entirely).

I have two problems with this checking system:

1. when an item is purchased in Bermuda, no one issues a yellow piece of paper. One might think that is important especially for, I don’t know, a camera which is almost definitely going to leave the island and one that might also be a present that the receiver should never know the price of…..I’m just saying.

2. if I do buy abroad (gasp!) and pay duty on the item, there is no way to show that the payment I make (all 35% of it) directly relates to a camera, etc…. So when I turn-up to customs at a later date there is no way to prove that, if I have not bought my item in Bermuda, that I paid duty on it. (I would show you a picture, but these are such high commodities, an extra form is just not possible to get!)

Instead, the form groups together all goods in a particular category i.e. clothing and footwear, and we pay the duty on the total amount. There is nowhere to actually list the items you are declaring and therefore, no way to reference the duty you paid on them. i.e. the customs’ officer was asking me for something I literally could not produce.

Get-out-of-Jail yellow customs' slips!

Let’s be honest here too, if a traveler manages to outsmart the bureaucratic process that is installed to just put more money in government’s coffers and sneaks their goods into Bermuda…..can we really penalize them at a later date? I don’t think so.

Tourists, you are not exempt! You can also be subject to these problems, especially if you are visiting residents. Travellers are allowed a $30.00 excemption on goods they plan to bring into Bermuda.

Bermudians? Well the first $100 for each household is free and then duty kicks in and so do the yellow slips!

So what happened with my recent trip, you ask….well I had to leave the Island with my camera bought in Bermuda (there was no way to send it home before the flight) and prayed that when I returned to the Island I could outsmart the process.

Did I? Well, you’ll have to come back tomorrow to see what happened…….oh and for some fun travels to Quebec City!

Frosty, where is all the snow this Christmas in Canada?

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all of that! It’s that time of the year when the weather gets cold and the hearts get warm! 

Our wanderer, Nicola Arnold, has spent her holidays traveling around New York. Rockefeller centre, taxis, Harry Potter…it’s a wonderful world of holidays:

Advent calendar chocolates are few & far between, presents are wrapped, cookies are baked, turkeys are defrosted, families are gathering far & wide to celebrate with joy. It’s Christmastime and we all know it! This year, I cannot say “I’ll be home for Christmas” – I’m not in Bermuda, nor am I celebrating with family in England, Croatia or South Africa as in previous years. This Christmas I am in my adopted home – Canada - and there isn’t even snow in this supposedly “Great White North”.

But here’s a little secret: I already celebrated Christmas

Unbeknownst to many (especially my mother, who I surprised), I spent a short & sweet weekend in NYC with my parents, to kick off Christmas.

New York City.

Or…

Broadway Baby.
The Big Apple.
Manhattan.
Gotham City.
The city that never sleeps.
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of (Thanks, Alicia Keys)

Yellow cabs, American flags... hello New York City!

NYC is our old stomping ground, and the main goal for getaway weekends to New York City is “How many musicals can we cram into our time here?” And at Christmastime, the excitement in the city is multiplied – New York is a magical mayhem of movement, madness… and musicals! Have you ever been to New York City? Around Christmas? Well, I will borrow the “You know you have visited New York City when” style of points and tell you a bit about the weird & wonderful experiences that can probably only take place in New York City.

Nicola’s Yuletide Celebration aka NYC: 

* You feel like you are in Star Wars, swerving through groups, bypassing window-shoppers and avoiding throngs of tourists. Toronto and Boston feel like a ghost-own compared to NYC! The yellow taxis are different, it’s more of a boxy-style cab honking its way down Broadway now.

* The guys selling stuff in Time Square choose you as a victim to give their CD, because they are trying to make it big and get on MTV. Here’s how it went down:

CD guy: Listen to this, you’ll love it.
Me: Okay, thanks.
CD guy: Would you like to give a small donation? It’s Christmastime!
Me: Ask my dad, he’s got the money!
CD guy: I’ll even sign your CD, what’s your name?
Me: Nicky.
CD guy: Okay, I’ll make it out to N-Sexy!

You cannot 'Trump' NYC for excitement on every street corner

* You rush from the wintery windows of Macy’s to the holiday windows of Sak’s Fifth Avenue to compare notes, styles and creativity points.

* You are moseying around Bergdorf Goodman (the swanky department store where mink coats actually cost $23,700), and you run into your high school French teacher who is also in New York City on a pre-holiday trip with her children from Bermuda. It’s a small world!

* You have some big decisions to make: You must decide if you will re-watch an already-seen-it-but-I-want-to-see-it-one-more-time musical (such as Lion King, Mamma Mia, Phantom of the Opera, or Rent), or if you will branch out and try another new show. Which Hollywood stars are you going to rush to see on stage? Adam Pascal? Alan Rickman? Daniel Radcliffe? Bernadette Peters? Hugh Jackman? Samuel L. Jackson? Kim Catrall? Or your very own Bermudian starlet, Rebecca Faulkenberry, in Spiderman?

Dear old Harry Potter on Broadway? Magical!

* You try to have dinner on Saturday evening around 6pm near Time Square and there is, quite literally, “no room at the inn”. All your favourite restaurants are busy with the pre-show patrons. Ellen’s Stardust Diner has a line snaking outside. The Pig ‘N’ Whistleis chock-a-block. You finally resort to an Irish pub on Restaurant Row, delighted to much on burger sliders, French fries & beer. Mission accomplished.

* You see not one but 3 Tim Hortons shops in central Manhattan and you, almost, feel like you are a Canadian in America when your heart skips a beat. But then you run off to indulge in a sweet treat at Dunkin’ Donut or Au Bon Pain instead.

* You remember everywhere that Kevin goes in NYC in “Home Alone 2″? The same famous “AAAHHHH!!!!!” face of Macaulay Culkin, set at Christmas, in New York City. Although you do not see the bizarre bird lady in Central Park, nor does the Plaza Hotel exist – it has now turned into apartment buildings, and a friend of your friend is a bartender there! You go to Rockerfeller center and see the ice-skaters and remember that it is the spot where Kevin reunites with his mom.

Rockefeller Center, ice skating and Home Alone flashbacks

* You are hop & skip from one fancy drink location to another – first the Marriott Marquis in Time Square for a pre-show drink (at the former revolving bar which no longer revolves), and then at the Peninsula Hotel to warm up after browsing the shops on Fifth Avenue… you decided that queuing to get into FAO Shwarz to see the toys was just not gonna happen… instead, time for an Irish coffee & biscotti!

* The best thing about being in Time Square is seeing the “Coke” ad in all it’s fluorescent glory, which at Christmastime is the Holiday Coca-Cola ad with the polar bears and penguins. In fact, all the lights and advertising and flashy marketing has you looking left, right and center in dizziness.

The 12 Days of Christmas, Citi bank style

* You are invited to two Christmas holiday parties by your friend & host: one for an acting studio, and the other for a tea salon. The first is in the basement of the studios, rooms filed with cookies, cheese, biscuits and wine. The second party is in a martini bar (complimentary martinis!) with BBQ style food and a dessert table. And you are not at all “crashing” the parties… you are warmly welcomed!

* You realized that while you are wandering the streets of NYC, you occasionally burst into any of the following NYC-themed songs:

New York State of Mind – Billy Joel
New York Minute – Don Henley
New York, New York – Frank Sinatra
Downtown – Petula Clark
Take the “A” Train – Ella Fitzgerald
Living for the City – Stevie Wonder
New York City Boys – Pet Shop Boys……. or one of many, many others!

But please, don’t take my word for it. If you have never been (or have not been in awhile), go to New York. It is worth your while to see/hear/smell/taste/touch/feel the magic of Manhattan for yourself. Especially at Christmastime… Happy holidays!

So I have traded airplane seats for office seats for a little while and one thing that comes with an office….a commute. It’s true.

I have nothing against my new job, let me preface. It’s a great place to be and I am working on things that matter – healthcare.

What I could trade? My commute. Yesterday as I sat behind the smog-spewing car that would lead me to Bermuda’s capital, Hamilton and my new seat, I couldn’t help but think of….well all the other ridiculous and crazy commutes I have witnessed.

Like this ridiculous video straight from the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh! Honestly, I have never seen such ridiculous traffic in all of my life. Try and cross the road! Near impossible…I had to play “chicken” with the SUV’s!

I mean do you see the motorbike do a U-turn when he is about to be squashed?

Sure Phnom Penh’s traffic was life-endangering, but in Laos it was cow-filled. Witness the scene below with this pink-hewed cow grazing on the side of the road on the way to waterfall! Where do you see that? Certainly not on my commute in Bermuda?

For the next bit of insanity, I bring you to heads as helmets scenario that is all the rage in Cambodia. How about the parents who also stick their toddlers in front of them as pillows? Well, Bermuda often has parents who place their children in front of them, but at least they have helmets on their children; they give them a fighting chance!

This dad below….well…..I crossed my fingers after this photo:

Or what about moving house on a motorbike? I’m not entirely sure what this guy was carrying on his motorbike, but I’m glad that I was not riding beside him! I now feel better riding my own motorbike into work and only having to concern myself with the fuming car!

Moving house?

Or how about how to move your motorbike? Well, in Bermuda we have ferries that will transport motorbikes very comfortably on their bows (front).

In Laos? Oh come on!!!! Who would actually ride their bike? Or put it on the back of the van? A commuter bus, that I had just exited to use the toilet, was far more practical!

How else do you transport you bike?

And when you’re not dragging your bike along with you? Well you have to fill it with gas, of course. But how are going to do that?

Well in Thailand, you ask a woman standing in a shack to start pumping and pour out the blue, red or green gas sitting in tubs!

technical fill-ups

I had never seen this before and I thank my lucky stars, now, when I see my gas gauge going low I can nip into the gas station, whip-out my credit card and head-out on my way…even in rush hour….even with slow attendants (not much in Bermuda moves quickly…I’m Bermudian, I can say that.)

And finally what am I getting at? Well let’s at least, while we sit in the mountains of traffic for Christmas-time commutes remember, we could have been caught in an elephant parade!

elephant parade

From Bermuda to......

We have to say: “Welcome Back!” to our wanderer Emily Ross. She’s been busy getting back into school so….we can cut her slack! 

I’m so glad she touched this topic….Bermudians around the world. For such a small island, we manage to get around…..the world. Emily we’re happy to have you back!

I am a disgrace. Apologies, bloggers. I should stop get off of http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/ and type my blog that I’ve been planning for weeks.

Wherever you go, you will find a Bermudian. Or someone who knows a Bermudian. Or someone who’s been to Bermuda. Used to work in Bermuda. Their brother married a Bermudian. They like the rum.

We are everywhere. Bristol (where I’m studying at the moment) is overrun with Bermudians. I’ll never forget that day in first year where I ran into three Bermudians in the space of 20 minutes – one in the library, one outside the library and one in the gym (which is next to the library). We all have stories like that – you’re on holiday, escaping the rock…and BAM. Bermudian.

For an island filled with 64,000 Bermudians, we can be found all around the world

Even studying in Hong Kong, another Bermudian (a very good friend from high school) also was on exchange there at the same time!

In the middle of Times Square in New York, we ran into my mother’s violin student.

In a mall in Hong Kong, a friend’s parents (who used to live in Bermuda) happened to stroll past and spot us in line for the movie theatre.

In Johannesburg airport, of all places!

In the middle of Waterloo Station in London I ran into a family from home who were going to see Rebecca Faulkenberry (another Bermudian, of course!) in a West End show! The friend I was with was not only amazed that out of all the people in London we ran into some Bermudians I knew, but also that we were name-dropping other Bermudians!

Bermuda's beautiful hibiscus!

So I asked my readers: Where have you unexpectedly run into a Bermudian whilst travelling?

Jenny 

- In London, outside of the Palladium

- In malls in Toronto

- ‘Sitting on Primrose Hill last summer, a man came up to me with a cassava assuming my friends and I wouldn’t know what it was and I was all like “that’s a cassava.” And it turns out after some chat and bafflement that he was Bermudian’

- ‘On my birthday in New Zealand I ran into this guy who’d spent like four summers in Bermuda and knew all of the people who I hang out with…And he was like really close with my brother back in the day.’

Sarah

- On the stairs at South Kensington tube station

- When a Bermudian friend visited ‘we went to a nightclub near my house and when she was holding out her ID some guy behind us in the queue shouted “BERMUDA BERMUUUUUDAAAA”. Turns out he used to work over there.’

- ‘My brother James was running the Chicago marathon in his Bermuda vest and some girl screamed “WOOOOOOO BERMUDA! I’M A BERMUDIAN!” and they high fived as he ran past.’

- ‘My mum ran into some Bermudians in a Pyramid in Egypt.’

Bermuda's sunset!

Chelsea P

-  In a hospital room in Baltimore

Paige

                – ‘I was serving a woman in the cafe in Highgate woods, and at the end of her meal she saw my surname on the bill and asked me if I knew Paige Hallett, to which I replied, “quite well, actually” [She is Paige Hallett] and we had a nice little chat; apparently she spends half her year in Bermuda and the other in London, and she knows my sister quite well.’

                – ‘Have had quite a few Bermudian kids in the cafe. One little boy even dared to tell me that MSA was better than BHS! Needless to say he got a very pathetic scoop of ice cream that day.’

                – ‘In accent and dialect classes in LIPA [The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts] I found a Bermudian accent recording on IDEA (an accent database) and played it for the class…Imagine my surprise when I actually listened to the recording. Halfway through the recording I yelled, “THAT’S DEVAUNE!”

Adrienne

                - In a market in Florence – ‘Turned out she lived right by the villa we were renting!’

Nicholas L

                – ‘In La Paz, Bolivia whilst mountain biking down death road.’

Euan

                - Llunenberg, Canada in a shopping mall. ‘He may have been the only other living person in that town, it was empty.’

Miriam

                -‘One of my favourite customers in the underground, and some random Bermudians I didn’t actually know but got talking to on a bus in New York…’

Nadia

                – ‘Coming out of a chocolate shop in Berne, Switzerland and bumped into one of my sister’s former classmates. It’s the timing that astounds me. We had only stopped to have lunch and to keep on travelling to Beaune in France.’

                – ‘Another time was in that venerated establishment, Mickey-D’s, in the wee hours of the morning in Leicester Square, London – when the guy in front of me ordered his meal there was no mistaking the accent. I hadn’t been home in ages at that point and it was music to my ears. We chatted briefly. It was very amusing because he was gobsmacked I recognised the accent as I sounded English to him.’

Fishing in Bermuda, but they could be in.......

Robyn

                – ‘In a bar on the side of a mountain in Zermatt, Switzerland! And, to top it off, she was a colleague!’

Chelsea M

                – ‘In the Vatican!’

                – ‘Tube stations in London, of course.’

Jack

                - In JJB Sports in Manchester

                -Disneyland!

Karriem

- Eaton Centre in Toronto

- In a Guelph nightclub and at a Guelph bus station – ‘That was super random, being that I only went to Guelph once.’

Nicholas H

                – At the Olympics in Greece

                – At the Commonwealth Games in Italy

                – In a variety of pubs in Manchester, Edinburgh

Ben

                – At an optician’s in London

                – At a pub in Euston

                – ‘There’s one in my uni course in the year below me. I didn’t realise until a guy from the course came down to Bermuda and I recognised him…and thus discovered a fellow Bermudian law student at Kings.’

Kyle

                – In the Topman shop at Westfield

Rebecca

                – UB40 concert in Southampton

Matthew

                – Eaton Centre and Yonge Street in Toronto.

                – University of Toronto campus

                – In the crowd at a parade in Toronto

Johnny

                – In the Ramada Hotel in Atlanta. ‘Doorman, slight accent, called him out on it.’

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain 

Girl in Peru herding sheep when she should be in school!

I am sorry to start this week at the end, but this is my last column in The Royal Gazette. 

Why? I am told it is costs, so now your Bermudian wanderer will be found on her website www.robynswanderings.com.

For my last column, I thought I would leave you with some lessons I have learned from my endless traveling that began before I could walk.

I recently had the chance to completely embarrass two of my cousins at their school with a presentation on this very topic and how it relates to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which are eleven goals the UN declared the world should be working towards.

These are good, vague goals such as empowering women and ending child mortality, however, the problem with many of these goals, is that they are based on very Western notions of “right” and fail to consider a family’s financial and cultural position.

So I introduced the 200 bored students to a six or seven-year-old girl I met while biking through the Peruvian countryside. She should be in school, but instead her family needs her herding sheep through the fields to survive. Luckily me and these sleeping students have gone to or are going to school so, we have choices.

Which is ironic when we come to my first lesson for you today and to these students: never let studying get in the way of learning! I have lived in New York, Florence, Rome, Arcachon, Istanbul, Prague and London. I traveled around India and Sri Lanka for three months in 2003 and in 2009 I took my longest expedition yet: 23 countries in 12 months.

And during these years, I also finished college with a double major, completed a masters in International Relations and a Journalist degree from the National Council for the Training of Journalists in Newcastle, England.

My studying was never sacrificed for my travels…..it became part of it. Florence was a semester abroad, London was too and New York was the base for my Masters degree.

Study in London? why not!

Travel, unfortunately, is too often seen as separate from “real” life or an escape from it, superfluous and indulgent. But travel, living or studying abroad should be seen as a requirement and valued because how can you feel compassionate about eradicating poverty if you have never actually seen poverty? How can you understand the complexity surround the MDG that states we should ensure primary education for children, if you haven’t seen my little sheep herder? Travel makes these situations a reality.

Travel will also teach you strength! There are really two types of strength: an inner strength that I learned while I was sitting with my head in a toilet in Egypt thanks to a salad!

Recovered from food poisoning and ready to take-on the world!

As I wished that I could die, or at the very least go back home to my mom, something inside me changed and I decided that I had to keep going. Two days later I visited the Pyramids and I got through the food poisoning.The second type of strength? Seriously,…do you know how heavy a 20 kilo backpack can get? I didn’t think so. Do you know how those 20 kilos feel when you have to walk a mile to leave a Greek ferry terminal and find your hotel?

For my third lesson, I draw directly from the MDG’s: the promotion of gender equality and empowering women. Sure, in Bermuda we have some work toward empowering women, but as I found myself traveling solo around the world, I also started recognizing how much being a woman truly mattered.

I began my travels with a travel buddy, but we separated in India so I found myself traveling solo throughout Southeast Asia and South America. At first I was scared and then I realized the world was not as scary for a single woman as I thought; it was easier for a single woman to find friends to travel with than a single man. Women are less scary.

But I also realized how much my safety was up in the air when I was on the back of a motorbike to go to a boxing lesson in Thailand and the driver went a separate way from the friend I was going with. I made him stop, I got off and I walked back to my hostel.

You learn that women in certain areas of the world have to be dressed from head to foot and if you are a woman in these countries, men will not speak directly to you. Empowering women is given a global perspective when you travel.

My lesson four came with some difficulty for me. I am a runner. It’s my stress release and conditioning, but when I began traveling I wasn’t able to run, so I had to find other ways to exercise, like hiking for five days through Patagonia, Chile!

Hiking through Patagonia (notice the famous towers behind me!)

Where am I going with this? Well I am telling you that travel will teach you in many ways, that you have to roll with what you have. Sure, initially I got annoyed at the lack of running, but then I found ways to supplement it by riding a bike through Vietnam or boxing in Thailand and walking….everywhere. I also realized that only foreigners were the ones working-out. The locals were like the teenagers in Battambong, Cambodia waiting opposite the restaurant I was eating in for scraps and it started to put some things in perspective.

Which brings me to lesson five and appearances. The more you travel the less you care and I don’t mean, not keeping yourself clean.

Well, unless you’re in the middle of the woods in Patagonia and the closest warm shower is not the glacier you sleep next to! Believe me, five days of dirt is better than an ice shower!

What I mean is that it does not matter is if you are wearing “Seven” jeans or Miu Miu dress or carrying a Louis Vuitton bag. Instead, you start to look at people as people. You start to understand how little other countries have and how that $1,000 bag is a year’s work for some families.

Sleeping next to a glacier? Probably not going to shower there!

And you start to learn my lesson number six: trust. Like I trusted a Laotian man who walked onto our overnight bus and told me and my Californian travel buddy that he knew we were going to the 4,000 islands and we were to follow him. We did and we had the easiest commute to these Laos-Cambodia border islands of any travelers we met.

Before you trust everyone, however, my lesson seven is as you travel you learn there is a balance to trusting and trusting your instincts.

Like the time I was in Varanasi, India and my travel buddy decided we should take the offer of guidance from an Indian boy to a hotel.

Varanasi sits on the holiest river perhaps anywhere, the Ganges. It is also an auspicious town where you are forever blessed if you die there because your body will be cremated on the ghats and sent back to its maker in the Ganges.

Beautiful Varanasi!

With this background, we were led, to my reluctance, by my travel buddy’s trust into a tiny hole in the wall where we were shown scarves and drugs, not a hotel.

I was out of the hole in the wall in a shot, marching far away from a situation that I knew would only go badly for us.

It’s a fine line, trust, that becomes trickier when you travel and you are trying to understand a new culture without insulting everyone you meet by running away.

Which brings me to lesson eight: do not fear different cultures. For this lesson I have to warn you against my kind, journalists, as well as, politicians (though I am definitely not the later). Often, minor conflicts in countries or strikes become national tragedies with a stroke of a pen.

Example? The Iraq War. I could have listened to George W. Bush when he lampooned almost every Muslim country in the world and launched an attack on Iraq, but I didn’t.

I moved to Istanbul, Turkey at the beginning of the war and was met my some of the kindest people I have ever met. The sky is pierced by minarets where the call to prayer echoes five times a day and the people on the ground will stop you on the street just to speak to you out of interest.

I am proud to be a Bermudian, too, but I also learned from travel not to be too proud to appreciate and try to learn from other cultures. These are sometimes frustrating differences, but they make life interesting!

Rome is not Rome until you live there

And the best way to understand is lesson nine: living in another country. Rome is not Rome until you try and run errands on your lunch hour. While the tourist areas of the city will remain open all day, where I worked was traditional and a siesta in the afternoon was the norm. So, study abroad (and my column on how to do that is on my website www.robynswanderings.com) and/or get your TEFL certificate and teach English and make money while you live abroad! What could be better?

And finally, let’s be honest: travel teaches you how truly beautiful the world really is. From the lush green tea plantations in Sri Lanka, to the highest capital in the world where women wrestle, La Paz, Bolivia, or the best steak you will ever eat in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a bone church outside of Prague in the Czech Republic or floating in the dead sea in Jordan, the world is a weird and wonderful place that you should not squander.

Tango in Buenos Aires!

We are really lucky we can travel to see all of this beauty. Many people will never be allowed to leave their countries. So, do not waste your time on this lovely planet, working or reading this column – get traveling! I will be on www.robynswanderings.com from now on.