Bermuda 2016 Day 7: Birthday at the Hamilton Princess

5/28/2016-5/29/2016
Bermuda 2016 Day 7: Birthday at the Hamilton Princess

What a way to end this amazing trip! We finished the last day of the trip, which just so happened to be my birthday as well, at the other Fairmont hotel in Bermuda -- the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club, in Hamilton. We had not really spent any real time in Hamilton yet (the main city of Bermuda) as the other hotel is in Southampton, so we were pretty excited to go exploring and wandering, and try out some new stuff.

We said farewell to the Fairmont Southampton, and enjoyed one last breakfast in the Gold Lounge (!!) which was a real treat. And then off to Hamilton to our new hotel for the night.

Where we ate breakfasts most mornings

Another nice day!

Funny, a Bacardi rum office headquarters!

We wandered the main streets of Hamilton and checked out a bunch of the shops. Of course, as usual, I bought something and Michal didn't :) I got another short-sleeved polo shirt and a nice long sleeved shirt as well which Michal picked out and was on an epic sale. Good times. There is a lot of "preppie" clothing here which is obviously not the usual stuff I wear, but the clothes fit well and were nice bright colours, so that was an easy sale :)

We ended up at a grocery store at one point, which I always love to explore in foreign countries. That was super awesome and I found Ribena there, the drink I used to have as a kid in England! We got some roasted potatoes to keep us going as unfortunately the granola place Michal was REALLY excited to go to was closed for the weekend. We had some snacks and I got a super weird chobani watermelon yoghurt flavour (!) which rocked and was weird and awesome.

Our exploration of the downtown continued to the docks and we made our way back to the Hamilton Princess for our mid-afternoon high-tea that we had booked. They have fancy branded chinawear with their hotel logo on it that they'd shown off on the website, so we were expecting it. That was fun. :)

Our hotel for the night, the Hamilton Princess

Tea Time!! I also fully realize the hilarity of my previous statement saying "Preppie clothes are not really my thing" and it turns out this exact day I am wearing a polo shirt from Oxford University. :)

Fun chinaware

Those scones were tasty!!

Our nice afternoon tea!

With a good late afternoon lunch with our afternoon tea, we were well set-up to enjoy the pool area and read there for the rest of the afternoon and have a later dinner. They had some really funny and weird chairs that were *in* the water?!?! On a platform, technically, but it looked from a distance like they were just sitting in the water. haha. We tried those out for fun but then sat instead looking towards the pool and the view. We both relaxed and read some books, which was a nice change of pace.

the funny chairs "in the water"

Showing off my new shorts from the day before, and the new shirt I had just got!

After many hours of reading, it was starting to get dark, so we headed out to House of India, an Indian restaurant that came highly recommended. It was in fact very good, and the gentleman there suggested we try Chicken Tikka Masala in an "indian style" rather than the more Americanized style. We said, "Sure!" It was all great. And after a very filling meal (following our very filling afternoon tea!) they presented me with a super rich chocolate cake! Whew! I had some and it was quite fantasti, even though it was hard to stuff in anything more. The epic birthday continues!

I am always VERY serious when it comes to Indian Food.

As we were leaving, we were waiting for a cab and we befriended the people beside us who had also just finished dinner. We were all going back into town so we shared a cab together which was nice -- we got dropped off first and the people we were riding with then refused to let us share the cost of the cab since it was my birthday!!! How nice!! That rocked.

We then went clubbing! Sort of.

I was keen to go see some of the nightlife since this was our only free weekend evening, and also, why not?! We started at a pub spot which had some live music which was actually very good. Some drunk-ish but very friendly dude and his girlfriend asked if they could share the prime table we managed to score, and so we made random new friends. When they found out it was my birthday, they made me do a tequila shot or something and got one for Michal too (which I also got to drink)! Haha. So that was a fun experience.

After that we headed to a more dance clubby spot which was sortof odd -- not a ton of people on the dance floor but, as you know, we aimed to change that! We got "up on the floor" and busted some sick moves and sure enough more people started to join the dance floor and it was pretty solid. We didn't stay super long, basically just enough to make the party more awesome and then e headed back to the hotel. Fun and silly and glad we randomly checked these places out. You gotta do that!

Back at the hotel I took a few pictures of the artwork up there (there was some pretty impressive stuff). Getting back to the room there was a HUGE assortment of stuff to enjoy, including what appeared to be an ENTIRE square cheesecake! That sure was a hilarious and awesome surprise and I made my way through a pretty decent amount of it, given that I started eating it at 12:40am :) There was a fridge in the room, so I saved a bit extra for breakfast too :)

WOW!!!!!!!!!!! What a surprise!

My SLAB of cheesecake -- huge!

Going to bed feeling loved, appreciated, birthday'd and totally cheesecaked.

What an awesome and fun way to spend my birthday -- exploring a new city, wandering a grocery store in a foreign country, shopping for clothes (!), buying local coffee, chillin' out, scarfing Indian food, bustin' some dance moves to work off dinner, and finishing off the day with cheescake!? What a huge win.

The next morning we bid farewell to a fabulous island and some weather that really made us want to re-book our flight for a week later :) It was sad to go, but since we were flying back through Toronto, we got to enjoy some Tim Hortons on the flight from Toronto back to SFO, so that helped immensely.

I had never been to Bermuda before this and it was a truly awesome experience. The snorkeling and playing with the GoPro, trying to get pictures of fish was super fun. It was great to explore and I especially loved our time in the Tom Moore's jungle and all the great food of this trip. Great times!