D Bell is on Bermuda

Finally here. It’s been a pretty long day, I woke up at 400am or so and after a stop in Atlanta I arrived in Bermuda around 2pm. On the flight to Atlanta there was a walking skeleton on my flight. I was literally blown away by how frail this woman looked, think like, an Indian female Mick Jagger plus 230 years. So, I arrived to Bermuda, went through customs and what not. They took some time searching for my temporary work permit, but eventually grabbed it and then I went to grab my huge duffels from baggage claims.

Then, I got introduced to one of the worst things ever…duties. Not poop, but taxes. If you ever have to do this process and make claims on what you are bringing in is either personal or relatively new, ALWAYS say everything you have is about a year old and bullshit them. Because I’m an idiot and was honest, my five month old mac book had a duty of 250 dollars. 25% of my predicted cost of 1000. All I needed to do was say it was about a year old and no problems, no 250 dollars. I understand that you don’t want people buying and bringing in stuff from the U.S. constantly, but there should be sort of initial free of charge transportation for new residents.

However, everybody working in the immigration services was really friendly and helpful. One woman saw my Umich bags and started making fun of UM/ND game and our fumbles, I was impressed with her knowledge.


You Taulk Loike Yo Frum London

I haven’t had a solid conversation with anybody from Bermuda besides my short cab ride to the station, but it sounds like a mellow carribean/jaimacian accent with a little british thrown in, but isn’t that how a carribean accent is formed as well?


Research Paradise

The compound is pretty large, buildings are kind of old school colonial. Lots of labs and a pretty nice dining hall, communal area. I don’t feel like describing the whole station, so I’ll just throw up a few pictures.

The research vessel is absurd. Its only a couple years old and donated by the Royal Bank of Bermuda. Its located right at the end of the station…on a dock.


The Quarters

So I got to the station around 3pm or so(Bermuda is an hour ahead of the Eastern Time Zone) and picked up my apartment key and that’s it. Nobody was around too much and nobody greeted me besides the housing lady. It was a holiday so apparently people were scattered. Second, I found out later that I had gone extremely fast through security and my greeters missed me when I picked up my housing stuff.

The apartment is solid. Seems pretty new. I’m on the ground floor, corner of a staff apartment complex that is probably the farthest building away from the labs and offices. Its about 18 seconds of Bobby’s sprinting distance away from each other.

So I got setup and unpacked. I got AC which is cool(NOTE THE PUN). Queen bed, awesome couch, little dinner table and a couple of stools, closet, and a dresser was what the studio came with.

The apartment isn’t really missing anything besides TP, something to put garbage in, and a shower curtain. I think I’ll just steal as much TP as possible from all the common bathrooms. Save costs. I don’t really think a shower curtain is necessary. Long as I don’t point the shower head to the bathroom floor, completely away from me it should be fine.


Goodnight

There’s a lot more, but I feel like I’m going into too much detail and I’m tired. I plan to get around to some of the urban parts of Bermuda maybe Wednesday or Thursday, I’ll be checking out the lab and doing paper work stuff tomorrow and I’ll need to recruit somebody to accompany me so it may not happen until maybe even the weekend.

Its 1030pm right now, though it won’t get posted right now. I’m about to refresh my oceanography mindset for tomorrow morning and be prepped to have some sort of resemblance of biological knowledge. For tonight, Ocean Chemistry and Phytoplankton.

I’ve got some positive responses for the blog thus far. Fuck yeah. You love it…..more to come.

Cheers,

DB