Trip 2: Adventure in Milan

As we packed and prepared to leave our little house in Chateauroux, I discovered that my passport was not in my purse, nor was it in the pocket of my backpack where I'd normally stash it. The last time I could remember seeing it was when the woman at the bank in the Nice airport handed it back to me, which was about four days before. With a sinking feeling, I combed through the room where Ed and I had slept, but found nothing. Ed said it had probably ended up in my suitcase, or his, but I was pretty sure that it was gone. While Ed will toss things just about anywhere without thinking, I'm pretty meticulous, and if something is not where I expect to find it, chances are good that someone else has intervened, or else it is simply lost. We drove for hours and finally reached lovely Alleghe, Italy,  but I was more intent on finding my passport than exploring. I immediately emptied my suitcase and Ed emptied his. Sure enough, no passport. The apartment we'd rented had no internet, so I took Ed's laptop to a bar that had free wifi, ordered a beer, and started researching. There was an embassy in Venice, two hours away, but they didn't provide "emergency services." It seemed I'd have to go to Milan, a four-hour drive from Alleghe, to have my passport replaced. I found that there was a train which left from Belluno, less than an hour away, that could get me to Milan and that the station was only a few blocks from the embassy. I wrote down all of this information, and also took note of all the forms I needed to fill out. I also needed a passport photo which had to fit exact specifications, as well as copies of any identifying documents I had access to. I emailed my parents and asked to scan my birth certificate, and they sent it the next day along with copies of my two previous passports. 

This was a Friday, and the embassy didn't open until Monday. I resolved to go on Tuesday, figuring it might be crowded on Monday with people who'd had problems over the weekend. Emergency services were available from 8:30 to 12:00 only, so I was going to have to be on the 5:00 A.M. train. Feeling very glum, I returned to our apartment and told Ed everything I'd found out. He flatly refused to put me on the train, insisting that he was going to drive me there himself and refusing to take no for an answer. I felt terrible that he was going to have to waste a whole day chauffeuring me to Milan, but part of me was relieved that he'd be with  me for moral support. 

On Monday, I set about trying to get a hold of all the materials I needed. This proved to be easier said than done. Alleghe is a tiny, picturesque mountain village which has lovely views in abundance but is short on basic technological services. There was one computer shop in town, and the man there flatly refused to print my documents. I think maybe he was worried about people having corrupt flash drives or something, but at any rate he wouldn't do it for me. When I brought my tale of woe to the tourist office, the woman there was very sympathetic and offered to try to print my documents, but she could get only one page of the first document to print before she encountered technical problems. A message kept appearing on the screen every time she tried, but she seemed to be ignoring it and it was in Italian, so I couldn't read it and didn't want to seem pushy by pointing it out since she was being so nice. In the end, Ed did some research and found a FedEx near the embassy, so we decided to go there first thing in the morning. The photo was another problem. There was a shop in town that had a machine to print pictures, but they didn't take photos there and I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Eliot came to my rescue, however. He's a fantastic photographer and has all the right software on his computer, so we had a photo shoot and he made up a file for me containing a picture that met the exact specifications from the website. I got it printed out easily.

Ed and I set off at 4:00 A.M. on Tuesday. Navigation was simple, and we arrived earlier than expected in Milan. After parking, we found a lot near the FedEx office, which, we discovered, didn't open until 9:30 that morning. It wasn't the only place that was closed - everything seemed to be. We had arrived in Milan during the period that most Italians use for vacationing, and the city was a forest of locked, graffiti-adorned security gates. After wandering for a bit, we happened upon a hotel, and when we asked the concierge where we could have something printed, he gallantly offered to do it for us. I had the pages in hand in no time (lovely color copies, too), and then we were off to the embassy.

At the front gate, the guard asked me why I was there and checked my ID. He said I was not allowed to take my purse or Ed inside, so, bag in hand (men carrying purse-like bags are a common sight in Italy), he went off in search of coffee while I stood in line, frantically filling out application forms. After about 20 minutes, I was waved in. I went through a metal detector and my paperwork was scanned to ensure I hadn't cleverly hidden a bomb inside. After examining my drivers license, a guard handed me a badge and sent me up the elevator. On the sixth floor, another guard prompted me to take a number. I was called to the window almost immediately, and I handed over my paperwork, paid the fee at yet another window, and settled in to wait.

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele

I'm not sure how long I waited, but I estimate it was about an hour and a half. I saw lots of international couples there, and several American women who were all doing whatever it is you have to do at the embassy when you decide to marry a foreigner. I read and reread an English-language magazine that was really more of a classified section, and learned that I could have a promising future as an English teacher in Milan if I ever chose to move there. I took a post-it pad out of my pocket and wrote a long letter to my friend Ferran on lots of small pages. At one point, I was called up to raise my right hand and swear before God that all the information in my application was correct to the best of my knowledge. And then, at long last, a woman summoned me to the window by calling my first and last names the way my Italian grandfather used to pronounce them and handed me the precious little blue book. It felt flimsy and had only a few pages inside for stamps. It would expire in three months, and the woman told me that when I applied for a regular passport, I would not have to pay another fee for it, as the payment I'd made to the embassy would cover it.

I happily hurried outside, where Ed was sleepily taking pictures of pigeons bathing in a fountain. We walked back towards the car and stopped for lunch along the way in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, a beautifully built shopping arcade sheltered by soaring glass ceilings. The food at the restaurant was good, but overpriced, and the cappuccino I ordered seemed watery in comparison to the heavenly brews I'd been gulping down in Alleghe. Ed and I enjoyed watching the tourists walking around, particularly two young boys with mullets and capris, and a German woman in her 60s who seemed to be more plastic than flesh.

We wandered into the Duomo after lunch and spent a few minutes admiring it, then headed back to the car. We were both anxious to get back to Alleghe before too late and I agreed with Ed when he said, "I'm not really falling in love with Milan." I remember liking it when I visited with my family years before, but it seemed different this time. Perhaps it was because most of the shops were shut and everything felt sort of shabby and abandoned. 

Have passport, can travel! In front of the Duomo.

 We listened to music and podcasts on the ride back, and pulled into Alleghe around 5:00 that evening. All told, it was a successful mission, though one I wished I hadn't needed to go on. I put my passport in a very safe place and set about to enjoying the rest of my trip with a huge burden lifted from my mind.

I hope that none of you will ever have the opportunity to see this message in a passport belonging to you or someone you care about.

To be continued.

Trip 1: Chateauroux-Les-Alpes

After an all-night flight, made very easy by the magic of Ambien, Ed and I arrived in Nice, France, ready for action. We collected our bags, including the huge - but very light - bag containing Ed's bike, then stopped by the ATM to withdraw some local currency. Ed had no problem doing this, but to my dismay, the machine sucked in my card and refused to give it back. Luckily, a lady inside the bank made a copy of my passport and had my card back to me in a jiffy, though I wasn't able to withdraw any cash, which surprised me because I'd had no problem in Paris, Barcelona, or Berlin with this card. But at least one of us had cash, so we picked up our car, punched "Chateauxroux-Les-Alps," the name of the town where we'd meet Eliot and Ethel, into the GPS, and headed for the hills. The drive ended up being about four hours long, and I was relieved that Ed was made of sterner stuff than I and didn't nod off periodically as he drove us there. We arrived in the town after a series of heart-stopping switchbacks, steep ascents, and spectacular views, and followed Ethel's careful directions to the house we were renting, which was situated on a hillside with a lovely view of the valley below. We had to follow Ethel's directions because apparently there are no addresses in Chateauxroux; it's small enough that mail can be delivered to houses as long as you put down the recipient's name. 

The view from the backyard of our house

We found that Eliot, his dad Daryl, Ethel, and her mom Jane, hadn't been doing much since they'd arrived a few days before. Ethel and her mom had been plowing their way through books, Eliot and his dad had been taking lots of pictures, and everyone had been napping a lot. This sounded good to me, but Ed and I both had training to consider, too, so the next morning I found the flattest spot I could, which was not really terribly flat at all, to do some intervals and Ed drove to a popular pass for cyclists. He planned to be gone about five hours, and I was rather nervous. I'd seen lots of cyclists on our drive the day before, and they rode on the edge of shoulder-less roads, kept alive only by the courtesy of the cars whizzing past. Drivers seemed remarkably observant of cyclists, though, so I had high hopes that I would not have to comb French hospitals for Ed come evening. Eliot, Ethel, Daryl, and I went for a short hike to the top of a waterfall, and by the time we got back home, Ed had returned, glowing with sweat and the impressive scenery he'd seen from the saddle. 

Ed climbs Col de Galibier, as captured by a professional photographer who prowls around the area, taking photos of people, then posting them online hoping they will be purchased. (In this case, they were.)

Aside from (very) intermittent training, we spent most of our time following the precedent which had been set for us by reading, eating, and napping. The small town, which was a 10-minute walk away, had a wonderful bakery where we bought fresh bread and croissants every day. The French like bread with a crisp outside, as poor Daryl had discovered before Ed and I arrived: He bit into a baguette and broke his bridgework! He spent the rest of the trip without his front-most four teeth, though he cheerfully said that he felt fine and proved it by eating well. We broke up our relaxation with a hike to a lake in the hills. All six of us went, equipped with bathing suits, snacks, and water. The hike ended up being five miles each way with several thousand feet of climbing over dusty paths, loose gravel, grassy fields, or large boulders, depending on where we were. 

View from the trail about a mile into the hike

After a very steep start, we ended up at the top of the waterfall that most of us had hiked to before. It was cool to see it from a different angle. The stream that fed it had worn a small ravine into the rock.

Ed and me. The ravine is to the right.

We took some pictures then kept going, arriving about an hour later at another, smaller waterfall. We were hot and sticky, but the water was a little too cold to be inviting. At least, I thought it was. Eliot leaped into the pool and stood right under the water! Ed coaxed me in for just long enough to take a picture, then I hurried out again over the slippery rocks. On the way out, I discovered some wild raspberry bushes and picked tiny berries with unbelievable flavor.

Waterfall #2

As we worked our way above the tree line, the view became more and more spectacular. Eventually, we were hiking through hilly meadows instead of on a forest path. It was difficult to find the trail, but a thoughtful soul had set up cairns here and there, which helped us find our way. We saw exactly three other people and one dog during the course of the day. Eliot spotted low-lying blueberry bushes in the meadow, so we munched on very small berries as we walked.

Looking back 

We didn't see many people, but towards the end of the hike, we came upon a large herd of cows! We heard them before we saw them, as several were wearing large bells. They were very placid. Ethel, the Cow Whisperer, scratched several of them between the eyes. Surprisingly, they were just about the only fauna we saw during the day. There were hoards of grasshoppers, many of which were very large and brilliant green with red sides, and we also spotted many different butterflies, a few crows, and some birds of prey that looked a bit like kestrels. But that was pretty much it, which I found strange. I'd have thought that the lush, peaceful hillsides would be a perfect habitat.

Le Moo

While Eliot and Ethel paused to take pictures of the cows and Daryl and Jane caught up to them Ed, and I pressed on and, suddenly, there was the lake at last! There was a small patch of snow to one side of it, despite the warm weather. It seemed more like a pond than a lake, really, but we were pleased to get to our destination. The water was awfully chilly so I only waded in, but some of the others swam.

After we'd dressed again, we started the hike back down the hill. After we'd been going for about an hour, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. A butterfly had landed on the bill of my hat! I walked carefully after that, checking frequently to make sure my hitch-hiker was still there. He stayed for about 45 minutes, then flew off somewhere near the first waterfall.

With my passenger

It was a long, wonderful day, and we were worn out afterwards. We went into the tiny town and had a really excellent dinner at a local restaurant, where our waiter spoke a fair amount of English and told us all about his dreams of visiting New York some day. It was a great way to cap off our stay in France. The next morning, we were scheduled to head towards Italy, where we would be staying in the Dolomite Mountains.

To be continued...

Fare Thee Well, Fair Readers!

So much to write, so little time! I haven't covered our trip to Newport! The MC Lars concert! The regatta in Long Island!! All of this will have to wait because Ed and I are flying out tonight for a trip to Europe. The initial plan was to help our friend Ethel cheer for her boyfriend Eliot as he competed in the Ironman in Embrun, France. It's one of the toughest courses in the world because of all the climbing, and he's been training for it all year. Alas, two weeks before the race, he was out on a training ride and was hit by a car. (Details about the accident, the aftermath, and his wise philosophy can be found on his blog, which is worth a visit even if you don't fancy rubbernecking; he's an accomplished photographer as well as athlete and writer).

Post-crash

Luckily for Eliot, he's going to be fine. He has a cracked pelvis and is still quite sore, but he was able to walk away from the accident. His bike was not so lucky, and was totally destroyed. Even if he had a bike to compete on, though, doing an Ironman when one isn't in peak physical condition is not a good idea, so he has decided to forgo the race. But our tickets were already paid for and our reservations were made, so all of us are going on the trip anyway! After a few days in Embrun, we'll head to Alleghe, Italy to enjoy more mountains. I look forward to hiking, running, sight seeing, and hanging out with some very cool people. So don't look for blog updates for the next two weeks; I'll be having far too much fun to sit down and write about it!

Catch you on the flip side!

Legit Lit: Splendid Sports Books

In honor of the Olympics, I'm reviewing my two all-time favorite sports books, which also happen to be the only two sports books that have totally captivated me. I don't read a lot of sports books, but these two have enough depth to capture the admiration of even the most uncoordinated/uninterested readers.

Friday Night Lights - H.G. Bissinger
Before the movie (2004) and the TV series (2006), there was the 1990 book that covered the Permian Panthers' 1988 season. Author Buzz Bissinger, a sports reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner, took a leave of absence from the Philadelphia Inquirer to spend the football season in Odessa, Texas, quietly making notes about the coach, players, high school, and community he features in this brilliant piece of reportage. Football fans will love the book; Bissinger is brilliant at building suspense and describes games in such vivid detail you feel as though you're there watching the action. But the dare-I-say anthropological side of this provides an even more fascinating examination of the structure of Odessa, a small town plagued by poverty, a failing school system, and racism, and wholly devoted to Permian High School's football team. (Bissinger suggests that some members of the town attempt to use the team as panacea for what ails them.) The whole town turns out on Friday nights to watch the boys, who deal with more pressure than most adults, take on rival teams. At the time of the writing, the Panthers had the best record of any team in Texas. Young boys in the town idolize the players and hope to be like them someday, and scores of girls have their dreams shattered when they enter high school and don't make the cheerleading team. Some are consoled with the role of Pepette, meaning they are assigned a player for the season and must bring him gifts every Friday and decorate the exterior of his house to demonstrate Panther Pride. The coach, new to Odessa, is alternately lauded and slandered by the townspeople with each win or loss, and he knows that a single disappointing performance places his job in serious jeopardy. Most compelling to me were the portraits of each of the players. They are diverse and complex, some basking in their star status and others perplexed by it. They are ravaged by nerves. They are elated by victories. They are both the victims and the perpetrators of racism. One player, a true prodigy, has devoted his life to football and is being scouted by colleges with major programs until an injury sidelines him, potentially destroying the only future he has ever prepared for or imagined. Another player loves football but juggles practice and games with serious scholasticism, which the other players don't understand. One is ambiguous about football despite his obvious talent, believing that his identity as a Christian is more important. Bissinger investigates their dreams, fears, strengths, weaknesses, families, and friends with keen insight. The people in this book are real, and they feel like it.

I can't sit through a quarter of a football game without getting antsy, but I couldn't put this book down. It's a fascinating look at the way competition can bring out the best and worst in individuals and whole communities, and about the glory and devastation that can come from an unshakable faith in a single thing.

(For the record, I was hooked by the first season of the TV series as well, though was warned to stay away from further seasons to avoid disappointment.)

My Losing Season - Pat Conroy
The idea of this book, about a college basketball team, would likely have repelled me had it not been written by Pat Conroy. I'd read everything else he'd written, and was anxious for more. All of Conroy's books are a mixture of autobiography and fiction, with more of the former than that latter, and I was intrigued to learn that this one was simply his own story with no attempt at disguising that fact. So I dove in, and was swept away immediately by the usual grace of Conroy's prose. He recaps his senior year at the Citadel, where he played point guard on the basketball team. The Bulldogs had, and continue to have, one of the worst records in NCAA history, and Conroy's senior year was no exception. It's unusual to read a book about a losing team. Most books and movies depict winning teams. Sometimes they lose the final game to offer a twist on the usual plot, but they tend to win more often. This adulation of winners is starkly absent from Conroy's book. The team loses again and again, and the players despair, work themselves into the ground, and eventually make peace with things in a way that felt incredibly authentic.

The book is mostly about basketball, but Conroy's abusive father, with whom he reconciled much later in his life, plays a significant role, just as he does in Conroy's other books. He looms above his son and taunts him about his ineptitude on the court, harking back to his own days as a basketball player when he says he could have wiped the floor with Pat. The childhood beatings Pat suffered continue, even though he is an adult; his father consistently beats him up after games if he's disappointed in his performance, which is a conclusion he reaches again and again. Pat plays his best, aching for words of praise and apology that never come, and this is one of the biggest factors that continues to draw Pat into basketball even though the team continues to lose. Another important factor was the camaraderie he feels with his class- and teammates, who Conroy develops with his usual poignancy. His descriptions of games are riveting and suspenseful, too; just as in Friday Night Lights, I was amazed by the way a written description of a game could keep me on the edge of my seat until the final buzzer. This book is certainly heartbreaking, but when Conroy graduates and at last earns his freedom from his father and his family, it feels triumphant, too.

The team. Conroy is in the lower left corner.

Bermuda: More Than Just Shorts

I sat down to look at the calendar earlier this summer and earmarked the weekend of July 27th (yeah, I'm behind) as one on which Ed and I should go somewhere. He agreed, though at the time we didn't really consider where we would go or what we would do. I imagined a camping trip, wine tasting on Long Island, or perhaps a tour of Philadelphia or something. I also fantasized about going to Savannah. Ever since reading  Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I've been dying to go to Savannah. And Charleston is supposed to be very cool as well. On July 23rd, I was thumbing through my calendar again, when I realized that we had yet to plan anything for that weekend. D'oh. Ed and I set to brainstorming, and I brought up Charleston. Airfares, alas, were not nearly as cheap as when John Berendt decided to fly there for the weekend on a whim. "I'll bet it's cheaper to fly to Bermuda," Ed said. I figured he was just making an outrageous comparison, the better to complain about the cost of flying to Charleston. But no, this was an actual proposal, and, as is often the case, Ed was right. Not only was it cheaper, it would take us less time (albeit not much) to fly to Bermuda. "Let's go," he said. And so we did.

To the beach!

We were delayed leaving New York for about an hour, so it was night when we stepped off the plane into the velvety darkness that cloaked the runway. Bermuda is long and thin, and our hotel was on the opposite end of the island from the airport. This meant a 45-minute cab ride across just about the whole island. It would have been beautiful if we could see anything. Our driver chatted away to us in the strange Bermuda accent, which is like a softer American accent except that they say "oo" instead of a long "o" sound. So "road" became "rude," "boat" became "boot," etc. He pointed out proudly that we wouldn't see any rundown shacks on his island. Indeed, unlike many tropical places colonized by the French or British which have large slums and lots of poverty, Bermuda was uninhabited when it was discovered and settled by the British. Its per capita income is one of the highest in the world. The houses, roads, and shops are neatly painted in an array of pastel colors and everything is well kept.

View from our room

I was charmed by the hotel Ed picked from the first moment. We were ushered into what felt like a luxurious but comfortable living room and served complimentary dark and stormies - a blend of black rum and ginger beer that immediately became my favorite drink - then escorted to our cottage-like room which overlooked the ocean. There was a plate of cheese, crackers, fruit, and cookies waiting for us, and we munched on our small patio while listening to the soft wind and the lapping waves. I could hardly wait to wake up in the morning and actually see everything. I left our curtains open a crack.

My alarm went off at six, and I opened my eyes eagerly to see...darkness. Hmph. Apparently we were far enough west that there wasn't as much light at 6:00 A.M. in Bermuda as there was in New York. I woke again 30 minutes later to a much improved scene. Loud, beautiful, yellow birds were swooping around our patio dispatching what was left of the cookies. And the ocean beckoned, tantalizing me with a shade of turquoise I'd never seen before. Alas, before going into the water, I had business to attend to. I was scheduled to do my weekly long run that morning, and had to put in 18 miles before doing anything else. Ed planned to about half the distance I was planning to cover, and he finally dragged me away from the view. The plan was to follow the Railroad Trail, a 21-mile path carved out for the track of the train that used to run almost the length of the island. The train and tracks have been gone for years, but the trail remained and was supposed to be beautiful. Ed ran with me for a bit, then took off on his own. I'd heard that the trail ended and restarted sporadically, and I lost it dishearteningly quickly. Within 3 miles, I was totally lost, running instead along the excruciatingly narrow road hoping to spot it again. No such luck. Cars whizzed by me, and it seemed they were missing me by only inches. I passed a church with a sign on the wall that said, "Prepare to meet thy God." Ok, this was too much. I headed back the way I'd come figuring I'd just go back and forth along the trail I could follow until I got to 18 miles. But the frustration, humidity, and near-death experiences had taken their toll, and so I gave up on the trail and went to the hotel gym. One mile on the treadmill was all I could stand when paradise awaited outside. So I scrapped the run idea and went to breakfast with Ed. Seven is sort of close to eighteen.

Our hotel was right in the middle of this strip of land

Our tiny, private beach!

The hotel was located on a skinny part of the island and so had water to choose from on both sides. We started off on a tiny beach that we had all to ourselves. I waded into the water, and Ed had fun taking pictures of me, capturing a particularly awesome shot of my tossing my hat towards the shore so it wouldn't block my face. (Scroll to the end of the post to see it.) Then we had an early lunch, launched the way all lunches in Bermuda should be: with pina coladas. After lunch, we slathered on more sunscreen and rented a kayak. We paddled across the bay and snorkeled around a small island a short distance away from the shore. It was absolutely beautiful. The sand in Bermuda is unlike any sand I'd ever seen. I'd commented to Ed earlier that I was amazed there was any at all; the water is so calm it's hard to imagine it bashing rocks into tiny grains. He replied that the sand is actually coral that has, er, passed through the digestive systems of parrot fish. Oh my... I saw this in action on our snorkeling trip, however, and it was amazing. We could actually hear the crunching sounds as huge, brightly colored parrot fish bit off pieces of coral! We saw pretty striped fish called sergeant majors, fat sea cucumbers, and huge schools of tiny, silver fish. I swam directly into them several times to watch them split and flash around me. There was purple fan coral and huge brain coral. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy snorkeling; it is so peaceful and other-wordly, and I hadn't done it in tropical waters since a trip to Mexico a little over ten years before. I could have stayed in the water all day.

Coral-munching Machine! These guys are almost two feet long.

View from the Vixen: the island and a school of fish

Ed had other ideas, though. His fins were making his feet cramp, and he was anxious to get going on the second part of our agenda: exploring a shipwreck not too far away. We swam back to shore, climbed into the kayak, and headed out to the bow of the ship which was sticking out of the water. The Vixen went down in the late 1800's. It's a popular spot for jet ski tours to stop, and the tour leaders always bring bread to toss down to the fish so that they will swarm to the surface and impress the visitors. We didn't have any bread, but the fish thought we did. Ed and I took turns jumping out of the kayak and snorkeling around the wreck and we were simply surrounded by huge schools of disappointed (and, luckily, vegetarian) fish. The wreck itself was incredible. I thought I'd find it creepy, but it seemed serene. Thousands of fish swam around it, and here and there I could dive down and catch glimpses of the inside, hollowed out by decades in the salt water and illuminated by rays of sun. It was filled with even more fish. It was spectacular. We were pretty worn out from running that morning (even if one of us didn't quite fulfill the intended mileage quota...) and from swimming and paddling around all afternoon, though, and so we decided to head in. I was thirsty, and I could feel my back and shoulders slowly smoldering. The sunscreen I'd slathered on was supposed to be water resistant, but it apparently had been no match for about an hour of ocean swimming. On the paddle back, I ecstatically pointed out a sea turtle swimming along the surface of the water. Ed and I paused to watch it pass, and I babbled about how I'd hoped that we'd see one but had given up and that I couldn't believe it had come so close. (Ed listened quietly while sweating buckets as he worked to make up for the lackluster effort I was putting into the paddling process.) Then I spotted another one! Then another one. Then one more... By the time we were up to five in about five minutes, I was feeling a little silly for having made such a fuss. Apparently spotting  sea turtle off the coast of Bermuda is about as noteworthy as spotting a cloud.

The Vixen

The pool

Back on shore, we sucked down more pina coladas and dark and stormies - in the shade, of course - and then showered and dressed for dinner, which was at another hotel about 20 minutes away. Everything was wonderful, but I could feel tendrils of sadness creeping in because we had to leave the next day. On Sunday morning, we ate breakfast and I found myself staring extra long and hard at the beautiful vistas, verdant plants, and bright flowers, trying to memorize everything. We spent the rest of the morning sipping drinks and reading by the rather glamorous pool. It was harder to leave Bermuda than it has been to leave anywhere I've been for a long time, though it's so vastly different from New York that I felt I'd been there a lot longer than we actually had. I felt morose during the ride to the airport, and grim as I felt the plane's wheels leave the ground.

Still, this was an unbelievably easy trip to make, and it's one I hope we'll do again next summer. We'd have to wait until then because Bermuda's got approximately the same climate as North Carolina, so a winter trip would have to involve less lounging and snorkeling. It's nice to know that no matter how gritty, loud, crowded, and grey it may get in New York, Bermuda's sun and sand are always just a short plane ride away.