Mario Marathon 5
It’s getting to be that time of year, everyone. A sure sign that summer is around the corner. That’s right, it’s almost time for this year’s Mario Marathon!
It starts June 22nd at 11 am.
I’m starting to get excited. Seriously. This will be my fourth year watching.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, what Mario Marathon is or why you should watch, check out this post I wrote last year.
I’ve once again added the donation widget on my blog (look to the right), so if you feel so inclined – join me in donating to Child’s Play Charity. Kids in children’s hospitals around the world will benefit from toys and games – but more than that – smiles, entertainment and distraction from their treatment. Last year, $112,675 was raised.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – these guys (and galls) have a genius concept and truly “get” the importance of interacting with their audience. Social media managers everywhere, take note.
Case in point: Last year, even my mom joined in the fun, sending in a donation. Normally, donations flash across the screen, thanking each donor automatically. For some reason, this glitched during my mom’s donation and never showed up. They noticed. This resulted – take note of the hand-written sign in the bottom right above the logo:
People don’t donate for the recognition (at least not us), so my mom would not have been heartbroken if her name never appeared on screen. But this? This was just awesome and she was tickled pink.
So, my hats off to the entire Mario Marathon team for all their hard work. Here’s to another record-breaking year!
Don’t Sweat It
Remember that moment in your senior year of high school when you’re trying to decide what to do for the rest of your life and the weight of that decision feels like it might crush you?
Don’t worry.
You get to relive that feeling time and time again throughout your lifetime.
The good news is you will have plenty of “fork in the road” moments where you get to put a spin on your future. The potential and possibility are thrilling.
The bad news is…. it’s always just as scary.
The secret is…. as far as I can tell, no one ever truly completely figures it out.
St. George’s, Bermuda
While in Bermuda, we visited the town of St. George’s. We didn’t really know much about the place before visiting, but had heard it was of historical significance – and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I’m a bit geeky when it comes to the UNESCO list – I’m all for visiting as many of their listed sites as I possibly can.
We docked where “A” is marked on the map, and St. George’s is indicated by the “B”:
View Larger Map
We planned to take a ferry direct from King’s Wharf to St. George’s; however, this route apparently does not run on weekends. We ended up needing to take a ferry to Hamilton (which was fine since I wanted to see it anyhow), then transfer to a bus to travel the rest of the way to St. George’s. As I mentioned before, the public transportation is great in Bermuda – clean, modern, efficient. It did take us quite a while to get to where we wanted to eventually go but I didn’t mind too much as it was part of the experience to take in the sights along the way.
Curious things I noticed during our journeys:
- the trash bags I saw out at the curb were all colourful polka-dotted bags. Not sure if this was a trend, or a rule… but it sure made a pile of trash look much less ugly!
- random roadside stands selling items. We see these all the time for fruits/vegetables, here in Canada. In Bermuda I saw one that was selling a variety of laundry detergents and other cleaning supplies.
Anywho.. I digress!
Once we arrived in St. George’s, we set about wandering around. First we explored the town square, called King’s Square, which features the Town Hall:
The square also had replica stocks set up, which made for a fun photo op. Definitely felt more “touristy” than “historically significant” though.
Right next to King’s Square is the harbour, where there is a replica of the ship Deliverance. St. George’s was the first settlement in Bermuda and its first settlers were stuck there after being shipwrecked. They ended up building two new ships – and the Deliverance was one of them.
We then wandered to St. Peter’s Church:
A very nice old gentleman there graciously told us as much of the church’s history as anyone would ever want to know, pointing out the different additions and explaining how they were added over time. Its claim to fame is that is is the oldest surviving Anglican church that has been in continuous use (outside of Britain); it may also be the oldest “new world” church. It was incredibly challenging to get any good photographs inside the building as there was no one place to stand where you could ‘take it all in’ at once. The dark wood interior definitely is the predominant feature and I was also intrigued that all the pews are “boxed” in – you had to open a little door to get into the pew – I had never seen that before.
What I enjoyed most, though, was exploring the exterior of the church and the cemetery on its grounds.
This sort of thing just gets to me… three teeny tiny coffins – each no more than 18 inches long:
And then we wanted on to the Unfinished Church. Once upon a time, it was supposed to become a replacement for St. Peter’s but for various reasons, it was never finished.
We then stopped for a few moments in Somer’s Garden. Being as we were there early in the summer (April), the plants were not especially spectacular; however, we did enjoy the moongate. These are a popular garden decoration in Bermuda and they bring good luck to those that walk under them – or so the story goes.
And that brought our visit to St. George’s to an end. It was very quiet when we were there. Not much was open in the way of shops or museums. It may be a more exciting place to stop in the busier season but I’d had enough after a couple of hours. The places we did see were interesting, though, so I definitely don’t regret taking the time to go.
Horseshoe Bay, Bermuda
One of the highlights of my recent vacation was Horseshoe Bay in Bermuda.
We were docked at King’s Wharf and to get around for the two days we were in Bermuda, we’d bought an unlimited public transportation pass for $20. It allowed travel on both the ferries and the buses – which for the record, were all very clean and modern. Conveniently, they had special buses running every 15 minutes to Horseshoe Bay.
Our bus driver was incredibly nice, almost acting as a tour guide the whole way there. Just as we almost arrived, he pulled over at a lookout point up high so we could get out of the bus and take pictures (!!), even playing photographer for quite a few couples. Where else would a public transportation driver do that? I’m so glad he did because it resulted in one of my favourite shots of the trip.
I can imagine this beach being extremely crowded in high season or when two or more ships are docked at once – but we were the only ship in Bermuda while we were there and it was early in the season, so the crowds were light.
There was a large sign on the way in warning of the possible dangers:
Despite a few hundred people on the beach, there was next to no one actually swimming. I wasn’t about to let a little bit of cold water scare me away from enjoying the ocean. It was definitely chilly on the toes at first, but after a couple minutes, the water felt great. The waves were definitely strong at moments so I do see how rip currents could happen, but I thankfully didn’t experience those. We did see two of the Portuguese Man-o-War washed up on shore and was a little bit paranoid about running into one in the water. Thankfully the water was super clear and you could easily see all around you – so that put me at ease.
As you might be able to see, the sand is “pink” and this is lauded as what makes Bermuda’s beaches special. It definitely does have visible flecks of pink/red. The closer to the water, the pinker it looks.
My favourite part of this particular beach was not that it was pink, but was the really cool rock formations off to each side of it.
It was definitely a relaxing afternoon and a gorgeous spot. Definitely worth visiting if you are in Bermuda.
New Travel Adventures
I just returned home from a road trip to Baltimore, and a 8 night cruise aboard the Enchantment of the Seas – which went to Bermuda & Boston.
I hope to have both a photo blog as well as a review of the ship for you sometime soon. My review of the Celebrity Constellation is still one of my most visited posts on this blog (that, along with my rant about “Love It or List It”… seriously), so clearly “you people” “out there” enjoy such things 
For now… I am swimming in all the things I missed while I was away – catching up on emails, watching my to-do list grow exponentially, not to mention I still haven’t done my taxes… and oh yeah – I just *had* to catch up on the new episodes of Glee and Grey’s that I missed while I was gone! Priorities.
But photos and reviews soon. Promise. Bermuda may just be up there with Iceland as one of my favourite destinations… except it was a lot warmer, so it may win.
