The cruise was a blast and Bermuda is absolutely gorgeous. There’s more than just beauty there though, it’s an extremely fascinating country. Did you know that Bermuda has the highest per capita income in the world? Over 50% higher than that of the U.S.A. It shows too. Middle school kids were walking around with laptops and PDA’s. But enough about that.

The food on the cruise was incredible. I seriously gained 5 pounds last week. Gourmet breakfast, gourmet lunches, and gourmet dinners everyday. If you wanted to skip the restaurant scene, they also offered buffets on the top deck three times a day. On the back of the boat they had a 24 hour grill that served hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, pizza, and fries. The fries were fabulous; and they were even better at 3 in the morning. I’m not sure why. They had a chocolate buffet Friday night from 11:00 to midnight. I’m not a chocoholic by any means, but this set up would have impressed anyone. And of course there was 24 hour room service which we took full advantage of. So, in short, the food was great! The drinks were even better. We were drinking Bloody Marys, Dirty Bananas, Coco Locos, all kinds of foo foo drinks and more buckets of beer than could fit in our state room. Koji and I drank cognac and smoked Cubans on the back deck. That was great.

The first day in Bermuda we all hit the beach at Tobacco Bay. Tobacco Bay has this cool little cove, complete with its very own tiki bar. While we were in Bermuda the weather was close to perfect. On the way back to Boston we ended up hitting the tail end of a storm which kind of kicked the crap out of us. But let’s get back to the good weather. Tobacco Bay was really nice. As I’m sure you’d expect, the water was crystal clear and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Tropical fish were swimming all around us. That was pretty cool and yet sort of freaky.

Meg and I broke off from the group every now and then and explored the Island. We had lunch in St. George on Tuesday and lunch in Hamilton on Thursday. Both cities are really unique. St. George, where our ship was docked, is a very quaint little city, whereas Hamilton, the capitol of Bermuda, was more of a conventional city. That didn’t take away from its charm, though.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was horseback riding. Meg and I went on an hour and a half guided tour of southern Bermuda all on horseback. My horse kicked ass. He was 1/3 Clydesdale, 1/3 Black Stallion, and 1/3 dragon. They say he was untameable. They say he killed men for fun. He was so fierce that they had to blind fold him so he wouldn’t kill me on site. Behold, the fiercest horse ever to set foot in Bermuda:

His name is Buddy. I think that’s somehow short for The Almighty Horse of Destruction. We bonded. He was much better than Meg’s stupid horse TJ. Who the hell names a horse TJ? But that’s neither here nor there. I enjoyed it so much that I think I’m going to look into horseback riding around here. I might even buy cowboy hat.

TJ,…please!

Wednesday was the wedding. The whole reason for going on the cruise. For me, it was by far the best day of the trip. The actual wedding was beautiful. The wedding dinner was fantastic. And the wedding reception was…. a bit fuzzy.

Koji and Michelle got married at the Grotto Resort which overlooks the ocean. It really was picture perfect. After the ceremony, we went back to the ship for dinner. I’m not exaggerating when I say I had the best piece of steak I’ve ever tasted in my life. I eat a lot of steak mind you. There was an open bar in the disco from 8:00 to 10:00. You’ll have to read about the rest of the night on another blog because I don’t really remember the details. I heard it was fun though.

Koji just emailed me and said that they’re already planning another cruise for next year, this time to the Caribbean. Sign me up! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, cruises are worth every penny. If you ever have a chance to go on one, I would highly recommend it. I plan on taking an Alaskan cruise sometime before I die and I’ll definitely be doing a geek cruise in the foreseeable future. But for now, it’s back to reality. I already miss everyone I went on the cruise with. There’s something about being isolated in the middle of the Atlantic that really brings people together. Or maybe it was the booze. But seriously, we couldn’t have gone with a better group of people. I uploaded over 350 pictures of the cruise, Bermuda, and the wedding to my flickr account. You can check them out here. Enjoy.

TOO THE DISCO!!!

Hopefully I’ll be able to post some pics as the week goes on. I even brought my laptop to do a little writing. That is, of course, assuming that internet access isn’t something ridiculous like $100.00 an hour. In that case….. see you when I get back.