Hamilton

We sailed from New York Sunday evening and headed for Hamilton, Bermuda, preparing for a two-day stay in

somewhere warmer and sunnier climate. It is a 600 nautical mile trip, which means leaving NYC at 6pm Sunday

and pulling into the berth at Hamilton at 10am Tuesday, all the while traveling at 20 knots in strong seas.

Monday, Daryl had her second pasta class. We made our own fettuccine and learned to cut veggies to make a

primavera style with large shrimp mixed in. We also learned how to make pesto and a brown butter and sage

sauce with toasted walnuts. Our instructor told us that Jacques Pepin had been aboard with the Oceania Board of

Directors on Saturday while we were off the ship and that they had filmed an episode for Food Network with a

Greek chef in the Culinary Center on Sunday. She also had us do an olive oil tasting with some different oils she

had picked up while at dinner with her daughter in NYC on Saturday.

Hamilton was indeed sunny upon arrival but we got bad news. They are expecting 50 knot winds to hit in the

evening, so we are cutting our stay short and getting the ship out of the harbor after only one day in Bermuda. We

all piled off the ship for organized tours or adventures on our own. We bought day passes which allowed us to use

both bus and ferry. The Royal Navy Dockyard where the ship is docked is 20 minutes by ferry or 45 minutes by

bus from the main town, Hamilton. We took the bus in, which allowed us to see a lot of the island and took the

ferry back, which was a pretty high speed boat trip. We walked around town, window shopping and looking at all

the lovely pastel buildings. Bermuda is very prosperous, especially compared to what we saw in the Caribbean

last year. Of course, we had a light lunch before getting on the ferry. We explored the Dockyard area around the

cruise ship terminal and went to the glass blowing factory.

Since returning to the ship, we have seen the weather changing. Our butler, Ian, who is from Bombay, just brought

us some cheese and crackers and veggies since he did not see us this morning. We told him we are headed to Red

Ginger for dinner tonight and he said that his wife is the Maitre d' there. Apparently, Oceania makes it easy for

married couples to be together as our steward, Slava, who is from Bosnia-Herzegovina is also married to Anton,

who is a sommelier from Sri Lanka. Ian said that he and Slava feel they are on extended honeymoons around the

globe. We think they all work unbelievably hard, but for most this is an opportunity to have a much better life than

at home. Oceania has been doing some recruiting in different places, because there are at least 30 South Africans

in the restaurants and many more Western Europeans, like Portuguese, French and Italian. It has been our

experience that the Italians have not lasted too long in the past as they don't like taking direction all the time, but

they must have figured out something as they are all over the place now. The folks with the hardest jobs seem to

be the Asians, especially the Filipinos, who are cleaning, doing laundry, painting and bussing the tables. While I

did one load of laundry, a young guy came in 3 times to wipe out the washers and dryers and clean the lint filters,

etc