=== He was born John James Adolphus Mills in 1924, he is a Bermudian native who is found every morning from the hours of 3:45 to 10 am waving to passing traffic on the way to Hamilton Monday-Friday. He is a the Foot of Lane roundabout regardless of the weather, and he stands there saying " I love you, I love you" as he blows kisses to the cars stuck in rush hour. He was a railroad electrician until it closed in 1948 and then he drove a bus for a living. One day on his way to work he just stopped and started waving at people. He is called the friendliest man in Bermuda and legally changed his name to Johnny Barnes in 1997. This man is so famous here, that they even gave him a statue near the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute. The statue is of him with his hands in the air and a big smile on his face. ===
See video link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nveq-kwVu3g
I wasn't all that impressed with the Olympic opening ceremony, especially from an American station. The ladies at work today were making fun of all the sob stories they were telling about the athletes. The triumphs of dreams once lost and limbs once broken..... ya okay we get it. LOL I like those stories because I like to hear about their athletic backgrounds.
This past weekend the weather was still pretty damp, rainy and super windy. On Saturday morning Maria took me to the market in Hamilton. The market has mostly vegetables, a tea table, a flower stand and a jewelry table. The market is in the main parking garage for downtown Bermuda. I bought some fresh lettuce and Bermuda banana's. They are sweeter and smaller than regular bananas. After the market we went out for a late breakfast. It was nice to sit and talk over eggs and breakfast potatoes. The morning was rainy, so we rented a couple movies and went back to Maria's place to watch them. Her husband was out for the day and I was more than grateful for the company.
Sunday was sunny.... finally. I woke up early and I went for a jog around the neighbourhood. To the ocean around the resort and back to my place. During my run it started to rain, but I didn't care because the sun was still shinning. I then went to church with Maria and her husband Steven. At the mass they were baptizing a little baby called Gabriella Rose. It was nice to really see the natural community. The priest at the church, Father Paul is from St. Catherines. He comes to the school every Thursday to teach the elementary students.
We then went to St. George to have lunch with Maria's parents. I brought my computer to their house and we looked at family pictures. I showed her parents Vavo & Vavu's wedding picture and they were identifying all the other people in the picture. We then went on google earth and took a little tour of the islands in Azores where they used to live. We looked up everyone's addresses on google earth and chatted about life and geography of Portugal. After the history lesson, we made malassadas. Outside they had a BBQ set up with a large frying pan. So we filled it with oil and I helped shape with Angelina (Maria's mom) and Steven did the frying. When she shapes them she pokes a whole through the middle so that the oil will cook through the entire donut. This is different from Vavo's methods of making them, plus they only let the dough rise for about four hours because air is so humid so the yeast grows faster here. I really enjoyed the cultural weekend... It's Carnival season, and it was Fat Sunday after all.
I brought some malassadas into work this morning and they were very impressed that I helped make them. They didn't know that I was portuguese. Apparently I add to both majorities in the school now, Canadians and Portuguese. We had a "Rain" fire drill today at school. What an interesting concept. In case of fire please look out the window to check the weather before running over the children to flee the burning building... I mean... escort them to a safe place. :P
We had to go to the church across the street rather than going to the park. I say just bring them to the church regardless of the weather. Air conditioning in the summer and shelter in the rain. I think they should just have one location as I would hate for there to be sunshower that renders the students hopelessly lingering in limbo trying to decipher the proper destination for evacuation.
Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Tuesday). We have our first school mass on Wednesday for Ash Wednesday. That should be an interesting experience. Next monday is parent teacher interviews, then tuesday is a P/A day. Wednesday-Friday is vacy.... Yahoo!!!
Until next time, Ciao for now...
No comments:
Post a Comment