Bermuda - Part Two

In May of 1974 Peter was able to help out another hotel, The Mermaid Beach Club, in Bermuda.  They had staffing problems in their kitchen and were looking for people to work part time to help out.  It was all cleared by Immigration, so he took on the the job.  After he had been there for a month or so, they asked him if he would like to take on the position of Executive Chef for the company.  The pay was good and the position came with a House!!!!!  WOO HOO!!!  Our own little cottage in Bermuda!

We were so excited about the move.  The cottage was adorable. It had 2 bedrooms, a little efficiency kitchen, living room and bath room.  But it was like Heaven.  It had a fireplace too!  They had to do some upgrading of the kitchen, so we couldn't move in right away.  They put us up in one of their other hotels, until it was finished.  

In early July of that year, Bermuda was hit by Hurricane Alice.  We had just moved out of staff housing at the Sonesta Hotel and were staying at Pink Sands Beach Resort waiting for our cottage to be ready.  I was at work when we received a call from Horace, the manager of our factory saying there was a hurricane coming our way that night.  (This is letting you all know how old we are when there was no "warning" time with hurricanes!!!!!)  Mr. Gaade, my boss, told me to wait for him to secure his sail boat then he would drive me home.  He didn't want me on my moped with the winds that were blowing.  

So we spent the night with the hurricane raging.  Pretty brave of us wasn't it?  Actually not, there was NO way off the island at that time, so we didn't have a choice. Fortunately, there wasn't too much damage to the Island.  

We flew home to Connecticut in early July.  We had a great time.  We spent one week at the Sonesta Hotel  in downtown Hartford, gratis......and the second week with family, gratis........It was nice getting off the island, but couldn't wait to get back to start living  in  our little house.

Now, don't forget the reason we moved to Bermuda.  Remember, Peter wanted to be able to work in Europe.  So, even though we absolutely loved living in Bermuda, we were looking to move on.  So we kept ours eyes open, read the Swiss publication, Union Helvetzia Newspaper every week, and looked for an opportunity to get Peter a job in Europe.

 

A position with the Sheraton Hotel in Stockholm Sweden, came available, and Peter applied.  The hotel was interested in him, however, once again we had to wait to see if we could get a work permit.  While we waited, we had a great time living in Bermuda.  We had dinner guests constantly in our little cottage, we had family visit all the time.  One of our best visits was when my Mom, Aunt DeDe and my Nana came to visit.  It was so much fun showing them around the island.

Christmas in our little Cottage was delightful. Just before Christmas, I received a letter from the Sheraton Hotel with his permit enclosed. I bought a "tourists" book about  Sweden and put the permit inside.  He was thrilled...............another new adventure....................... Sometimes I wonder why we left Bermuda.  I know, there was so much adventure ahead of us, but it sure was joyful living and working in Bermuda.

We had to face some difficult decisions with this trip.  We still had our dog, and could take him to Sweden without him having to go into quarantine as Bermuda was a rabies free island.  However, that meant we couldn't go to the states to see our families before we flew to Sweden.  Yikes, that was a tough decision.  Family won. Dog lost.  We found friends that would take the dog for us while we were in Europe. There was no way we were going to put the dog in quarantine for 6 months.

So now it is time to leave, on yet another adventure.  This one was a little bit scarier than the last.  A real foreign country with a different language.  Ah, what the heck, we were young and carefree.  We could survive, and did !!!!!!!