Happy Birthday America

Just because I live in Bermuda doesn't mean I didn't get to celebrate the Fourth of July. After all, I am a proud American—a sun-kissed, lucky-as-clover American, but an American nonetheless. Unlike my first year on the island when I celebrated with my wife on Church Bay or last year, when apparently I wore the exact same shirt to toast the U-S-of-A's independence, I spent July 4th sipping wine and watching east end fireworks from the oceanfront balcony of my room at the Pink Beach Club, a ritzy cottage colony in Tucker's Town (yes, that was my actual view). I was there on assignment, so instead of scooping my own story I'll just tell you this: If you're looking for a high-end hotel that guarantees seclusion, solitude and a killer water view, you should seriously consider the Pink Beach Club, featuring 94 spacious rooms and suites on Bermuda's stunning south shore. I'll have more about the hotel in the near the future, but for now, know that this American had one heckuva time in Britain's oldest colony.

Happy Independence Day?

This weekend marks the second straight year I’ll be celebrating Independence Day on foreign soil—although considering the soil is sand and the sand is pink I’m certainly not complaining. Back in the States it’s always the jolliest of weekends. Also known as the official start of summer Fourth of July weekend is when beaches become flooded with sun-worshippers, naughty kids mess around with fireworks and barbecues get stoked for the first time (if of course they hadn’t been lit on Memorial Day or in my case, Father’s Day when my family was treated to grilled pizzas during a recent trip to New York). It’s all good fun, but the point is to celebrate the independence of a nation.

So what’s an American in Bermuda to do? For starters I’ll be wearing this snazzy shirt again, originally procured from a prominent member of the U.S. Olympic volleyball team (that’s me on Church Bay last year). Second? Some down home cooking should do the trick, perhaps barbeque chicken, corn on the cob and fresh watermelon, if indeed the juicy fruit made its long trip overseas in a refrigerated container. I don’t have any fireworks to shoot off but I’ve never really been an explosives kind of guy anyway. Oh yeah, and I’ll read the Declaration of Independence because every American should read the Declaration of Independence at least once a year. Just consider the first sentence. It doesn’t get much better than this:

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” It took a lot of, shall we say, cojones to write that first sentence. But then Mr. Hancock and friends hit us with this doozy: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Amen brother! Consider my happiness officially being pursued on Bermuda’s pink shores. In the meantime, happy Fourth of July to all you Americans out there.