Florida
This is the long overdue Florida spring break trip of Susana, Josh, Alex, Miles, and Moxi. Keep in mind this is almost two months after the trip, so it's not going to capture how I felt during the trip but rather how I feel right now - it was fun. I'm going to try to keep it as short as possible because I'm lazy and it's reading period.
Friday:
Our plane left sometime during the day. This was actually the beginning of a fun adventure because Susana didn't check in the night before. Due to this, she got what they call 'boarding zone 99'. This essentially means that they oversold the plane and she does not have a seat unless someone gives it up for her. They offered TWO round trip tickets for the seat. I was honestly tempted to do so, but we would have made Miles' parents pick us up twice. Anyway, once we go to Florida I realized how much of the warm weather I was missing in Rochester. Fortunately it wasn't too humid, the weather was great. I was so excited to start my vacation off right. Miles' dad picked us up from the airport. It was really hard to miss him because he was so tall. We got to his house, which was crazy. It was basically two houses (one main, one guest) with a long swimming pool in the middle. It kind of reminded me of those houses you see on TV that always hosts pool parties. Everyone was really excited so we made PBJs, drank beer, and got into the pool. Good life right? We then decided to check out downtown of St. Petersburg before Miles arrived. We walked around their beautiful neighborhood, took some wrong turns, get attacked by birds (just Susana), and finally got downtown. This town is actually full of old people, but it was very relaxing. We went into a spice shop. They had like everything here (even green chile powder), and the spices were CHEAP. We then went to a chocolate store where Susana and Alex bought chocolate covered bacon and something else. Then, the hungry us decided to eat at a cute cafe downtown. We walked around the bay area, lounged around, waited for Miles to arrive, and then have dinner with his family. The dinner was really yummy, his family is crazy funny and loves drinking, I can see the resemblance now.
Saturday:
We started our drive to Miami in the morning. The car ride was nice, we ate some cheese and crackers like classy people. After about 4 hours, we arrived at the everglades. We went on a gator tour which Miles' parents kindly bought us tickets for. It was really fun because the airboat went so fast. However, we only saw 2 alligators, booo :(. Afterwards, we arrived at Miami. This place was exactly how I imagined. It was full of tall white buildings, cruise ships, Cubans, and other stereotypes that are true. After we settled into our sketchy hotel at North Shore, we decided to venture out for some food. After much walking, we found a sushi place and settled on that. It was really good and fresh! I was full, but the others weren't, so they decided to get a pizza haha. We then went to the liquor store to get some alcohol, drank, went to the beach, and finally a diner to satisfy those late night cravings. I can say that this was a very relaxing day, especially because I love going to the beach at night or early mornings.
Sunday: Our parking situation kind of sucked because after 8am (or was it 7am? or 9am?), we had to pay for parking. Since I was such a light sleeper, I knew I wouldn't have slept much anyway, so I volunteered myself to get up and pay the parking fee. It was actually really nice getting up early in the morning. Despite the windy and semi-cold weather, I walked around the beach, had some free hotel breakfast, sat outside, and just watched the sunrise. It was really quiet, so everything was peaceful and serene. After everyone woke up, we ate some empanadas and then headed to South Beach, where all the fun was. South Beach has this place called Lincoln Road, which is essentially a street of shopping, food, and cute markets. I really wanted to go shopping but I was with a bunch of guys and Susana, so that didn't work out too well. We ate at this really yummy restaurant called Van Dyke, where I think I got a massive burger. Oh, and there was a random flash rain, so we sat in and drank mojitos during happy hour. We then lounged on the beach to soak in all the sun. The weather wasn't too great, so we started heading back to prepare to go clubbing at night. Miles introduced us to one of his friends and some of his other friends, we drank together and then Susana me and Miles headed to a club. However, once we got there the place was soooo packed, we decided to do hookah. This was my second time doing hookah, and I still don't think I enjoy it that much. It just doesn't affect me so the smoke and all isn't really worth it.
Monday: I woke up early again because I wanted to do sunrise yoga. However, I couldn't find them (they happened to be 20min late), so I decided to take pictures instead. Luckily, it was a great day for a sunrise because there were a lot of clouds and just small stream of sunlight with lots of birds and cruise ships in the background. I sat on the lifeguard post for about 2 hours taking pictures and enjoying the view before everyone woke up. The one thing I have always enjoyed is sitting alone at the beach with no one around, not sure why but I have always done this. Afterwards, we checked out of our hotel and headed to Little Havana to eat at a place called Camarones (or something like that). I looked it up online previously and it had great ratings about their seafood. It turns out that this little place was on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on Food Network. The food was amazing, but too bad Josh couldn't eat any of it. Afterwards came our journey to Orlando. Alex and I were really excited for HP world. When we got there, first thing I thought was that the hotel was such a big improvement from the one in Miami. It was a lot cheaper, cleaner, and had a pool and bar. We went somewhere to eat because Josh hadn't eaten all day. Afterwards, I took a nap by the pool while everyone else did their own thing. For dinner, we went to Publix, bought a lot of random stuff, and had dinner in the hotel.
Tuesday:
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS! Harry Potter land was amazing, butterbeer was so tasty, the rides were long line but fun. I love this place. We headed back to St. Petersburg in the afternoon.
Wednesday:
We went fishing with Miles' grandpa. It was so much fun and such a different experience than in NM. First of all, there were a lot of fish so it was more fishing than waiting. Second, these fishes were hugeee. Third, we caught like 20+ fish. Fourth, Susana caught a grouper larger than 22 inches so we go to keep it. Later, we found out this was illegal, but thankfully we didn't get caught. After bringing the fish home and much trouble with our bikes, we biked to a restaurant where they cleaned the fish and fried it for us into sandwiches. It was soooo tasty. At night, we got driven to Miles' grandma's beach house in Clearwater. This place was soo nice! I could definitely live here. It was right by the beach, like the backyard was the beach. It also had a jacuzzi and swimming pool, which we played in for a while.
Thursday:
We biked to a buffet (with lots of trouble on bike with Alex and Josh lol), chilled at the beach for a whole day (nice and relaxing), then went to the Conch to enjoy some drinks and food. The food here was great, we had alligator, banana foster, and lots of main dishes. I also took the time to take pictures of the sunset at the beach. This restaurant was my favorite out of everywhere we went to.
Friday:
We biked 10 miles to a brunch place with amazing eggs benedict then the 10 miles back. It made me really miss biking. Oh, and Alex fell off his bike and scraped his hand, owww. We then got ice cream to wait for them and headed back to pack for our flight. And to end this adventure, we decided to have dinner outside our terminal cause we're dumbasses and missed our flight because security had a long line. We ended up spending the night at the airport where I read 2 Hunger Game books in preparation for the movie. We had wheel chair races and free food. We were so sleep deprived, but it was like a fun slumber party (just at the airport).
And that concludes our trip to Florida! It was such a nice break from Rochester, the studying, the weather, etc. I definitely want to head back there again someday.
