WEEK 17 - ORLANDO, FLORIDA - sunday 15 and monday 16 august 2010

today we spent the day fixing my laptop. the operating sytem decided to randomly die on us, so joseph went to apple, and they said ‘it happens sometimes’ and we had to buy Snow Leopard AGAIN, and wipe the whole laptop and do a fresh install.
luckily i am a backup freak, and havent lost any photos or anything! whew!
in the evening we went to a music evening at someones house, and listened to live music in their custom built music room. so cool! we met some really lovely people too, including mary and jason, a lovely couple who are celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary this week, so im hoping i can take some photos for them :)

monday today, and we are off to Wet n Wild with Tsuru. we figured if it rains, it wont be a problem. WRONG! we were only there for 90minutes, before lighting started, and they shut the pools down for TWO hours while the 30 minute thunder storm passed. finally by 2.30pm, the pools reopened, and at 3.30pm they reopened the slides. so we only managed to get on about 4 slides and the pool and lazy river, but at least it was nice to cool off in this heat! its almost unbearable! 35 - 40 degree days!

in the evening we had a sushi evening to say farewell to Tsuru, who is leaving tomorrow. so yum! man ive missed decent sushi! tsuru also taught me how to make scrummy Miso soup, so if any of you lovely people are keen for a japanese night when you come over to visit, let me know :)

then i go a very exciting phonecall. mary [who i met on sunday night] works at disney as an actress at the epcot center, and wants up to experience disney and see her show, so she is allowing us in as her guests! ARGH! So exciting! we were planning on leaving disney until we have kids and come back in ten years, but if someones inviting us, of course we will go! :) Tsuru is coming too, so he’s postponed his leaving date by 24 hours. and after being all excited about going to disney, i still managed to sleep! :)

WEEK 16 - MIAMI TO ORLANDO, FLORIDA - friday 13 and saturday 14 august 2010

today we are heading back up the coast to orlando. we are staying with couch surfing host Swami, he sounds really nice and we are looking forward to meeting him.
we had a clean run right until we hit Orlando, where we were reduced to crawling 7km in 40 minutes! but we finally made it! Swami had a welcome sign pinned up for us and he always takes arrival photos with his surfers.

he has an amazingly large and unique house, filled with items for couch surfers to look through about other countries, especially japan and space! he has another surfer staying with him names Tsuru, he is from japan and he is travelling until 2013! Tsuru is very lovely, he does fire poi stuff, so i hope we get to see him in action this week!
on friday evening Swami took us out to one of his favourite local haunts Austin, where we enjoyed amazing soup and sandwiches, played jenga, and chatted with his friends, who seemed to be every other customer in the shop. Swami knows everyone!

Joseph trying an edible flower

on saturday we slept in, and then headed out to get joseph a haircut, hes looking pretty sharp now! :) we then headed to IKEA, just for a look! im trying to work out what i can pack in my suitcase from IKEA, right now im at apron, tea towels, fruit bowl, and high thread count sheets! :) i wish i could fit the home entertainment system, coffee tables, storage cupboard, lamps and mirrors, but alas, they wont fit! hurry up and come to New Zealand IKEA, its not fair! all we have is rip off priced Freedom Furniture, whose goods fall apart just after the warranty, Target who do decent stuff, just not enough range, and Bo Concept, who do amazing furniture for even more amazing prices! ok rant over.
in the afternoon Joseph hung out with Tsuru on the computer while i napped [my inability to sleep in, is making our 2am bedtimes take its toll on me!]
in the evening we headed to another of Swamis favourite places, a cafe called The Drunken Monkey [which does not serve alcohol]. They offer alot of vegan and vegetarian items, and have these amazing sandwiches, i got a beef one YUM!

we sat back and enjoyed listening to Swamis friends play wonderful acoustic music, and also played Topple and Scrabble [which i lost at Topple and then won Scrabble, hooray!]

WEEK 16 - MIAMI, FLORIDA - thursday 12 august 2010

last day in miami today, and we were planning to go sit on the beach all day, but it was so hot, we decided to head to the outdoor mall instead, called The Falls. its a really pretty mall, with plants and ponds everywhere.
on the way we stopped at einsteins bagels and had lunch, soooo good!

we milled around in all the shops, and i bought a $16 dress [woohoo], and got myself a pair of prescription DKNY polarised sunglasses made in 2 hours for NZ$300! so cool! i wish i could get those giant wraparound sunglasses, but to get them prescription, you need each eye piece to be separate, and my prescription is so strong, i need to choose plastic frames with minimum curvature on the lenses, so i was so happy to find a pair of frames that fit my face, looked nice and i could get them made quickly :)
joseph is looking into getting some prescription oakleys, and weve got a quote for about 40% less than what it would cost in nz, so hes pretty stoked, just gotta stay in a town long enough to order them.

in the evening we went up to Ft Lauderdale with Juan and got ice creams and walked the streets with Juanita the little dog and took photos. ice cream was melting so fast, theres no pictures of it! this area reminds me of the waterfront area of tauranga, but way more commercialised, and a lot more traffic!

WEEK 16 - MIAMI, FLORIDA - tuesday 10 and wednesday 11 august 2010

today we awoke to pouring rain so we decided to head to the mall to do some shopping! woohoo! now that we have a car to drive, we can carry more things with us, and we arent lugging extra bags to buses and things. we went to the main mall in south miami, and i bought a new leather fossil bag with a matching wallet, its so cute! i also got some new shampoo and conditioner, SO cheap! i got sebastian shampoo and conditioner for US$15 a bottle [NZ$20], swartzschopf silver shampoo for US$14, and a tub of morrocan oil hair treatment mask for US$31! so very excited to get some new shampoo, ive been stuck with cheap shampoo and it feels like im using dishwashing liquid on my hair [im a shampoo snob, what can i say?!]
it was amazing, joseph didnt even seem to mind wandering the mall with me, while i acted like a 5 year old, squealing excitedly and running into shops :)
in the evening we hung out with Juan, we cooked dinner [it was average, needed more tomato paste oops!] and then hung out having drinks by the pool and swimming, soooo nice! :) then Juan took us for a night drive around miami to take photos ;)

on wednesday it was the only sunny day forecast for the week, so we decided to head to Everglades, which we apparently HAVE to see. our silly tom tom sent us to the wrong side of the park and we got completely lost! the only bonus was i found neat trees for doing a photoshoot in!

so we tried to get to the right place, but the internet listed 5 completely different addresses, so we gave up and decided to head to Key Biscuay instead, which was actually REALLY nice!
we stopped at the beach beside the bridge on the way to take some photos of the sun and sail boats

we then drove to the end of the key. you could take really neat portrait or wedding photos out here. theres a wharf for fishing, and neat paths to walk and an old lighthouse to visit, very peaceful and quiet :)

we stopped in the city to do some shopping and look around the shops
[actually this may have been a different day, but ive written my blog a week after this has happened and all my days are blending, so i cant remember exactly, but nevertheless, we went here...]

when we got home i took some photos of the little dog Juanita, shes so cute!

in the evening we took Juan out for Thai to thank him for his amazing hospitality, and it was SO yum! i love tom kha ga soup! the lady that served us was really funny! she was like “where are you from?” and i said new zealand, and she replies “oh, you have alot of sheep there dont you?”. i had previously mentioned to Juan, that the three things people always say when you say you are from NZ are:
oh, you have alot of sheep. 4 for every person?
lord of the rings
its very green and beautiful
so it was hilarious that my theory was proven correct once again! :)
i even managed to have a few guys on in titusville, and had them convinced for about 1 minute, that we use messenger sheep in our office buildings to transfer messages via post-it note [like the big dogs with the barrels round their necks], because we are not technologically advanced enough for electronic message transfer. man it was so funny! i love how people think nz is so untouched, that we have zero technology! at least everywhere accepts credit cards! [unlike europe!].