The Sunshine State…

…and probably my favourite state. Well, I’m back in Australia. Currently, I’m sitting in the Melbourne Business Lounge and I’m on the my third coffee of the morning! I guess it’s good to be home, but I’m kind of sad that the trip is over. I had a great time and I learned a bit about how some things work and how I would do it if I did this trip again. I’ll point these out as I go and maybe do an overall impressions when I’m done, but let’s continue with this chapter of the story.

(So picking up on Saturday) It’s 4.30 in the morning, I’ve had about 4 hours sleep which is not enough! Why do I keep booking these early flights, oh right, they’re the cheap ones. Anyway I’m off the Florida, though the weather forecast has me a little worried. There’s a lot of cloudy days and rainy ones when I’m at Universal… but we’ll see what happens. I’ve got two pretty short flights which is nice. When you end up in Tenessee, Florida isn’t too far away. Nashville airport was nothing exciting, it didn’t take too long to get through and it had an Admirals club, so I got coffee and yogurt. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but unlike Australia, most intra-US flights don’t serve food, just a beverage, so pre-flight lounge access is really good as you actually get food!

There were short, uneventful flights including the stop in Charlotte. As the first flight was fast it was a few hours transit, but as I was in the Admirals club it was fine. It meant I got to have some lunch too! I landed in Fort Lauderdale and it’s certainly a smaller airport. You’ve got to take a bus to get to the rental car centre, but it’s no big deal. I got my car, but I was much less enamoured with this one. It was a Chevrolet, but it seemed to be a more base model. No sensors, adaptive cruise control or any of the new fruit. It was fine for what I needed, but I wouldn’t have been happy if it was my first car with all the driving I did in that.

I must admit, I did fine some irony in the fact that the car I picked up in Chicago was licensed in Florida and the car I picked up in Florida was licensed in Texas. (I know it would have been funnier if that was Chicago, but still.) I did really like the fact that I flew into Fort Lauderdale though, especially since I was tired, not having to drive 3 hours from Orlando was very nice.

I went with my usual plan of heading off to Starbucks to kill time as check in wasn’t til 4pm. However at the Starbucks I found I couldn’t see where I was supposed to park – it all seemed to be reserved for other shops. After a bit I decided if I went to Aldi and did shopping it would probably almost be 4. So that’s what I did, went and bought some food (this Aldi was pretty small and a bit disappointing, but If found everything I needed) and then went to my accommodation. It’s the same place I stayed in last year and I found it really relaxing so wanted to do it again. It’s a nice place, too small for me to live in full time, but it’s prefect for a holiday, it’s kind of like a one bedroom studio. It has everything I need including a pool to have a nice relaxing place to myself. I was going to direct you to last years blog post to see photos of where I stayed, but turns out I didn’t get that far last year, so hear you go

I also love the fact that it has a pool – I forgot to take a photo of it this year so I delved back into last years photos. The first two are from last year, the third is this year, showing that my friend, one of the local fauna is still going strong!

I don’t think I did much else that day. I probably laid by the pool briefly and went for a quick swim then cooked some dinner and probably went to bed pretty early – I think I was tired!