Hello!
The next installment of our adventures is being typed from Miami Beach, FL! However, I left things in Washington DC last so I will fill you in from there onwards.
So, 13th July. We woke up at around 3:40am to set off for our drive to Miami. C offered to do the first 5 hour "shift" so at around 4:20am we set off on our way. Obviously there won't be much to tell you about this day as it was all spent on the road, boring. However, one rather funny thing that happened was just as we were leaving DC and C took a wrong turning and accidentally took us off the highway and drove us right up to the Pentagon! We had been saying how it was the one thing we hadn't seen in DC, but with dawn breaking we managed to get a peek of it. So the rest of the day was spent driving and I took over halfway through North Carolina around 9am. C pointed out that whilst I was sleeping he saw a car get stopped by the Police for speeding. However, I soon learnt that things are very similar to the UK driving over here with regards to speed. That said though, I did almost crap myself when I passed a Sheriff car and then looked in my mirror and saw it speeding up behind us. It was fine though, he wasn't after us. I won't lie, the drive absolutely sucked. Around 7:30pm and 15 hours of driving later we arrived in Miami. When we set off the Sat Nav/GPS predicted an arrival time of 9:09pm so we managed to shave off nearly 2 hours! We had been in Miami all of 2 hours and I had already fallen in love with the place. It was definitely like the beach holiday of our trip. Walking down Ocean Drive with lots of restaurants and bars with it still being hot outside was awesome. Also, for those of you Dexter fans out there, it is really weird seeing the place in person and feels like I'm in Dexter, just with significantly less homicides. Anywho, me and C went out for dinner in one of the restaurants and had steak. Some guy came to our table trying to sell his R&B CD. When he realised we were English he attempted to demonstrate his English accent for us. He was clearly very proud of himself, but in reality it was bad, very bad. We had two beers with our dinner and were dying. We took a walk up Ocean Drive to scout out the scene and walked back down along the beach front. Very shortly after getting back to the hostel we both passed out.
14th of July. We woke up hoping to hit Miami Beach for a day in the sun, but when we got to the hostel lobby we were greeted by torrential rain. We spent a while just chilling out in the lobby then C decided he couldn't just sit inside the whole time so we went for a walk in the rain. A quick tour of the blocks around our hostel and C said about going to the Everglades whilst we were in Florida. We checked out and compared prices between different tourist places and eventually booked a $55 trip for the next day. We sampled some slices of pizza for lunch (they were HUGE) then went back to the hostel. When we got to our room we found we had two new room-mates from England, J and P. We said our hello's then myself and C went to the beach for a few hours determined to get a bit of time in the sun. There was no sun. We lay for about an hour in the wind before heading back inside. That evening we went up to the hostel's roof terrace with J and P and played some drinking games (standard British approach, if there is nothing to do then the only thing to do is get drunk!). After a while we got confident from the alcohol and invited some Swedes and Norwegians to join in. We also found another Brit, C (or C#2 to stop confusion) and invited him to join us. P got seriously screwed over in drinking games and was blackout after a while. It probably didn't help that we all skipped dinner in favour of more drinking but hey, alcoholic fun times take priority. P managed to disappear, which was only noticed a few games later. J found her downstairs in the toilets with her head under a tap, not good! We all decided we were too drunk to attempt a night out and called it a night around 11pm (I think).
15th July. I woke to notice that the brown colouring of my flip flops seemed to be running in the heat and the bottom of my feet looked like I had applied fake tan. I decided to put shoes on to save my feet for a day and also thought it would be a good idea as we were going to the Everglades. Around 9am we got the bus to the Everglades, driven by Harry, who gave us a guided tour of Miami on our way there. Harry took us to 'Gator Park' where we hopped straight onto an Airboat for a 30 minute tour of the Everglades. It was simply amazing. We saw wild alligators and random other wildlife along the way and were guided by a very croaky voiced tour guide. C guessed that it was a requirement for the job as they all had the same voice, even the woman who was shouting out advertising alligator sandwiches. Halfway through the boat ride the guy stopped for us to look around and got out of the boat and paddled in the water. He invited people to join him but we strangely felt the need to preserve our limbs from alligators. When we got back to 'Gator Park' we had a 20 minute alligator show where a guy demonstrated alligator wrestling. All very impressive stuff, but I won't be swapping Guildford and my current job for a spot of gator wrestling any time soon. After the show we each got to hold a 4ft alligator named Larry! When we got back to the hostel it was still pretty hot and sunny so we grabbed our towels and hit the beach. The beach was pretty good and we spent a long time enjoying the view. That evening we went for dinner and a really odd overweight couple in their 50's sat on a table next to us with their pram. we thought nothing of it until suddenly a bark came from the pram. Inside was no baby but a small (very puntable) yappy dog! C pointed out that it also had a hair bobble on. Crazy Miami freaks! that night we planned to go out and started off on the roof terrace again with J, P and C#2 playing 'Ride the Bus'. I got royally screwed over and got onto my 4th re-shuffle till I finally managed to get off the damn bus! Some girl came up and asked "Is this the roof terrace?"... no love, it's the bloody basement! Our going out plans failed as the constant lightning that had been flashing turned into a full on tropical storm. We went downstairs and drank some more and C did a Tequila shot with a Swiss guy.
16th July. I woke up to find I had suffered whiplash from the boat ride and had such a bad neck. The whole of this day has minimal to report as it was just spent with C, P, J and C#2 on the beach with brief rest stops for food (and cocktails!!). Myself and C seriously underestimated the strength of the sun through the overcast clouds and both got very badly burnt. That evening we checked out the bar scene and hit "The Clevelander" on Miami Beach. I called an early night (3am) as I was the one to be driving to Orlando the next day.
17th July. Me and C sadly departed Miami and our new friends and made our way to Orlando. C was feeling very rough from the night before. When we got there we got some food and then went downtown in a "taxi" to meet with L. I say "taxi" because this was probably the most incompetent taxi driver ever. He was 10 minutes late to pick us up and we had no way of contacting L who was just going to be waiting outside a bar. When he did finally arrive we got in the back and he got out to go speak to the people in the hotel. Loser. We went to a few bars with L, but just as me and C were feeling a big night was on the cards the bars closed. Boo. We experienced an interesting drive home with one of L's friends who had been drinking the whole night with us, not cool.
18th July. C and I hit Disney World's Typhoon Lagoon water park and re-discovered our childhood! It was pretty awesome. That evening we were joined in Orlando by P, J and C#2 who rented a car in Miami and drove up. We spent the evening in the hotel room playing more 'Ride the Bus'.
19th July. This was such an awesome day. We all made our way to Universal Studios and Island of Adventure. Seriously, if you think that you have seen Roller Coasters at Alton Towers or Thorpe Park then you have not seen anything! We had such a good day and by the end were ko'd. we got back to the hotel and ordered pizza for dinner and sat watching Family Guy on the TV. After food we had to say goodbye to P, J and C#2 who had to drive back to Miami :(. We both had an early night in preperation for the drive to New Orleans the next day.
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