Florida and back again

On Thursday we set out to Florida. The plane ride took 9 hours and 20 minutes - slightly longer than expected. It really did feel like a long time even though we saw X-Men First Class and I read some of New Moon on my (now, old school) Kindle. Once we got in Orlando, I was so happy to be in the warmth and humidity. It felt like my body started working normally again. My blood and skin were so glad.

We stayed in Titusville for the first few days.  We had a big hot tub all to ourselves there.  The hotel was nice for relaxing before heading over to Disney.  It was so nice to be able to drive again, have the abundance that is Wal-Mart and Target again, and sit in the relief of air conditioning while it was in the 90s with high humidity.  It was a feeling I was used to but I forgot how much I didn’t miss not being able to just go outside like I can do in England.

After a while the heat got to us. It's great fun for a while until it isn't. We celebrated our 1st anniversary, went on most of the rides, went on the safari, saw some fireworks, used the Extra Magic Hours to ride Star Tours 3 times in a row and played in the pool at the hotel. Being at four Disney parks over the span of a week was tough. It's so exhausting to walk around all those people, pushing and shoving in the humidity. That's when we were ready to head back to Cocoa Beach.

Once we got there, it was sunny and relaxing. Less people to mess with at the hotel too.  I had my birthday, visited my parents, got a new Garmin sports band, my Kodak Easyshare mini camera (for all my fine blogging needs) and a dolphin bracelet. We took pictures on the beach, swam some more in the pool, ate seafood (heck, we ate all sorts of food while we were there) and relaxed. 

Then it was time to come home.  However, after spending the last two days in Titusville at our awesome Hampton Inn (awesome hotel – free 24 hour coffee and tea) we had to say so long for now to Florida. 

We went back to Orlando Sanford Airport, 3 hours ahead of the flight to get through customs and return the car, then found out our flight was 7 hours late.  What a hassle.  We got two $8 food and (non-alcoholic) drink vouchers but that gave us maybe a free order of chicken tenders – not that great of a deal.  Plus, since our flight was then scheduled to leave at 12:50AM, the airport staff had to stay late instead of leaving around 6PM after the flights usually have taken off for the day.  Boy, did we hear them complain about that.  Plus, whenever you asked them a question, you could tell they were irritated that we were still there.  It wasn’t as if we all had a choice to be stuck there – customs closed at 8PM so we had to stay (aside from the fact that we had no more rental car).  But once the flight from Newcastle arrived, we got on the plane (thanks to my last minute Facebook updating we were the last on board) and we had a smooth flight that lasted only about 7 and 1/2 hours.  I finally saw Water for Elephants on the plane too, which was very good.  The rest of the time I slept – no reading.

Now we’re back home, all rested and completely off schedule.  Steve’s upstairs in the computer room looking over our holiday videos.  We had a great time, despite our unwelcomed wait at the airport.  It made the arrival into Newcastle all the better though.  Ah, it’s so nice to be back home to be with Jake again too.  He’s one happy cat now that we’re back.  I missed having him curl up in bed with us each night.

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