Day 30

The Bitterness Of The Parrot Lady

I woke up this morning very early. Ridiculously early. Before the sun came up early. Why? I wanted to watch the sunrise from the beach next to Aglin Pier. I had seen that the 70 something year old pier provided excellent views to the east and the sunrises were magnificent. Well, except for this day. I woke up to rain and overcast skies. Still, I drove to the pier hoping for the best. But it wasn't to be. The sun never came out and there was still a charge to go out on the pier, even at this hour. I sat on a bench and watched as the sky grew a bit brighter. Then I went back to the hotel for a bit of wifi.







Paulo woke up, we packed up and set off on our way. Back to Orlando. We had a date with Dollar to return the Dodgy Dodge and after the series of phone calls on Monday we thought that things had been sorted. Paulo's connections in the US and UK had managed to speed the process up for us and had mailed him a voucher for the next month's rental. Happy days, or so we thought...

The drive back up was pretty uneventful. A bit boring even. We had seen all the roads before. But we arrived at Orlando Airport at about 2:30. Things went a bit pear shaped right from the start. We tried to explain to an attendant in the carpark that we wanted to leave our things in the car, while we tried to rent it again. He thought we were crazy. He didn't know what the hell we were on about. But he let us go. Into the arrivals departure and into the queue.

Fortunately, we were waited on by a nice girl called Iris. She was empathetic to our situation but when Paulo produced the voucher, she started having doubts about our rental agreement. When the corporate account that we had paid into and were trying to use to pay Dollar for the car had been closed, we knew we were in a spot of bother.

Unfortunately, Iris's boss Becky was having none of it. Not a sizzling. She sounded like a broken record because her response to everything we said was "I need a voucher." We tried to point out that we had a voucher, that it had worked last time, that we had talked to so & so in the US and so & so in the UK. Every time she replied, "I need a voucher."

After a while, I got so annoyed I had to walk away for a few minutes. Paulo was suffering from severe hunger but he hung in there and remained diplomatic. Iris was great. She chatted with us, made jokes and even gave Paulo a banana. In the end after several phone calls, Becky returned. This time she said, "In 17 years, I have never seen this situation before. I need a voucher..."

We got another Dodgy Dodge but took the car after paying the full rate because Dollar wouldn't give us the internet rate until they received a fucking voucher. But we were able to leave it between Sky Cars and Dollar to sort out.

We headed back to International Drive and stumbled into Bennigan's barely able to walk from the weakness of hunger pangs. We were greeted by Lisa, who was our server and talked at about a volume of 11 on dial up to 10. She asked if we would like a drink, as it was happy hour. I replied by asking for a pint. Her response was to ask me for ID. The usual...

During the meal I phoned my mother and sorted our digs out for the night. We drove east to Palm Harbor, passing Tampa along the way. The city looked great in the soft light of the sunset.



We pulled in to a U Save for some Coronas and then made our way to my parents gaff. We relaxed for a few hours with them, chatting and drinking a few beers. When 11:30 rolled around, we were ready to hit the scratcher.

Day 29

This morning we woke up a bit late - exhausted from Universal. We showered, had a bite to eat, checked out and drove to south Beach. With impeccable timing, a storm rolled in as soon as we got there and everyone left the beach.

The sky looked blue a bit further on so we drove down to Vero Beach.







Not a cloud in the sky! We set up our field and played the second game in our Wiffle Ball World Series. I won the first game that we played on Sandy Neck beach and was eager to get another victory. After Paulo opened a 5-0 lead, I shut him down and took my second win 11-5 to go 2-0 up in the Series.

It was extremely hot so we decided to go for a shwim - the water was perfect! Not too cold and not like bath water - the perfect temperature in between and the waves were a decent size as well.

After the swim, we were both a bit Hank so we had a bite in Mulligan's Bar And Grill on the beach. The Johnny Rambos were nice and there was a great breeze blowing through the place. We were sat at the bar and had to listen to a life story guy. You know the type? They tell the bartender their entire life story over a beer. Whether the bartender wanted to know it or not. We sure as hell didn't.

We got back into the car and turned right to get back on 95S, heading towards Fort Lauderdale. The drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived in Lauderdale By The Sea at about 4:30. We stayed in Fort Lauderdale Hotel & Resort Suites because it was in the book (Room Saver) and it was cheap. It turns out that we weren't really anywhere near Fort Lauderdale but we were both too tired to really care.

Hunger moved in so we went in search of a place to eat. We chose a place called Thai Spice because it was in a book of suggested restaurants and apparently won a bunch of awards. The food was good but the service was OTT. The atmosphere wasn't great either. But you do the best you can in a strange town. Sometimes you choose a good place, sometimes you don't.

On the way back to the hotel, we called into Village Pub which is next to Anglin Pier. We wanted to walk out Anglin Pier for a look but they actually charge you two dollars to go out on the pier. Ridonkulous! So we settled for the pub, partly because we were thirsty but mostly because the owners were huge Red Sox fans and had lots of Sox stuff all over the bar. We had a relaxer and watched the Yankees lose to the Orioles.

Then we went back to the hotel for a couple of quiet beers at the outside Tiki Bar below our room. The other people at the bar were, well, strange to say the least. It was quite a collection of tramps, hobos (us) and dodgy looking characters.

Another day under our belts, we retired and quickly fell asleep.