Waking up at 4am is not fun. Even if you know you're planning to get on a plane to head to Tampa, Florida, you still hate the alarm clock with every ounce of your effort - which, on the tired side of 4am, isn't much. Still, you roll your ass out of bed and get your stuff ready so you can be sure you don't miss your flight. Unfortunately for Jen, she was my ride to the airport. She's even less excited at the prospect, since she won't be joining me. She's got all the bad parts, and none of the anticipation. Still, she's a great girlfriend, so she sucked it up and helped me out.
Flight 1 was uneventful. Slept the whole way to NYC. It was too early for me to even consider anything else. I did wake up for the landing, though, and it was awesome, since the entire airport was covered in a thick fog. I didn't see the ground until we hit it. It's landings like that that make you appreciate how good your pilots must be at their jobs, and how much technology there must be helping them out.
Once I got to New York, I really didn't have enough time to do or see anything, so I headed to see if any bars were serving yet. As it was only 7:30, they were not. Lame. So I boarded flight 2 to Tampa, and watched Travel Channel the whole way down. Jet Blue, baby. If I can manage it, I try to fly them everywhere. They really do have more leg room, and the TVs make the flights go so much smoother. Consider me a loyal customer.
Once arriving in Tampa and meeting everyone, we piled nine of us - Brett Gobe, Jack Collier and his wife Steph, her sister Sandie, Sarah Labombard, Chris Page, Laura Kroening, Weston Ruthven, and myself - into a seven passenger van and took off. First stop, as always, was this interesting Chinese food place called the Palace of the Orient (we just learned the name, although some of us have been going there for five years). They have passable food, but its a solid choice after a few hours in the air. We eat some MSG and drink some TsingTao beer, and head on to Sea Oats.
The place we stay is a condo complex literally on the beach in Reddington Shores, FL. We have two condos, which have between two and three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. They have balconies which are overlooking the Gulf, with an absolutely stunning view. There's a beachfront pool, and lots of space for BBQ. It's an excellent place for a vacation, but it's a little too tourist-y for my tastes, living there -wise.
Most days, we try to eat from groceries we purchase, because it's much cheaper than dinner out for a week. Brett and I were on shopping patrol for the first day, and we headed to Winn Dixie, where we picked up all the staples - lots of BBQ food, and a shit-ton of alcohol. There's a liquor store right next to the Winn Dixie, and I was responsible for buying the $100+ of liquor for day 1. We brought it all back to the Oats, and took in some sun before putting dinner together. By this time, we're all a little on the tipsy side, and exhausted from a long day. We came upstairs to play some Beirut (beer pong with quarters instead of balls, basically), and relaxed before finally making dinner around seven thirty. After dinner, I was pretty much drunk and spent, so I volunteered to be the puss and crash first. I passed out around 9, and was dead to the world until this morning, when I woke at 9am. The best part about going to bed at 9 is that when you sleep for 12 hours, you still wake up at a reasonable time.
Stay tuned for more highlights from the trip!
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