Florida

Although I've been back in the UK for 2 weeks now, I still need to write about Florida. My final destination of my month's trip. And with the right weather, right people and lots of shopping, how could it not have been the perfect ending? Andrew & Carrie's came to pick me up from Orlando station, which was the dodgiest place in the world. I had such a rough night, with a big black mama sitting next to me, singing along to Celine Dion most of the journey, screaming kids left right and centre and smelly feet close by, I hardly slept that night. Not at all, actually.

Being in Orlando, we couldn't miss out on a Disney fun filled day. We drove to 'work' with Luerne who was going to get us in for free. Yeah magical days!! I saw Luerne perform in Finding Nemo, the musical which was amazing; the costumes are genius and the music is very catchy. No thanks to listening to the cd for days after in the car when shopping...

We also went to Epcot this time, the 4th park (actually the very first one) which I hadn't been before. Epcot is the park with the massive golf ball which Andrew tried to get in the picture above, resulting in Carrie's head being chopped off half way (and still no golf ball). Somehow this picture is one of my favourites!

Thanksgiving day was started with the Wilson tradition of running the 5K Turkey Trot. Can I just say I woke up at 5.50AM for this event?! Surprisingly enough, half of St. Petersburg was there to run... (I saw a number 12.000 something) Having hiked and biked for 3 weeks prior to arriving in Florida, I thought it'd be a peace of cake running this! John got us numbers (I was 41) through his running club and it's a known fact that people with low numbers are generally the really good runners. Literally everybody was checking us out wondering we on earth we had such low numbers... We ended up walking the whole trot, mainly because too many people were walking; had nothing to do with my running abilities! (yeah right) John then bought us all donuts afterwards!!

Thanksgiving meal was spent at Jack & Nancy's in the garden where Ryan deep fried the turkey with a specially designed lowering device. I had some typical American dishes, mainly involving sweet potatoes and pecan, which was delicious. Oysters were flowing and Jack even got an entire pig roasted, lying on the garden table, head and paws still present.

My last day was spent decorating the house and making yummy nibbles for Andrew's 30th birthday party - or as he put it 'the first anniversary of his 29th birthday'. The house looked all lovely and I think everyone really enjoyed the buckets of cocktails, beer, food and tacky tourist-theme. Andrew had previously that week cleared up the garden and cleaned the swimming pool so in combination with torches and pretty lights, the place looked like a fairy tale. This was also the first time in my life I tried and made a Smore - a delicious combination of two biscuits with melted marshmallow and chocolate in between; making you come back for S'(ome)more... Genius he.