Freddie P's Blog

February 1, 2008 @ 09:26

I’m leaving for Florida tomorrow morning, where I’ll spend two of the next three weeks. I'll be home for a week in between.

This doesn’t mean FreddieP.ca will go quiet because I’ll be talking my laptop with me and the Clearwater condo I’m staying in has top notch high speed.

I like Florida and I like Clearwater. As I’ve pointed out on many occasions over the past couple of years I’m done with the islands and Mexico. I found them to be too much work.

Long flights and then long ground transportation to all-inclusive resorts that despite their quality serve food that my digestive system can't handle after two or three days.

Sitting on a beach while being badgered by trinket merchants in between visits to the shitter isn’t my idea of a good time anymore. Racing to the washroom while your stomach sac tries to force its way out of your asshole can be rather unsettling.

I can’t take the sun, the food or the people, and that includes fellow travelers. I don’t like traveling in groups. I don’t like seeing somebody at Pearson and then seeing them on the plane, at the resort and most of all on the bus to and from the airport. Without fail there's always some wanker on the bus who leaves the impression he's never left home before as he talks too loud, drinks too much and is way too friendly.

I get aggravated quite easily.

Compare that to Florida where you can fly within three hours, get a rental car and travel on to your own private condo with all the amenities. You can shop at normal grocery stores, drink quality booze and therefore have normal bowel movements.

I like not having to worry about “wandering off the resort, keeping my passport on my person at all times, being suspicious of police or worrying that I might have to visit a doctor.”

I might sound like a wimp and that I’m over-reacting, but I’ve done the island thing more than most people and it just doesn’t appeal to me anymore.

In Florida you can get up in the morning, have a stroll on the beach, maybe play a round of golf that doesn’t cost a couple of hundred bucks, catch happy hour at a local bar, go to a nice restaurant for dinner and if things line up properly go to a Tampa Bay Lightning game at night.

Believe me, I’d much rather go to a hockey game than have to sit through one of those cheesy goddamn “theme shows” that they offer at island resorts.

Yup I’ve rediscovered Florida and I make no apologies for it. It might be changing interests, it might be less tolerance for the punishing sun or it might be that I’ve turned into a grouchy old prick, I don’t know and I don’t plan on spending a lot of time figuring it out.

All I know is that I’m going to Florida tomorrow.

Category: Stuff