This past week I was in Orlando, Florida re-connecting with my amazing friend Justin Brugger. We have been friends since freshman year of college at good ole’ MSJ and I haven’t seen him since. Somehow I believe we have become better friends over the years…if that’s possible. Justin is the coolest left-handed 24 year old guy I know with the worst road rage ever!…He is a great friend, quiet…but funny, we share a lot of interests, and get along great! Although he has had a massive string of bad luck…he is staying strong and putting the past behind him. I can only wish him the best of luck, and I keep telling him that he is bound to run into some amazing luck in the near future. With that said…I had an absolute blast visiting him and I was sad to leave.
I arrived Thursday, September 4 at 6pm. The flight was perfect and Justin was right on time to pick me up outside. The second I stepped out of the airport I immediately felt the ickiness of humidity and forgot what that was like. Ew. I’ve been so used to the 20% humidity and the dry desert air. After he picked me up, we went back to his apartment to change clothes and drop off my stuff. He showed me around; we sat down for a second, and then decided to go get food. His first choice was a place called the Ale House, but the only way we were going to be able to eat there was if we parked in a pond or jumped the curb to make our own parking space. The place was packed. So we went across the street to Friendly Confines. It’s a Chicago style bar…even the sign was in the form of the Wrigley Field sign. Pretty cool place, lots of action, and about 1,204 TV’s. (Reminded me of Champion’s in Western Hills). We ate dinner, watched some sports, and drank a few beers. Somehow we ended up sitting in the booth next to “Mr. Hurricane.” He proceeded to tell us everything about the hurricanes that were coming. Annoying. After finally ignoring him…we continued to have good conversation about family, school, work, etc. About 4 beers later…we called it a night and went home. He had class at 5am on Friday (I know…5am? What the hell?).
Friday – I slept while he went to class. We didn’t do too much during the day. He got home from class around 1 and we pretty much just laid around, talked, and watched TV for most of the day…lazy bums. Finally 4:00 rolled around and we were getting hungry. He decided to go to a real authentic Irish Pub called Fiddler’s Green. This place was really neat!! They were playing really cool Irish music (even some Flogging Molly), lots of Irish beers to choose from, and definitely an Irish atmosphere. He had Sheppard’s pie and I had Hen in a pot…both were amazing, but filling. After a few blueberry beers and Guinness’s…it was time to go put-putting!!! The place was called Congo River and it was the typical Florida put-put joint. Neat scenery, waterfalls, fake airplanes, baby gators, caves, etc. We even had a fan club! A few little kids quickly became obsessed with Justin and I. Not too sure why. In the end…Justin won, 52-54 (I think he cheats! – Shhh). After put-putting, the trip to Best Buy was cancelled, and we just went home. He had another class on Saturday at 5am. This class thing was beginning to be a little ridiculous. Haha!!
Saturday – Justin got up for class at 5am but got home around 9am. I was up and ready to go. We headed out to Cocoa beach around 10:30am. It took about 45 minutes and lots of tolls. We arrived at Cocoa a little after 11 and had to make a pit-stop at the grocery for sunscreen, beer, ice, and cups (the essentials). Then we headed across the street to Ron Jon’s surf shop for beach towels…because who lives in Florida and doesn’t own beach towels?!? I kid. We finally made it to the beach, found a perfect spot and proceeded to get fried. Needless to say…no hurricanes were in sight. The sky was clear blue with only a few clouds. It was a little hazy way out over the ocean and the water was a little rough and muddy, but it was a near perfect day to be at the beach. The topic of conversation for a while was based on the nice Asian chick push-up show that was taking place right in front of us…we also saw a cruise ship leave Cape Canaveral. It made for an interesting and fun day, but after a 12-pack of Miller Chill and no food, we headed out around 5ish. It had been a while since I stood up last and Justin felt the need to pull me out of traffic. I guess I almost got hit by a car or something?!? Oops. We came home and laid down for a second then took showers and cleaned all the sand out of our suits. We tried to go to the Ale House for a second time…still too crowded, so we settled to classy Perkin’s. It was prime-time Saturday night…and everywhere was too crowded. Perkin’s draws an interesting crowd….a kid who had the hiccups the entire time we were there, and some dude listening to am radio from a headphone that was clearly up way too loud. I think there were only 7 people in the entire restaurant. After Perkin’s we picked up Justin’s friend Tucker and headed to Friendly Confines for some beers. The UF and Miami game was on…so the place was a little too crowded for comfort…we decided to find someplace else to go. After driving around for a little bit, we pulled into “PUB.” It was the same atmosphere as Marty’s. Hole in the wall place where everyone feels the need to stare at you when you walk in. I’ve never understood that. We ordered a pitcher of Harp and found out the bartender was from Cincinnati also. Small world. The three of us headed outside and sat at a round concrete table and had good conversation about art, graphics, and they talked about school. Tucker is a very interesting person to talk to an extremely friendly. He’s the typical guy with dreads who doesn’t care what he is doing or where he is just so long as he is having fun! I had a great time with those two guys!! We came to a decision that it would be cheaper to just drink at Justin’s apartment. This called for a stop at the liquor store of course. After a few hours of drinking at Justin’s and watching the comedian Gerry Dee…Justin took Tucker home and we went to bed. Long day at Universal Studios on Sunday!!!
Sunday – Justin’s phone rang around 10am to Tucker asking if we were up and ready to go!! No Tucker…need sleep!!! We finally decided to get up and get going and headed out around 10:30am. As soon as we picked up Tucker, he informs us that he stayed up till 7am drinking (….and he was the one waking us up this morning?!? I don’t get it). He said “well I just had to take a little nap.” He’s hilarious. We pulled into Universal Studios a little after 11 and grabbed lunch along the walk into the park. The waitress (Jess) informed Tucker to “order something fattening.” You would understand if you knew him…he’s a twig. While we waited for our food, the boys found it amusing to make up stories about the fake balcony inside the restaurant….I guess you had to be there. After getting a bit of an attitude from the waitress about splitting up the check…we were finally out of there and onto better things. Oh yeah…it was after noon already and the park closes at 6. Great. First, we jumped on the Spiderman ride because we didn’t want Tucker to be left out right away (he can’t ride many rides because of a neck injury from a car wreck 10 years ago). Spiderman was fun…it was a 3-d movie simulator ride. Pretty cool actually!! After that we got in line for The Hulk rollercoaster. The lines went surprisingly quick. After The Hulk we got on the Jurassic Park water ride….which was hardly a water ride. You sit in a boat and it takes you thru “Jurassic Park” then ends with a drop down and a big splash that barely gets you wet. Oh well. Next was Dueling Dragons (Fire and Ice) rollercoaster. We picked ‘Fire’ and accidently got in the line for the very front car. Even though it took some extra time, it was totally worth it. I really liked that ride!! By then it was getting real close to closing time and we hadn’t even made it to Universal Studios yet…we were just in Island of Adventure. We decided it was time to haul ass through Woo-Ville and over to Universal and get in line for the Simpsons ride before the park closed. The Simpsons ride was the longest wait of the day, but definitely well worth it. It was another movie simulator ride. It was a huge I-max theater with moving seats that corresponded with the movements of the movie to make you feel like you were actually a part of it. After the Simpsons ride…the park started clearing out but we had time to walk around a little more. We checked out the Back to the Future car, the fake streets, and fake city. Justin mentioned that we had looked like a photography club because of all the pictures we were snapping, and the necessary O-H-I-O pose. At the very last minute we tried to jump on the Twister ride, but didn’t make it in time. On the way out, we checked out the Rock Shop at the Hard Rock Café, and then called it a day. We were all dragging (Tucker even had his shoes off), and starving! Pizza sounded delish, so we stopped and grubbed on a Philly Cheese steak pizza. We dropped Tucker and Tony off at their apartments, and Justin and I headed back to his place. Justin had class…again…at 5am on Monday, so we put in a movie and crashed. We were tired and sunburned.
Monday – I slept till Justin got home from class at noon. He had an amazing idea to get Chipotle for lunch and I was all about it!! The chicken burrito bowl was calling my name!! Lunch was good, the weather was hot, and we were still so tired. We came home from Chipotle and watched TV…I packed and took a shower…then he took me to the airport. As I was sitting at my gate, I noticed the pilots kept getting on and off the plane and talking to people on two-way radios. Everything was being put on hold and they were now 10 minutes late from our scheduled boarding time. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I wasn’t too concerned either. After about 20 minutes, I started to get frustrated not only because we weren’t boarding, but because they hadn’t even come on the loud speaker and told us what was going on. And I was definitely not the only one concerned at this point. Finally, they told us the plane was having maintenance issues and they were not sure when it would be fixed. The next flight wasn’t scheduled to come in till 10:10pm and we could only be put on standby. By 8:00 I was getting really frustrated and went to the desk to ask her if I could switch my flight to the next day. She said “yes, for $150.” Or she said I could go out to the main desk and talk to them. So I did that. The ladies there were rude, but helpful. They kept asking me “Why would you want to stay an extra day…the hurricane is coming and you may never get out of here.” First of all…no, the hurricane wasn’t coming, and second of all…who are you to tell me what to do? She ended up switching my flight to Tuesday for free and Justin was on his way back to the airport to pick me up. Yess!! Another day in Orlando!! We went home, made Shells and Cheese, I drank some Coronas, watched Justin study, and we put in a movie and fell asleep.
Tuesday – Justin had class at 5am again. I slept in (my plane didn’t leave till 3:10). Justin got home around 12:30, we watched a few episodes of I Love Lucy and we were off to the airport…again. I made it to my gate right as they were calling my group number for my flight. Perfect timing!! We taxied on the runway for 20 minutes and people were starting to get frustrated again. Turns out the computers on the plane wouldn’t boot up and they had no idea when it was going to be fixed. This was beginning to be a pain in the ass and I was convinced that I was never going to make it back to Albuquerque. They eventually started letting people off the plane to stretch, switch flights, get drinks, and they even started showing a movie on the plane. This was ridiculous. I’m half-tempted to write a bitch-fest letter to American Airlines. Maybe I’ll score some free miles or something. I was not only pissed about the delays two days in a row…but American Airlines employees are totally unfriendly. I easily spoke to 4 or 5 different employees within the last 2 days and not one of them was friendly to me. One of my biggest pet peeves are un-apologetic people…so I really pay attention to how and when people apologize It really aggravated me that the American Airlines stewardess and captain did not apologize after the 1.5 hour delay out on the runway. I was not a happy person and wasn’t looking forward to getting back to Albuquerque. But I made it. Adam pulled up right as I walked outside…and everything was back to normal. He was in an awesome mood and we joked and poked fun at each other (like normal) the whole ride home. Overall, Florida was amazing!
