Florida Day 4:
First of all, I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures to go along with this blog. It was right about this time that I started realizing how much I wanted a small pocket camera again. Despite loving my new big girl camera, i realized that for certain times it is nicer to have the little ones. Like for nights on the town and just the random moments you aren't carrying the big bag.
Last night was a late one at the concert and Leah and our house guest were still passed out when I woke up around 8am. So I decided to head out on a run. I’ve always heard stories about the town of Celebration being this perfect little community that screens its people vigorously before allowing them to live there –the idea of this really freaked me out. Our host had cleared some of my fears considering he was gay, smoking away, and as foul mouthed as anyone I’ve ever met. But still I was curious to take a look around.
I headed out trying to take note of some landmarks and street names so I wouldn’t get lost and started my run. I ended up in the huge homes neighborhoods and it looked just as one might expect a Disney planned community to look. Street names are all Disney inspired, each house has labeled mail boxes, white fences, well groomed bushes; everything in order. It was quite a peaceful place to take a run in fact and each person I passed by genuinely gave me eye contact and a cheery ‘good morning.’ I felt safe; the streets were clean and the speed limit slow. Hmmm…maybe this place isn’t so scary after all.
After my run I took a shower and got dressed but still no movement from the other two. So I headed out again with my wallet and book and walked towards more of the townie part of Celebration. It was still early so most of the shops were closed. But the breakfast restaurants were busy with families eating their Disney shaped pancakes while they looked out on the man made lake. I found a Starbucks and settled in with my hot chocolate and book for a good hour. Now some of the other shops had opened so I started to check them out. All were well maintained and sweet shops with a positive air about them. I found some excellent motivating greeting cards.
Around Noon I headed back to the apartment to find they were both still sleeping but when I came in Leah heard me and got up. After she and our host had showered we headed to Panera for lunch. Panera two days in a row…? Nothing wrong with that! Leah and I had originally planned on going to Disney today. I had worked for Habitat for Humanity back in Colorado to get a free ticket. Unfortunately of all the days I could have tried to go…this day my ticket was not valid and even Leah’s friend who worked there couldn’t get us in because of some special event. Bummer. So…what were we gonna do?
Initially we decided to stay in Orlando so we could go to another concert. So, with the entire day ahead of us, we decided to head back to Winter Park and relax. Leah is a music junkie! She is a musician herself (flute player/singer) but she is probably one of the biggest music fans I’ve ever met…and that’s saying a lot considering my group of friends. She supports music about 6 days a week or more. Then she got a call from a friend of hers who was playing a show at a venue in Tampa. So…we decided to go back to Tampa instead. We started the drive west and got into the city around 7pm.
First things first we needed some dinner. After parking the car we walked all through Ybor (the downtown/party life area of Tampa); it was a bustling Friday night. We walked into Mema’s Alaskan Taco and I was immediately starving from the delicious smell of fresh tortillas. This is a particular favorite place of Leah’s not only for the food but for the fact that they stay open until 3am and for a music concert junkie like herself, it’s good to have places like that. Not only was the smell amazing but even the menu had this vegetarian jumping for joy. Veggie options on everything; I ended up with 2 veggie tacos and 1 veggie tamale, corn chips on the side. It was amazing!!!! Mema’s come to Colorado!! http://www.memasalaskantacos.com/
After dinner we walked to New World Brewery—where her friends band, The Still Voice, was playing. It was a pretty cool little venue. Party outdoor, partly outdoor covered, party indoor doors wide open. I like it. http://www.myspace.com/newworldbrewery
When we got there her friend was already onstage and we found our way to the front. After they finished we went inside and Leah went to get us some drinks. While she was doing that I looked around and quickly recognized a group of people sitting at one of the tables. It was the opening band that we’d seen at the House of Blues last night—Josh Roberts and the Hinges.
Very uncharacteristically of me, I walked over to them and interrupted whatever they were doing and said, “Hey, I saw you guys last night opening at the House of Blues, you guys were great!” I basically just wanted to tell them that and didn’t expect anything but they ended up to be an awesome group of people and invited me to sit down. When Leah got back with our drinks they made room for her as well. I hit it off when the woman member of the group and we started chatting away about her time teaching English in Prague, while Leah made friends with the lead singer discussing music. The lead singer and the female member were engaged. The whole group was awesome and so friendly. Turns out they were the last group playing there that night.
We hadn’t exactly planned on spending the entire night there, but now we were. It was great fun. After they played we said goodbey with hugs and then headed back to Leah’s family house and hit the bed. Turned out we would have an early morning tomorrow, so we needed some rest.
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