Vacation

Good times this week in Sarasota, FL.

My mom, dad, sister, and I went down to my grandparent's condo for a week of beach time. we got two perfect days, two decent days, and two not so good beach days. Buddy wasn't able to come, so that was a bummer but all in all, it was a good trip. Here are some highlights:

QT with the family: lots of time playing cards and cranium and other family-bonding activities as evidenced by this picture. Ha Ha. Good Times!

Allison Goodson: my roommate from Semester at Sea. She lives in Tampa, and I had to go to Tampa a day before my family because I had a super early flight out on Wednesday morning, so Allison picked me up from Sarasota and we went out to dinner and then she took me to the airport in the morning. I haven't seen her since 2004, so it was awesome to catch up.

Islands of Adventure: on day two it was rainy in Sarasota so we decided to make the two hour drive to Orlando to go to Universal's parks: Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. It was an awesome day. Islands of Adventure has some really awesome rides, including one of my all time favorite roller coasters, The Hulk. The park is divided up into different areas with various themes (Marvel Comics, Jurassic Park, etc.) and the best one is Dr. Seuss. The whole thing looks like your in a Dr. Seuss book. Its freeking awesome.

So that was super fun, except for two things.

(1) it was $90 / person to get in!!! WTF!!! that's for one day! its freeking RIDICULOUS!

and

(2) we spent $10 extra so that we could go to both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. the two parks are distinct and located walking distance from each other. We bought the tickets at the Islands park so it was obvious that we were going to be spending our time there first. So we spend about 5 hours there and then head over to the other park with 2 hours remaining in the day. and what happens!? THE FREEKING PARK IS CLOSED!!!

Universal closed two hours earlier than Islands because they had a Halloween thing going on and NO ONE TOLD US!!! A waste of $40, but more importantly, a major let down! My parent's were awesome when I was growing up and we went to Universal and Disney a lot when I was younger. All day I was looking forward to going on some rides that I have really fond memories of from those vacations and if we knew that the thing closed early, we would have went over there first.

Everything in Orlando is a ripoff. (How about $1 / hour for a locker!!!) I was LIVID. How could they sell us a pass to two parks and then not even tell us that one closed two hours before the other one. What a bunch of assholes.

And to top it off, I didn't bring my ID into the park and after being locked out of Universal Studios, I couldn't even get a margarita to settle myself down!

Anyway, thats all for now. It was a good week and I feel nice and refreshed... and lazy! good thing its almost the weekend.