We departed early Sunday, Jan 22nd, in the morning and so I stayed Saturday night at Monique's. It was pretty nice because her sisters were over and when Andrew dropped me off, he chilled with us for a bit until he had to leave. When everyone left, we couldn't sleep. When it was time to catch our Z's, Monique hadn't even finished packing, so I helped her with all that. Our excitement and anxieties were getting in the way of our slumber so what did we do? We talked our ears off practically into the early morning! I laughed so hard I was in tears at some points of our conversation. Eventually, we fell asleep.
I woke up to the humming of Monique's hair dryer in the bathroom. I think it was like 5am or something but for some reason I tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn't. So, along with Mo, I started to get ready. Man, it just felt so unreal we were leaving.
I get ready pretty fast, so I put on some Big Bang Theory. I love that show! Can't get enough!
When Arturo and Priscilla showed up, we loaded up the car and we took off. I burned a few CDs filled with Diva Jams and so we got to listen to those. Thank you to Arturo and Priscilla for driving us!
Time flew by really fast. It was like I turned my head and we were at LAX! We said our goodbyes and we headed to the Delta counter to get our tickets. Getting through security was super fast and we were both kinda nervous. Actually, I was so nervous, before I walked through the metal detector, the guard asked me if I was wearing a belt. Unknowingly, probably out of nervousness, I lifted up my shirt with my belly exposed and said "NOPE!" The guard was like, "WHOA WHOA! No worries girl! You can keep you're shirt on!" I was so embarrassed!!! When that was over (which went by really fast) Monique was hankering for some McDonald's hotcakes.
It was perfect because McDonald's was pretty close to our gate. After breakfast, I got some coffee and we waited for our flight.
Onto the plane we went. Richard Simmons was in first class on our our flight, it was funny!
Our flight took off at 10:25am and we got to watch "I Don't Know How She Does It" which was pretty funny because one of the characters was named Momo (one of Monique's nicknames). Every time they said her name, I looked at Mo, ha!
We arrived to Orlando at 5:40pm or something, ten minutes before our estimated arrival. It was really pretty, the view from the plane. The plane started to descend during sunset and all the lakes were reflecting beautiful colors and the sky was radiant with lovely hues of orange.
We had to take a tram to retrieve our luggage.
Before we got to baggage claim we saw a huge wall ad for Harry Potter World. Of course, we had to take a picture in front of it haha.
I called Andrew to tell him we arrived safe and I got to talk to him a little bit while we waited for our luggage. Mo's came pretty fast and I was scared that mine got left behind. Finally, my luggage was in my hands and I was grateful. Next up, find a cab.
We followed arrows to where we were supposed to go catch a cab. We arrived at a pretty nasty spot in the airport. There were 2 cabs parked and there was a little kiosk with an old man working it. He asked us if we need a cab and we said yes. He yelled out a number, handed me a ticket and pointed to his left. I HATE CABS! Especially in super touristy spots. They love taking advantage of naive tourists. Like taking the long way so that they could let the meter run. With cabs, you just never know what you're going to get. They're like a box of chocolates where you know that every piece has a shitty middle.
So, yes, I think the most awkward and crappy part of our trip was getting into this cab. Our driver was such a jerk! I tried to ask him questions and what not to get some kind of conversation going and he ignored me. So, for the next 30 minutes was an awkward silence. Well, not really, he was on his cell phone the whole time talking to someone in his native language. He was African, so I wasn't really familiar with what kind of language he was speaking. I just kept texting Mo, who was sitting right next to me. We basically just agreed that this cab ride was crazy awkward and we were STARVING! Finally we arrived at our hotel and it turned out our fare was like $47.50. I didn't even wanna give him a tip. I gave him $50 because I didn't want to break any bills. There were two blonde chicks looking like they were about to go clubbing and he automatically started talking to them, asking them if they needed a cab ride and what not. That was the only time we heard him speak! Jerk! Sorry we're not blonde and not dressed like we're going to a club! Grr!
We checked in and as soon as we entered our hotel room I was so happy. Here are pictures of the lobby.
Our room was really nice!
We vowed that the cab ride experience wasn't going to break us so we forgot about the whole thing and decided to walk to TGIF which was walking distance. I was so hungry, I could smell the burger fumes emanating from the burger I was hoping desperately to devour. But to our dismay, IT WAS CLOSED! There was a sign on the door that they had kitchen equipment failure so they had to shut down for the night. BOO!
So we kept walking and there was nothing in sight. There was a ghetto looking Japanese restaurant and we just didn't feel like walking that far to something so mediocre. We were on our vacation dammit! We wanted a good meal! So, we figured, since Universal was across the street, City Walk wouldn't be that far. Took us about 15 minutes to get to City Walk. We checked out a couple restaurants and we ultimately decided on Hard Rock Cafe.
Our view from our table:
They sat us right away and of course, we ordered some well deserved drinks!
Then we ordered a Stella with our food.
They played Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on the TVs and I think there was a dance group reenacting the dance on the floor, but I was too occupied with my food to notice.
When we left, we were pretty buzzed. On our way out of City Walk, we saw a Fossil store so of course, we had to go in. Mo ended up buying a beautiful watch and wallet.
The walk home was definitely shorter than the walk there...maybe because we were tipsy, haha! But the alcohol helped us sleep a bit. Who knew a 3 hour time difference would mess with us so badly! Since we were going to have a big day ahead of us, we wanted to get as much Z's as possible and power through the whole day. We fell asleep for an hour and we woke up at midnight confused about why we were so wide awake. I thought jet lag only happened flying country to country!
After some nice conversation, we fell asleep. Mo was the first to wake up and get ready. We were so excited for our day at Island of Adventures, to finally see Harry Potter World, and of course, complimentary breakfast at Three Broomsticks!
To be continued...
I always forget how small momo is.she looks so tiny in front of that harry potter world sign.
ReplyDeleteAshley