Florida - Midyear Adventures 2015 (Part 1 of 2)

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In June this year, I made another trip back to the US. I wanted to go to a work-related conference and decided to tie in a few other tasks during the trip.

Faro
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My flight to Miami was this time out of Portugal. In fact there were 3 flights, Faro -> Lisbon -> Philadelphia -> Miami. As the 1st flight was at 6am, it made sense to spend the night in Faro despite only being 30 miles away from my home. This would be cheaper than booking an out-of-hours taxi. The train leaving Tavira to Faro was in the evening so I decided to go to a massage parlour next to the station and get greased up ready for my journey. By the time I was finished with the massage, I was so slippery I could butter popcorn with my own body.

Hopped on a train, hopped off a train and checked into the hostel across the road from Faro station. There was nothing special about this place and it was quiet. I was in a dorm room of 8 but so far was the only guest. During the night I was lying there thinking about my trip when suddenly another guest arrived. It was a middle-aged man and he was clearly drunker thank drunk. He was talking to himself then blurting out random words at me in Portuguese, some of them swear words. He lay on the bed, pointed a finger at me and started shouting abuse. I put my headphones on, closed my eyes and relaxed to Opera ... that drowned out the rudeness.

I left at 4am to get to the airport and went on my way to Lisbon airport. As per usual, as I was flying into the US, I was quizzed and searched. In fact, usually once I get into the US the local flights are fine, but this time they weren't and I was harassed a number of times ... I guess they had to make up for the last couple of visits to Miami when they let me through no problems.

Orlando
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I eventually landed into Miami and felt good ... I like Miami. What surprised me was that it was very quiet. I'd have expected June to be heaving with tourists, but not so. I was told that as summer gets closer the number of visitors decline because it's too hot. Even the hostels were quiet. As per tradition, the 1st night I had already booked into the Jazz Hostel ... and as per tradition I saw that woman again who stays there and loves to party ... I think I'll see her every time I go to Miami.

I was only in the hostel for a day as I had to immediately get on a bus to visit Orlando for the annual LabTech Automation Nation conference. I was walking to the car park where the MegaBus will be waiting at 8am. I looked ahead, all was calm. I looked down ... CRASHH!!!! I looked up, horrific car accident. Others who were waiting for the MegaBus came and dragged this young woman out of the car as it was about to explode ... it was like a movie scene. Others had it under control so I parked my suitcase down and sat on it, watching the movie. I was still greased up from the massage ... was just lacking the popcorn.

Once the drama was over, we left and I was using the MegaBus Wifi to communicate with the person whose house I was staying in that night. There were no hostels nearby in Orlando so I decided to use Air BnB for the 1st time ... which is basically non-free couchsurfing. I didn't have a US number so I was making arrangements with the host online and explaining that once I get off the bus I'm going dark ... I therefore need all details to find the apartment. The host, Davidson, told me the address and all was good.

The MegaBus lands into Orlando and I now have to find my way to this guy's place which is all the way near DisneyWorld on the other side of the city. I'd printed off some bus routes so went to the bus station and asked the attendant there how to get to xyz. He said he doesn't know and when I showed him my Google Maps printout he said to trust Google because google knows more than he does .... lovely. Google was correct and I spent another 2.5 hours travelling to get to Davidson's neighbourhood. On the walk to his apartment I see an Indian take away and pick up some samosas, pilau rice and karai gosht. They had Bollywood songs playing on the TV which could, possibly, maybe entertain me in a parallel universe where I may, perhaps, probably like Bollywood music.

I'm plodding along on the road using my GPS and saved Google Map to find the apartment, bouncing in excitement to the delights I get to eat that are swinging in the carrier bag in my right hand. I finally make it to the street and find out the entire complex is guarded by security gates ... and no guard. I wasn't told about any gates or security code. Now what do I do? I know, let's phone Davidson. I 1st had to put credit on my UK O2 number so I called the topup line and put £10 on my account. I received a text message saying my balance was £10.10, followed by a text message saying my balance is low, followed by a text message saying I have no balance. Within 1 minute my £10 credit had been used up by my apps downloading their notifications ... it was less than 2MB, ripoff. I wasn't willing to do that again so I sat on my suitcase and waited ... and waited ... then waited some more. Finally a car came by and the gates opened. I looked down pretending I was sitting here for another reason, and when the car was out of site I got up and ran as fast as I could before the gate closed on me, suitcase in 1 hand, bag of curry and samosa in the other.

Now we're good, I have the apartment number. I walk to the building and realize the number he gave me wasn't the apartment number, it was the building number. There are hundreds of apartments in this complex and all I had was the building number with many apartments to choose from. Fooookkkk, what a numpty he was. Ok, now I have to contact him. I decided I'd need to topup credit again but this time set all my apps to dead-mode, i.e. don't download anything. I then call the O2 topup number and proceed with the payment. The fake woman on the other end tells me my payment has been declined and credit card blocked. Because I'd topped up twice within an hour using the same card from a different country, the system had flagged this up as a fraud transaction and now the only credit card I had with me was blocked for use and I needed it for the conference and checking into the Hilton the following morning. Luckily I had a debit card with me also so I tried to topup using that .... success. Now the race was on, can I get a message to this guy before my credit runs out ... it was like an episode of Countdown where the letter-round was sending the text message and the number-round was finding the apartment number. I'm in luck, the message sends and the guy is responsive in getting back to me. The text conversation went like this:

Me: Hey, I'm at your place but the number you gave me isn't your apartment number, it's the building number. Can you come and get me?
Davidson: I'm not home, in the Apple store. The apartment number is xyz, the key is on the door, let yourself in

I go up to the apartment number and it is locked, no key, but a LokBox on the door ... back to texting

Me: Dude there's a LokBox, is the key in there?
Davidson: Yes

I'm getting frustrated, these text messages going through the UK and back the US aren't cheap. He could give me all the required info in 1 go

Me: That doesn't help, let's try again, how do I get into the LokBox?
Davidson: Oh yeah, the code is xyz

I try the code, it doesn't work. I try again and again, and then the door opens from the inside. A guy answers with a strong German accent. I ask him if he is Jefferson's friend and he says no but come in. He doesn't ask who I am and let's me in despite the fact I used the name Jefferson instead of Davidson (I forgot it at the time). Still, I was in and the 1st thing I did was get a plate out of the kitchen and dig into my curried delights. I was making smalltalk with the German but he didn't like to converse ... I'd ask him what he was doing here and he'd tell me it's none of my business ... no problem, I have samosas and you don't f*cker, smell this Mein Herr, want some? want some? tough.

I made the kitchen smell so good that when Jefferson (I mean Davidson) returned with his Venezuelan friend, he was upset because there was no curry for him. He never even know there was an Indian next to him. Davidson was a nice host, a very nice host. He showed me around and asked me to be relaxed and make myself at home ... I don't need to be told this, I make myself home in any home.

I quickly learnt that this apartment sleeps many tourists. There are airbeds all over the floor and guests come and go. He leaves keys in the non-functioning LokBox and sometimes he could have guests living with him that he doesn't see for days, because he gets up for work and they're sleeping, he gets home and they're out, he goes to sleep and they get in. I was very chilled out on his sofas and we were watching TV when a group of his friends came over to smoke weed. I didn't mind it and just sat further away, but I recommended that if they're gonna get high they should watch Johnny Depp's Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. They agreed and were tripped out big time ... this movie is bonkers sober. After an hour a young Hawaiian girl comes out of one of the rooms .. nobody knew she was even in the house or who she was or for how long. Davidson introduced himself as the host and realized she'd been here for a few days, then she sat down amongst a group of guys getting high ... it was a bit strange, but she didn't mind and was cool about it, more interested in all the shopping she'd done that day.

The next morning I had to get to the Hilton hotel at Bonnet Creek, Disney World region. Taxis would cost a lot so Davidson said I should use Uber. I've never used this before so I set up an account and used it to estimate how much it would cost to get to my destination ... it was cheap. I was set and slept happily on my airbed amongst many airbeds.

In the morning, I put on some smart clothes and felt professional. It was the 1st time in years I'd worn black trousers, shirt and shiny shoes. Everybody was asleep and Davidson had left for work, so I used Uber to arrange a pickup near me, got my luggage and left. Unfortunately the Uber price had gone up since the previous night, I guess because of peak time. It told me prices will be multiplied 2.5 times ... that's a huge increase but I had to do it. I didn't have a key so couldn't lock the front door. I let myself out of the front security gates and waited for the Uber guy. 10 minutes, nada, 20 minutes, nada. I was going to be late for my meeting and this guy wasn't showing. I texted Davidson for taxi numbers as I'd left his place and he said check on Google. This guy wasn't bright, knowing I had no internet. I then had to wait for another car to come and open the front security gates, sneak in behind them and run up. Luckily I left the front door unlocked so I went back in, got online and called for a cab. I was very late at this point so I was very pushy with the guy and we ended up having an argument. I explained I needed the taxi now, and he kept asking me when, and I tell him I'm late and need it asap and he'd tell me to stop being a nutcase and tell him when I want a taxi for, and so on. Eventually he agreed to send one over asap. In the meantime I tried Uber again and this time something different happened. Now a picture of a smiley man's face came on the screen and a route was drawn on the map with an estimated pickup time. This didn't happen before ... maybe I didn't click the right button. Ok, so now I have Uber and Taxi, whichever comes first. I went back outside and hoped the Uber guy would get here 1st. He did, and I jumped into the back seat like I was dodging a bullet just in case the other taxi was turning the corner. I was face down on the back seat and shouted to him "Go, Go, GOOOOOOO" and he sped off ... I hope he didn't think I'd robbed that apartment building.

I was at this conference for 3 awesome days, staying at the Hilton and being looked after. I was given Halal meal tickets and at meal times whilst others waited in buffet queues, I gave my ticket to somebody and sat down. Within a few minutes I received a massive tray of delights. A colleague had joined me for this conference and was staying in my room. I wouldn't have agreed to this if I knew he was a big snorer. I was very sleep deprived during these few days. On the final day I had to give a presentation during one of the sessions so it was imperative I caught up with my sleep the night before. It wasn't meant to be. This colleague snored so loud I even tried to sleep on the bathroom floor ... without success. At around 2am I got so mad I turned the TV on full blast to drown out his snores and to try and wake him up that way ... even with the TV and earplugs his snores were breaking me. Eventually I fell asleep and woke up to find him ironing his shirt and the TV off. When I asked him what time he turned the TV off he said he didn't and didn't even know it had been on. I assumed a neighbour complained and the hotel staff came and turned it off during the night. As long as they didn't do anything else ... the colleague was telling me about a hotel he worked at where the night guard had a fetish for sleeping feet and would sneak into female guest's rooms at night and stare at their feet. One day this girl woke up and he ran to the bathroom. She called the front desk and said there's a man in her room, hiding in the bathroom. She's told a security guard is on his way and suddenly she hears the walkie-talkie going off in the bathroom "Guest at room 782 suspects a man is hiding in her bathroom, can you go check it out?" ... she immediately calls the front desk "It's your security guard ... he's the man".

I made it through my presentation and the conference was over. My colleague had driven up from Miami so I went back down with him in the car. That night we were both planning on staying in a hostel together as he just moved into town from Vegas but didn't have the keys to his apartment yet. In the car I told him he needs to sort his own plans out and there's no way I'm sleeping in the same room with him in any building going forwards ... he understood.

Miami
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I stayed in Miami for almost 2 weeks getting some work done. Usually I stay in the same hostels but this time I wanted to check them all out on South Beach. I decided to stay in a different hostel every single night for 10 days, getting to know their personalities, pros and cons. Some were quiet, others full of action, some with European tourists, others full of Brazilians, some with cockroaches, others with DJ parties on Jacuzzi-filled rooftops. This was fun and I made notes of which ones I'd prefer in the future.

In a particular hostel I was sharing the room with 3 other Brazilians and in the middle of the night there was a gunshot like sound ... then again ... and a third time. Suddenly a crying woman is running down the corridor screaming and everybody comes out of the rooms. This guy who was on drugs had been lying in the top bunk in this room for 3 days without moving, then suddenly jumped onto the floor, opened the room door and started slamming it, freaking out his female guests who locked themselves in the bathroom as he was going nuts. Afterwards he couldn't remember any of it and didn't understand why he was getting kicked out. The cool thing was this brought people together and I made some friends and had interesting conversations I wouldn't have had otherwise.

I wanted to buy a waterproof beach speaker from the Apple store. I usually buy electronics from the US as they are cheaper than in Europe. I reserved the speaker online and waited a full week before it was ready for pickup from the store. I'd return there everyday asking them "is it here yet? is it here yet?". When it was there, I was so excited by my purchase that after leaving the store, I stopped a few minutes later to unpack the box and see what was inside. I was looking at the speaker and working out how to charge it, realizing the charging cable hadn't been included. This was useless so I went back to the store and explained I just opened the box and there's no charging cable. They went online to the product page and ensured me the charging cable should be included ... it wasn't. They then told me they can't sell me one as they don't have it in the store and that Apple Retail and Apple Online are not the same thing so I'd need to deal with Apple Online. I was giving this guy hard times and making him apologize a lot for something that wasn't his fault, then told them I just want a refund. What I didn't realize at the time was that the charging cable is the standard Micro USB cable I use to charge my Samsung phone ... that's it and I have plenty of them.

I received the refund and went to my hostel upset ... I went from a high to a low. When I checked into this hostel I asked which room I'll be staying in and he told me they only have 1 room ... he wasn't kidding, it's a massive warehouse downstairs filled with bunk beds, just 1 gigantic room. I had been given the bed next to the stairs and I unpacked my bag onto the bed. Out of nowhere this black box appeared. I didn't recognize it so opened it ... and saw a charging cable and instructions on how to use the speakers I just returned to the Apple store. Basically, because of my impatience, I opened the box on the streets and part of it fell into my bag ... lovely. Never mind, I went back to the Apple store the following day and purchased another speaker 3 times the cost and 20 times the quality ... I upgraded myself. After I purchased it I went home and checked my emails to see one from Apple Online telling me I have been refunded for the original speaker in the form of a gift card that I can only use in the US. Oh no, so I don't get refunded back onto my credit card, I get a gift certificate? Had I checked the email earlier I'd have applied this towards my $300 purchase of the speaker I did just pay for ... now I have a gift card that I can't use anywhere else in the world.

On my final day I went to the gym in the office and performed my usual butt-nekkid workout. As I was having a shower, I dropped my phone on the side of the bench. I moved the bench out of the way and guess what I saw next to the phone? Remember the underwear I'd lost 5 months earlier and I thought some freak had taken it? That ... it had fallen down here all along and clearly this place doesn't get cleaned well (even the brown towel was in the same place I'd left it 5 months prior).

There wasn't a lot of excitement in Miami this time. I did what I needed to do and hopped onto a plane for London Heathrow to continue my adventures in the UK .... to be continued.

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