Christmas in Key West

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“When the heart of you heart opens, you can take deep pleasure in the company of the people around you … When you are open to the beauty, mystery, and grandeur of ordinary existence, you “get it” that it always has been beautiful, mysterious and grand and always will be.” Timothy Ray Millar

I arrived in Key West on December 20th in the mid afternoon. I checked into the hostel and then quickly hit the street to enjoy the last few hours of daylight. After enjoying a “Sloppy Joe” at Sloppy Joe’s I headed back to the hostel to enjoy my first hot shower in a week. I decided to go out as it was a Saturday night and I hadn’t gone out on a Saturday night in awhile. I went down to the Green Parrot where a great blues/rock band was playing (I bought their CD).

It was an interesting night meeting people. I can’t tell you all the stories or you would be reading for hours, but I can’t leave out the story of my “friend” Cindy. I was sitting at the bar, enjoying the music and conversation with a couple old army buddies who met up for the weekend. I was getting into some good political arguments with the republican Craig while he was buying me drinks. After about an hour, this woman came up to the bar and stood very close to his friend (who had a very shinny wedding ring on). Within 5 minutes, I happened to look over and she was kissing him. The bartender must have noticed the look on my face as he whispered to me “she’s in heat”. When she came up for air, she reached over her hand to shake mine and she said “Hi, I am Cindy and I really need to get laid tonight”. It took everything I had not to laugh … I just said “you go girl”.

Well, Craig and I tried to ignore them, but it was hard. The funny thing is, you could tell his friend really wasn’t interested in this lady … but was so pissed drunk at this point to stop it. She finally got the hint after about 15 mins (obvious reasons which I won’t spell out). Soon the friend went to the washroom and Craig disappeared as well. After 5 mins, I realized they both were gone. It took Cindy another 15 mins before she noticed but it only took her literally 5 minutes and she was onto the next man that walked by (no joke!). Well, this next guy couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go home with her. When they were leaving, she asked me if I wanted to join them ... after replying “no thanks”, she made the comment “you sure? … I am good”. Well, how do you respond to that … I gave her a polite smile that she knew I still meant no but it didn’t stop her from giving me her business card and told me to call her. Boy was I glad she was gone. If you could believe it, I ran into her a couple days later in Kmart but I quickly changed aisles before she noticed me.

All that, and it was only my first night in Key West. I was up pretty late that night so most of the next day was spent sleeping, doing laundry and writing my last travel blog.

The next day, Tani and I went out for some happy hour seafood. I met Tani at the hostel. She comes down here every year for Christmas and had lived here for an extended time at one point. She has lots of great hints and tips to see the “local” stuff. As part of her tradition, she has made Christmas dinner at the hostel for the last 4 years and the owner just confirmed she can do it again this year. After our half price seafood dinner (the buffalo shrimp was my favourite), we went out grocery shopping for the turkey and other Christmas dinner stuff. After shopping, Tani, Ben (my fellow Canadian though living in Paris now) and I hung out in the hostel courtyard talking until midnight. Tani’s stories are always entertaining and she has so many. I will never ever forget the story of her “underarm flick” but I won’t tell you it because it is one of those things you have to be there and hear her tell it for it to be funny.

The next day, Tani, Ben, Danny and I went to Bahia Honda Beach as it is supposed to be one of the best beaches. It was a very windy day so the water was pretty rough. It was a nice beach but there was lots of seaweed. The water was a nice temperature. I wandered in up to my chest, but that was it. I then went for a walk along the beach while the others relaxed. It was too windy to really enjoy the beach as sand was blowing everywhere. We only stayed for about an hour. Then Tani took us to the “No Name Pub” It is a cool pub with dollar bills stapled all around the bar (walls, ceiling etc). The food was very good as well.

After the beach, I was relaxing in the courtyard and I met David and Wojack. Wojack is deaf and I found myself very excited to be able to try and use my sign language again. David, Wojack and I went out for dinner. As the night went on, I found more and more of my sign language was coming back to me. We got in from dinner about 10pm. I was supposed to go out with Tani and some friends tonight but they were gone already. I decided to just relax a bit and then head to bed. I think all the thinking with my sign language really exhausted me.

It is now December 24th. I offered to volunteer to help with Christmas Eve dinner at Saint Mary’s Soup Kitchen. I arrived around 12 noon. Angela had me making the soup (the hard job of opening the cans and pouring them in the pot) and doing the salad (I had to chop tomatoes … yuck!). This soup kitchen feeds around 120 people and gets busier in the winter months). I had made plans to join Tani and others to take a Christmas Eve Sunset Catamaran cruise for a couple hours so I had to leave at 3:45, just before we served the food.

The Catamaran cruise was a lot of fun. When we were leaving the shore, I saw that the Majesty of the Seas was in port (that was the ship I was on). I was pointing where my room was to anyone who would listen. The catamaran cruise was an “all you can drink” so needless to say I had a few drinks of wine. While on the cruise, there was this cute Korean kid on with his father and grandmother. After I finished dancing with the grandmother, I started to play with the kid. It was a lot of fun. The only other little boy on the cruise came over to play as well. I couldn’t help but think about how bored these kids must be on this ship so I helped them have a good time.

After the cruise, we started hitting the pubs on Duval. I actually didn’t have any drinks the rest of the night after the cruise but my buzz lasted quite awhile. I was meeting lots of people that night. I met a couple nice guys from Michigan and invited them to join us at Sloppy Joes. I am not sure if the people sitting on patios having their dinner really appreciated meeting me, but I did have them take some pictures of me through the bushes. Again, the stories could go on for hours, but at one point I was at Sloppy Joes and got up to go to the washroom, and came back and everyone was gone. I left and couldn’t find them anywhere. They had thought I had just taken off somewhere (as I had done that earlier). I noticed my new Michigan friends were on the balcony at the pub across the street so I went to join them for a little while.

At about 10:45, I decided it was time for me to head back to the hostel. I had an early morning as I had to be at the Soup Kitchen again for 9am to help with Christmas Day dinner. On my way, I ran into Tani and we walked back together. At 11pm, we were passing St. Pauls Episcopal church and the service was just getting started. Tani asked if I wanted to go in so I said “sure” (for those interested, most of the alcohol had worn off by this time). We sat in the back row. Well, that was a mistake as that is where they lighted the incense. It was really rough on the nose and breathing. Tani couldn’t take it anymore so she left. I really wanted to stay as they were having a candlelight service with Silent Night and I didn’t want to miss it. It was my connection with family and home and felt so good. It was my way of being with them (and remembering grandma) while being so far away. I stayed but suffered so much. I was totally stuffed up and sneezing constantly. The woman in the pew in front of me kept giving me Kleenex. At the end of the service when I thanked her again, she just smiled and gave me a big hug.

It was now 12:30 on Christmas Eve and as I walked home, I passed the Piano bar that I have always wanted to go in so I decided to do it now. It was quite fun. It was a very small crowd but intimate and fun. The piano player played a few show tunes, and then played some Christmas carols. I stayed and closed the place down until 2am. It was an awesome Christmas Eve!

Christmas Day was just as awesome. I got up a 8am but I was a little slow moving given I only had 5 hours sleep. I didn’t make it to the Soup Kitchen until around 10am but I knew she would be fine. She had a total of 26 volunteers for the day. Everything was under control. Angela said that I could take over making the gravy. Well, that is not my strength but I made a go of it. We couldn’t get it to boil as they were in these appliances that kind of looked like giant crock pots or something. After about 2 hours and no luck, another woman suggested that we take a little bit out and thicken it in a regular pot on the stove then mix it back in. That worked … so if any of you plan on cooking gravy for 200 people, feel free to use that helpful tip.
Christmas dinner was the only time at the Soup kitchen where they serve the people at the tables rather than having them line up. The dinner was very good. It was turkey, potatoes, stuffing, some vegetables, pumpkin pie. Plus they were each given a little gift wrapped in socks full of stuff they need and a turkey sandwich to take with them. It was an overall great experience. As we were handing out the pie’s one of the guys stood up and got everyone’s attention and said they should all give a big thank you to the volunteers and everyone clapped and cheered. That doesn’t usually move me too much, but it did this time for some reason (though I held it in).

After clean-up, I headed back to the hostel. Tani and her friend Chad were busy cooking the Christmas dinner for the hostel. I was exhausted from being on my feet since 10am and little sleep so I relaxed and hung out and visited people. David was doing his energy “healing” stuff on me and anyone who would let them touch them. We finally realized that this was an awesome way for David to pick up the ladies (but we are pretty sure he knew this). The dinner was ready by 4pm but I was hardly hungry. It was a day that I broke one of my rules to stop eating when I am full. I had a full plate and it was absolutely delicious. Afterwards though, I felt even more tired and had to go for a nap if I was going to socialize during the evening.

That evening, a bunch of us were hanging out, chatting laughing and enjoying some rum and eggnog. There is normally no drinking allowed at the hostel, but they turned the other way on this day. At some point, it was decided to go over to Chad’s place to have a little evening swim. So that is what we did. It was awesome. A year ago who would have thought I would be hanging out under the stars swimming in a pool on Christmas Day. After the pool, we went downtown for a little dancing at Sloppy Joes. I think around 1am or something, I was ready to head back, so Danny and left just as it started to pour down rain.

The next day it was time to leave Key West. It was hard to leave my new friends, but it was time to move on. Before leaving town though, I met up with Greg from back home for lunch. He was in Florida for Christmas and was coming into Key West for the day by ferry. We went for lunch at Turtles Krawls which was true to it’s name (the service was slow but the food was good).

After lunch, Wojack and I hit the road. I was giving him a lift to Miami on my way to Naples. It was a little out of my way, but I didn’t mind. It was nice to visit South Beach one last time even if only driving through.

I eventually arrived in Naples around 8pm. I drove around to all the places in my coupon book and they were all full or only had rooms for $130. I normally may have just driven a few more hours to find another hotel out of the area, but I was meeting Heather (a friend from Canada) here for breakfast so I had to stay. I decided it was time to sleep in my car again. I found a Starbucks with Wi-Fi and signed in to get all the Wal-Mart locations in the Naples area.

I drove to the first one and noticed that it had signs posted that no overnight parking was allowed. I drove to the next closest one and as I was walking up to the door, I noticed it was just closing (it was 11pm by now). The manager was outside having a cigarette so I asked if he minded if I slept for a few hours as I have been driving all day. He said he understood and that it was ok. I mentioned that the other Wal-Mart had the signs posted and he said that no overnight parking is allowed anywhere in the city, it was a city law. I realized then that he had taken my “few hours” literally.

I settled in with my blanket and pillow and went to sleep. I woke up at about 2am so I thought it would probably be best I move my car from out in the open. I moved it around to the side of the building where there were other cars (employee cars) and went back to sleep. I woke up at about 6:30am (the Wal-Mart opened at 6am) to the sound of two young men’s voices that were walking by the car and the only word I understood was “security”. I got up and thought, “I guess I better leave”. I quickly put the seat up and started driving off. As I was leaving, the young men were just coming around the corner with that same manager from last night. I didn’t make eye contact and just kept driving. I needed to wash and brush my teeth so I pulled into the other Wal-Mart that was open 24 hours and did my stuff before heading to meet Heather for breakfast at 9am. Boy that was fun!

I met Heather and Kevin for breakfast. Heather is my friend from London. We were on the same Big Sister’s committee running evens for the matches. She had left London just before the Olympics and was not coming back so it was quite a treat to meet up again. They were vacationing in Naples and then she was doing some coaching in Tampa Bay before heading back to Michigan.

After breakfast, it was time to hit the road again. My next destination was going to be Atlanta Georgia but I knew I couldn’t do the trip all at once so I was going to just keep driving until I didn’t want to go anymore. I had decided to definitely get a hotel room for this night so I could shower and relax. I stopped in Lake City Florida which was about half way to Atlanta. I had a nice shower, went for dinner at IHOP and then relaxed and watched some TV. I was leaving Florida the next day, but I knew deep inside that I would be back again someday.

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Photos

Photo 1
Me with the Money Wall behind me in No Name Pub

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Danny, Tani, Ben and I at the No Name Pub.

Photo 2
A typical scene in the US grocery stores. When people don't want something in their cart, the put it on the nearest shelf.

Photo 3
Wojack me and David out for Dinner

Photo 4
David performing his "energy healing" on Danny

Photo 5
On the Catamaran on Christmas Eve.

Photo 15
David, Gary and I on the Catamaran.

Photo 6
On the Catamaran on Christmas Eve.

Photo 7
On the Catamaran on Christmas Eve.

Photo 8
Me being silly on Duval street.

Photo 9
It isn't Christmas until you hug Santa

Photo 10
David performing his healing on Christy

DSCN1079
David, Jeff and I after Christmas Dinner.

DSCN1089
Hanging in the pool on Christmas Day

Photo 11
Greg and I at lunch just before I left Key West

Comments

[Cindy]

Jules, you're alive:) B and I tried to get to you Christmas Day. I finally have some tme to catch up on your blogs. Have lots to share... but will bring you up to date one blog at a time. things are good. Christmas was great..... miss you lots. love you!! working backwards to know where you've been:) Do I really want to know? Love C