Advertisement
Published: October 25th 2007
CM had a conference in Orlando, so we decided to both make it a vacation opportunity. Of course that vacation was not in Orlando! As Jessica put it, "so you guys figured you were on the East coast, so you might as well hop over to Europe..." Basically, yes.
We still have some really cool photos of South America to post, but the trips are coming so fast and furious, that we can't keep up on the travelblog. Expect some SA catch up posts soon!
But first, we do a quick post on the wasteland that is Orlando... While CM was working, J drove around in vain just looking for a restaurant that he would eat at. All of Orlando appears to be a strip mall. There was a nearby road that had every possible chain restaurant you can think of - TGI Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, Cracker Barrel, Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Maggianos, Macaroni's, Dennys, IHOP, Ponderosa, etc. etc. There were also a few generic "Chinese Buffets." If you know J, you know that he basically refuses to go to any of these places back home. So after an hour or so of being incredulous that this is all
Space Shuttle Launch
The launch pad is prepped for the Oct. 23 launch.there was, he ended up with Pizzeria Uno and heartburn.
J was honestly more culture shocked here in Orlando than any of the more worldly destinations we have been. He couldn't believe that this was "America" - there was no actual town, no originality. The town isn't made of plasic - it's made of styrofoam. Later on, in France we would meet a couple from Chicago that said they felt bad that Orlando is the America that a lot of foreigners see - our thoughts exactly.
When CM was finished working, and J was finished wallowing and slowly suffering by the pool in 80 degree weather, we did some sightseeing. The first order of business was to find somewhere that actually had a real main street. Just by looking at the map, J narrowed it down to either Winter Park or Kissimee. Kissimee was a bust, but Winter Garden was a really cute little town.
We also went to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. It was pretty cool to see the actual shuttle launch site and the real parts of the international space station being prepared. We also got to walk through models of the
Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS). The actual center was set up a bit too much like Disney, with "attractions" and a lot of films you had to sit through. We would have preferred to just get a DVD of the films with the entrance fee, and go directly to seeing the real stuff, like at the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, but overall it was a good time.
Our final day in Orlando, CM guilted J into going to one of the Magic Kingdom parks. We decided to go to Epcot since it was related to travel, which we're pretty into. The main "globe" attraction was closed, but Epcot had a special food and wine festival that essentially added additional country booths to the Epcot experience, letting you buy additional food and wine pairings. It was a fun evening and we stayed until the closing fireworks and light show (sponsored by Siemens).
Advertisement
Tot: 0.377s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 34; qc: 148; dbt: 0.1566s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
