It all came to be after three years of deliberation we should find ourselves without any material shackles holding us to one country. Farewells to family and friends aside, it was relatively easy to pick up what we did not have in storage (or had hidden at peoples houses) and head out on what we are beginning to learn could be a much bigger adventure than we anticipated...
After spending 2 years in Canada I had never been fortunate enough to see a deer in the wild, so it would come as a surprise to myself, Jess, and her Papa (Brian) when on the 407 at the 3:30AM, en route to the airport we nearly bagged one each through the front of the van. Having narrowly avoided the startled creatures we were looking forward to an incident free flight to sun-soaked-party-state, Florida.
Alas, we boarded off the tarmac into a tin can the Wright brothers would have deemed unsafe, with a cross-dressing stewardess that forgot the words to the safety shpeel, before she dispensed a seemingly endless amount of pretzels (with no water) right before we headed into the 150 knot headwind that ensured many passengers had tested the quality of Continental's paper bags.
We arrived at our crew house just a little way away from the first of many establishments that have embraced the Happy Hour. Within two hours of touching down we were well on our way to getting to know a few of the ten or so people that reside in the four bedroom house we temporarily call home.
It is not hard to spend time drinking here; of the people we have met in the house one or two seem to do little else, a few consider it part of the lifestyle, but all have dedicated a large amount of brain cells to "networking." As we have yet to begin our prerequisite courses we were happy to join in the revelry without having to consider the consequences of not being able to get out of bed before midday...
...of course when we did we were greeted with Bloody Mary's and beer pong by the pool - never a bad way to start a day!
The Ft Lauderdale boat show, the biggest of it's kind, plays host to some of the most expensive yachts in the world - you can take one of the larger home for the "show price" of $40m. A taste of the lifestyle enjoyed by everyone attending had us both in awe - they could afford to eat many servings of the $10 alligator skewers - we enjoyed the corn.
Halloween, like the great white north, is a big event here. In the spirit of tradition we shopped at the finest of the neighbourhood Dollar Tree's dubbed the "halloween headquarters" by the marketing department and found little to no outfits available for anyone older than five. Which was fine for Jess.
She managed to make out with a decent looking (if not a little confusing) princess/ladybug getup. I was supposed to make use of all 27 yards of tin foil for my knights outfit but settled for squeezing, what i'm told is a large head, into a very small plastic helmet.
"Nice effort, no expense spared hey?" was the first comment from the bar girl at the "Elbo room," the tiki-looking bar on the beach where we spent most of the night tearing up the dance floor...Suffice to say she made less than the price of my costume in tip. There was a fantastic MJ - complete with mask, sparkly glove and underage "friend," a great Evil Knievel, and the Hanson brothers - a hockey pair randomly pulling shirts over people's heads and landing uppercuts. We finished the night with some cheese pizza and a brisk dip in the pool - this time home to baby turtles.
We start our course tomorrow...
Dan & Jess
