Day 4 pool day

Today we felt in need of a rest day enjoying the villa and pool. We had a lazy morning sunbathing, and i drove to Walmart with the roof down for a bit of shopping. I bought some scrapbooking bits and Matt bought a captain america tshirt and beach towel.

There is a McDonald's inside Walmart so we stopped for a milkshake, just because it had to be done. More relaxing by the pool now, then maybe out for dinner later.

We ended up in a restaurant called Smokey Bones. I had a huge turkey and avocado burger. Matt had ribs and chicken wings. Delicious. We went to a Publix for a bottle of apple flavour Jim Bean whisky and played pool and air hockey back at the villa.

Day 3 NASA

We went for a Ponderosa breakfast buffet yesterday once we were up and dressed. The buffet was delicious. Matt had steak and scrambled eggs, then fruit then yoghurt and granola. I had a fry up, including beef baked beans, yum. Then an omelette with more beans (they really were good), then fruit, yogurt, granola, banana pudding and peanut butter mousse! The restaurant opened up into a shop, where we ended up buying Matt a darth vader watch and me a light up batman watch for 20 dollars each. I wonder if they will stop working the second we step off the plane!

The drive to NASA took ages and we had to queue for a long time to get in. We were worried about not having much time there, but in the end, we saw what we wanted to see. We headed straight to see Atlantis, the worlds first reusable space craft. We had to queue for 40 minutes to get in, but the way they set it out is very clever, you watch a video on it then the screen lifts and you walk out into the exhibition space with the shuttle hanging over you. Matt went down a slide that shows you how steeply the shuttle lands. Its very steep! We went on a simulator of a shuttle launch, which tips you up vertically and shakes you around a lot, you can even feel the pressure when the thrusters stop once you leave earths atmosphere. Very cool.

We had to queue for a very long time to get on a bus tour to see the Saturn 5 shuttle. The buses take you around the building where they assemble shuttles. Its the biggest single story building in the world. There is an American flag on te side and each stripe is wider than a bus! We saw the moving platforms too which take the shuttles to the launch pads.

The Saturn 5 shuttles are the largest ever built and are the ones that put people on the moon. Nothing can quite prepare you for the size of it. It is quite simply enormous. I took a great photo of Matt looking suitable in awe when he first saw it!

We also touched a piece of moon rock, watched a great video presentation on the moon landings and on the Saturn 5 itself. And had great fun in the gift shop buying souvenirs, and maybe a present or two. We looked around the rocket garden, stood in the walkway that is the last place ob Earth that astronauts see before they leave Earth, and wedged ourselves into an astronauts seat on a shuttle cockpit. The park supposedly shut at 6, but we were finally kicked out at 7.15. It was a great experience.

We headed down the islamd to Cocoa beach where we had dinner in a lovely Italian restaurant  (i had lobster ravioli, Matt had seafood pasta, and we shared a tuna in sesame seed starter). Our helpful waiter told us where to go for the best view of the shuttle launch, so we headed down to the pier,  along with a few hundred other people. The atmosphere was great. At 11.04, just 2 minutes into the 30 minute launch period, we saw a bright flash of light from the launch pad which was about 15 miles away. We heard a distant rumble, then a very bright dot of light went shooting up into the sky. You can even see the fire from the engines in tbe the zoomed in photos. I love my camera! There were a few clouds around, which were lit up orange against the night sky, then the rocket emerged above the clouds to the clear sky. We saw a brighter flash as the rocket left Earth's atmosphere, and the bright dot grew smaller and fainter until it was gone. Matt vidoed the whole thing, so we have so e great footage as well as yhe electric atmosphere recorded on the beach.

I dont know what it is about space travel, but it makes me feel very emotional. Matt asures me that its not just me! The launch was really one of the mosy wonderful things i have ever seen!

I cant upload photos from my camera to the tablet, but here is a photo of the shuttle launch...

And one of the car too...

Day 2, Universal Studios

Yesterday was an excellent day! We were awake early because of the jet lag (matt still suferin worse than me). We had some peanut butter cereal - so sweet, definitely a holiday breakfast, and we were off to Universal Studios theme park by 7.30am. The drive took about half an hour and the park was quite empty when we arrived, opening at 8, only a few minutes after we arrived. We didnt even have to queue for tickets. Nearly $500 later, we had 2 day passes to Universal and their sister park, Islands of Adventure, and we were off!

We got a bit over excited and ran about aimlessly for a while, before headin onto a roller coaster tgemed on The Mummy film.  Then a mad dash to the Universal Studios half of Harry Potter World, which was a real treat. We met stan and Ernie the shrunken head on the night bus, had our photos taken at 12 Grimauld place, walked through the leaky couldron to get into Diagon ally, and marveled at all the shops, Olivanders, quiddich supplies, robes, madam fortescues ice cream, the owl post, pet shop, and had a (sickly sweet) butter beer while watching a Beadle the Bard live performance. There was even knockturn ally to wander through, ith Borgin and Burkes. The attention to detail is incredible. Kids were buying wands in Olivanders which could control various water fountains around the area.  Gringots bank had a huge dragon on top of it, and we reluctantly headed into the 60 minute queue for the escape from Gringots ride. In hindsight, this was always going to be the busiest area, so we need to planour route better. Queueing for the gringots ride wasnt all bad because you queue through the banks main entrance, with goblins on both sides at desks. Tgenyouhead down through the vaults, until you are in a cave with enromous stalegtites hanging from the ceiling. The ride was my favourite of the day, and well worth the wait! Its a roller coaster,but your surrounded by huge screens on all sides. You wear 3d glasses and the screens come to life. My stomach was doing sumersaults as voldemort threw us down a revine, even through our car had just tilted up a bit! Very clever stuff!

 

By the way, the wind was howling so we were really cold! It did warm up but not until about 2pm. Shivering people everywhere!

Afer Harry Potter, we headed to Springfield home of the Simpsons, to meet some characters, and go on tge simpsons ride, a simulator that had me feeling rather wobbly!

We stopped and had a gigantic turkey leg for lunch, seriously yum! Then onto the Terminator 2 show.

The men in black ride was next, which was really fun! You get a zapgun and have to shoot aliens for points. We were neck and neck all the way, until i was the first to push the little red button earning me another 100,000 points. We ended on, matt 36,475, mine was 136, 200! Matt wasn't happy. He thinks i cheated because i had been on the ride before, once, 10 years ago!

Next we headed to Matts favorite of the day, the Horror make up show, live. It was a comedian and a movie make up specialist who bounced off each other with great chemistry, talking about movie props. They sawed someones arm off too! It was great, and so funny.

We watched the universal super stars parade next, with Dora the Explorer, spongebob and Despicable me characters, before heading to the Shrek 4d show. We had been in the park for 10 hours by now and couldnt face a 2 and a half hour wait for the roller coaster. We said we would come back i  the evening to do it after our Islands of Adventure day, and headed home, slightly sunburned already.

We popped into Walmart on the way home for supplies, and i made Nandos chicken burgers for dinner, followed by fresh strawberries. Then we watched some wrestling on tv, (loved it. I could seriously get on board with wrestling, its like a soap opera!), before bed.

Now im up at the crack of dawn waiting for Matt to wake up before our day at NASA. Cant wait.

Day 1 America

I am now sitting in our lovely private villa in Kissimmee, Florida drinking a miller light beer and watching the lizards run around outside the bug net surrounding the pool.  It is hot but cloudy.  I am officially the worlds most relaxed person. It hasnt all been relaxing so far. We set off at 4.30 am from our flat in Duisburg. The next 21 hours were spent as follows, flying to heathrow, eating a fry up, tgen getting on a huge american airlines plane. We spent, 7 hours of comfortable film watching (hunger games 4, big hero 6, hotel transylvania 2), followed by 2 hours of horrendous turbulence in which i panicked completely before accepting that this flight would kill me and making my peace with the world. I was seriously shocked when we landing safely. We breezed through customs and had a good chat with our friendly customs officer (whose passion was physics).

We went to collect our convertible mustang and i got to pick the colour; my favourite, orange. Its completely awesome! We spent about 20 minutes trying to work out how to start the engine, and the automatic took matt some getting used to. Its a really big car! We successfully made the hour amd a half journey to hotel Biba, a basic hotel surrounded by not much of anything. All we needed was a place to lay our heads for the night so that we didnt have to do a 3 hour journey to Orlando all at once.

We arrived at 8pm local time (6 hours behind the uk) and found a nearby mexican restaurant full of locals. I had shrimp fajitas with rice and mixed beans and matt had a cuban sandwich. Both were delicious and followed by a mexican beer. By now we were on hour 23 of being awake, so we went to bed.

I am capable of sleeping until midday when allowed so my body clock didn't wake me up constantly in the night like matts did. We were both up by 7am though, and in the international house of pancakes by 8am. Matt had crispy bacon, eggs and pancakes.  I had raspberry and peach pancakes. Yum. Matt was happy as it was a proper american diner, with all the coffee you could drink and even a waitress who called everyone honey.

The car journey to kissimmee was stressful, although the car makes a great noise when you accelerate which was fun. I was map reading so we obviously got lost and it ended up taking quite a while. Plus there was torrential rain! Its still so hot though. Anyway, we made it in the end. The villa is lovely. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, pool. Perfect. The bins hadn't been taken out though and there were dirty plates from the last people, which we will complain about, but the villa itself is nice.

We drove to Walmart for some lunch and were rather overwhelmed. Matt reacted like a child at Christmas which was hilarious. There is just so much choice. They even have a mcdonalds inside the shop! We neeced food supplies,  so i only had the briefest of glances as the scrapbooking, wool and fabric aisles. Torture! Our friendly check out chap packed our shopping into bags for us which was really odd. He said that this is an american thing, and couldn't believe that we have to pack our own bags in england!

Now i am by the pool reading and matt is having a nap. We bought oven pizzas for tonight, since we are planning on going to Universal studios tomorrow and will have an early start. Loving life!

Sunset Over Duisburg

It's been a rather busy week at work, what with being the penultimate week before the Easter holidays.  I can't believe we only have 4 and a half more work days until Matt and I spend three wonderful weeks in Florida.  I'm so excited!

On Friday night, some girls from work all went to Bochum, a nearby town to our friends 'Moving House Party'.  We went straight to the pub round the corner from school at 4.15 for a few birthday drinks for another friend, and then got straight on the alcohol when we reached Bochum.  As you can see from the photo above,  I was very sensible and had a McDonald's on the train.  No one else did, and so it was a rather messy night, especially for the host, who fell down the stairs, had to be dragged to bed at 5.30am and spent Saturday feeling rather sorry for herself.  I left at 10.30 after an unfortunate bottle-to-the-face incident!  The host accidentally hit me in the face with a bottle of vodka.  TWICE!  I'm not kidding, you really couldn't make this up.  The awful thing was that she chipped my tooth.  I'm the only one who can see it, so it can't be that bad, but it feels like a crater.  So, not a particularly good end to the night.  Up until then, the party was great!

On Saturday, I went to the shops with two friends to get some last minute bits for the holiday, and of course we had lunch - fajitas at the harbour.  The weather has been cold but beautifully sunny, so it's been nice to get outside in it.

Here are a few photos that I have taken over the last couple of weeks from our flat's window.  This is with the 'sunset' setting on my camera, which enhances all of the colours to make them really dazzle.

This is what I have spent the day doing... (After a trip to the gym)

... this is what Matt has spent the day doing.  Though he did make it to the gym too...

Essen Illuminations

This week has been so slow!  Time is moving slowly because we now have less than 2 weeks until we go to America.  I can't wait to go!  Hence the slow moving time.

Yesterday evening Matt and I decided to go to Essen to see the illuminations.  The Grugapark in Essen has lots of art installations and lights set up throughout February and March.  Not sure what it's in aid of, but it's really cool!  The Christmas market in Essen was still up and running, so we stopped there for some food first (top 2 photos), then headed to the park, which was 6 euros to get in.  The park is gigantic, and we only saw about half of it in the hour and a half we were wandering around.  We, of course, stopped for cake and a glass of wine too!

It was nice to do something a bit different for an evening.  Today will just be chilling out.

Happy Mother's Day!