Florida Photo Fest 2008

So, I’m pretty sure no one is actually reading this at the moment, especially given that my parents and Terry are actually here with me, but for the benefit of anyone who is, hi! Please keep reading, and maybe even leave me a comment, because I am all about the attention. And just for you, here are some moments from our trip so far…

Yesterday morning we woke up to this sight at the back of the house:

It was kind of a shame we didn’t (and by "we" I mean "I") wake up to the fact that my camera was on the wrong setting until much later, but hey, them’s the breaks, and actually, I didn’t have my contact lenses in (it was about 7.30am and I’d just had a night of practically no sleep, with the small snatches of sleep I DID manage to grab marred by dreams in which I was made to blog about the shoes of every single person on our flight before they’d let me off the thing), so this is more or less "through the eyes of Amber". There were about four of these balloons surrounding our house, which gave a nicely surreal touch to the morning.

When we’d picked up our rental car the night before, they’d given us a car with two flat tyres (nice) which they replaced with a Jeep. We weren’t too sold on the Jeep, so we decided to take it back to the airport and swap it out for the car we’d originally paid for. This would’ve been a bit of a drag, but hey, lookit what I picked up on the way back:

I’m guessing I should probably be embarrassed by the fact that I hadn’t even been in the States for 24 hours before spending too much money at Sephora, but, oh, Sephora, how I missed you! And how I wish I hadn’t bought the Philosophy ‘The Present’ "clear" makeup because that stuff truly is the Emperor’s new clothes of cosmetics. Just in case you were wondering.

Oh! I also went to Target to faithfully buy the Jergen’s Natural Glow some of you recommended last week, but I’m afraid to say I was seduced by something that seemed like an even better idea at the time (and please remember I was probably still a little jet-lagged here) – it is sunblock THAT IS ALSO A GRADUAL TANNER, and that is why I now have orange palms and ankles. Oh yes.

Anyway, all of this frantic consumerism basically knackered us out so blah blah pool, blah sun, blah Cracker Barrel for dinner:

Blah blah wine by the pool, blah blah waking up in the middle of the night feeling sick after the huge amount of food I had managed to consume that day, and finally, today, in which we decided to take a trip to Tarpon Springs, which is a little community on the Gulf Coast which is basically like a little Greece with Greek restaurants, Greek shops, Greek music and… just Greek stuff. Because that’s totally why we came to Florida, you know?

I jest, of course… The folks and I had been to Tarpon Springs years ago, but we decided to bring Terry to see it, partly because it held particular interest for him (Terry’s family are Greek), and partly because you can take a little cruise out into the Gulf from there to spot dolphins, and all I can say about that is that if you’re ever in Tarpon Springs, TAKE THE CRUISE. It cost $13 each, and we totally thought there was no way we would ever actually see dolphins, but they took us out to this little island and lo and behold! Dolphins! That were jumping out of the water and rolling over on their bellies, and then following the boat like they do in the movies and stuff. Naturally I didn’t manage to capture this on film AT ALL other than in this one crappy picture:

But trust me: dolphins!

Then we ate Greek food, got back in the car and drove home via St Petersburg. Which was totally not on the way home, but still…

Anyway we’re back home now and I’m thinking I may go and sit in the jacuzzi for a while, but what I will probably actually do is drink wine. I leave you with this picture of my breakfast this morning:

Coffee and marshmallow fluff. Why don’t we have this stuff in the UK?*

(*Note: We do have coffee, obviously. We’re not THAT backward…)