Florida Fun (and Disasters too...)
By GWN Writer Amanda Chang
On Saturday night (March 22) at around 8:30, Diane's dad and Alex sent us to the Oakland airport. We met with Sara's family and Kelvin's family. We arrived in Atlanta, Georgia at about 6:30 am (Eastern Time). Then, we flew to West palm Beach, Florida. When we arrived, my dad and Sara's dad went to pick up our rental car. The car was a twelve seater so two seats were empty. We drove for a while and we stopped at Checkers for lunch. I ordered a hot dog and it turned out to have mustard and ketchup on it as well. Yuck! We ate in the car because it was raining outside and Checkers only had seats outside. We started driving again and drove across a seven-mile bridge to get to Key West.
We arrived at our hotel, The Southernmost Hotel at about 6:30 pm. We then changed into our short sleeves and short pants, which we would never have done at home. Our hotel is at the end of Key West and we had to walk to the other end of Key West to see the sunset at the sunset celebration in Mallory Square. It was a tiring walk. We watched a few shows there but since it was a cloudy day, there was no sunset. :-( We ate a restaurant called Mangoes and I ordered pasta with Alfredo sauce. There was even a Easter bunny walking around greeting people. Remember? It's Easter! we had vanilla ice cream for dessert, but it tasted like strawberry ice cream so I didn't eat it. the next day, we went on the Old Town Trolley Tour. Our tour guide's name was David and he was really funny. We went halfway and stopped at Mallory Square for lunch. I ordered conch fritters sine it's Key West's special. When we were going to continue our tour, we went on the wrong trolley! The trolley we went on took us to some cruise that we didn't even pay for! We had to take a conch tour train back to the conch tour train's home. We got to sit in the first two rows since we were the only ones on the train!! We then went to the Shipwreck Historeum. There were many exhibits of what pirates found on shipwrecks. We climbed a 65-foot tower and saw a bell that pirates rung whenever there was a shipwreck. We rang it for fun as well. Then, we went to the Key West Aquarium. We fed fish, saw sharks, held crabs, and much, much more. I also got to taste Key Lime Pie (Key West's special). It's sour and it melts. Sara liked it, but I thought it was just plain ok. We then went on the right trolley tour and had the rest of the tour. After the tour, we went to Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. There were many cool exhibits. There also was a tunnel that made you feel like it was moving bit it was actually the outside that was moving. It was really fun. At first, I was totally freaked out because I thought we were going to go upside down! We ate dinner at Red Fish, Blue Fish and I ordered macaroni and cheese. At 9:00 pm, we went to a ghost tour. We walked around Key West and the guide told us really freaky stories. And whenever someone shouted, "Boo!" or something like that, we would yell back, “You're doomed!” for some reason. The next day, we ate at the Southernmost Cafe, which was next to the beach. Then, we went to the Hemingway House, which was owned by Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, Pauline. He owned many cats and had 6 wives. He died by suiciding. Then we went the Little Truman White House. It was a small white built by President Harry S. Truman sine he liked Key West so much. Then, we went to Mallory Square to buy souvenirs. After buying souvenirs, we saw a "magic" show. We also got to see the sunset. It was sooo pretty. We ate dinner at Fogarty's and I ordered macaroni and cheese, again! :-) The next day, we went to Southernmost Point to take pictures. Southernmost Point is only 90 miles from Cuba, another country. Cuba is even closer than Miami! We ate at the Southernmost Cafe again.
Then we drove off to Miami. We stopped in the middle for a glass-bottom boat tour. In the beginning, I went outside and water was splashing us everywhere. Sara's mom didn't let her go out and Kelvin was seasick. :-(
Then, the boat stopped at the coral reef and started going really slow. The glass at the bottom now showed many creatures and plants. I became seasick so I slept through the whole thing. During the rest of our drive to Miami, an accident happened. We bumped into another car! The other car's whole front was in pieces and our wheel was broken. The police came and settled matters and we got our wheel fixed. That took about one and a half hour. We arrived at our hotel, the Sea View hotel at about 9:30pm. We checked in and ate at Carpaccio. Sara and I were ignoring each other because we had a little tiny argument. Hehe.
We made up, of course. Later we found out that our hotel room had only one bed and we needed two since 4 people couldn't sleep on only one bed. We didn't want to leave it though. It was a mini-suite room with a kitchen and stuff like that. Our new room was waay smaller but it was ok, I guess. The next day, we went on a airboat in the Gator Park. On the airboat, we see live alligators, turtles, birds, and other wildlife. In the middle of the tour, we had to put earplugs on and we were going to go really fast so it would be really loud. Then, we watched a "show" performed by Dan. I even got to hold, really hold, an alligator. It was really heavy. After that, we went on a city tour, which I slept through so there's not much to say about it. Sorry! After that, we went on a two-decker boat for a tour of Star Island. All the houses on the island are humongous and are owned by really rich people, such as Shaquille O' Neal! I'm not kidding. We are at Carpaccio... again! The next day, I was a little bit sick. I was coughing and my throat hurt real badly. We went to Cocowalk, a famous shopping center. Then, we went to Viscayla, which was owned by a rich person. It was sort of like the Hemingway House. Then, we went to the Miami beach. Sara's mom bought us matching swimsuits. We played in the waves and looked for seashells. We found 14 in all except Sara found most of them. We ate at a restaurant in our hotel.
The next day, we drove to West Palm Beach. In the middle, we stopped at Lion Country, a drive-through zoo. We saw many different kind of animals like monkeys, lions, birds, etc. We stayed at Holiday Inn for the night. The next day, we went to the airport at 5:00 am!!! We arrived at Dallas, Texas at about 1:00pm.
We got on the flight to Oakland. And guess what? It was delayed! Then, they made us change airplanes but in the end, the flight was just canceled. We had to stay in Holiday Inn (for free). We also got airline vouchers that let us have meals free. We didn't even have our luggage with us! Sara's parents had friends in Dallas so they stayed there for the night. The worst part was that we didn't have our pajamas to sleep in! Kelvin left earlier the next day. Sara's parent's friend showed us around Dallas. We went to this park with lots of bulls, ate lunch at a delicious rib place, went to a playground with a tire swing, and showed us all the huge and beautiful houses. We then went to the airport and found out that our plane will be delayed, which only gave us 5 minutes to catch our connecting flight! As soon as we got off the plane, the dads, who got the front seats ran to the next flight and told them to wait for a while. Luckily, we caught the plane and came home safely on Monday night at 10:00. But our luggage was not so lucky. We had to pick it up on Tuesday night at the Oakland airport.
What an interesting (and weird) vacation! Send your vacation stories to: GingerbreadWklyNews@gmail.com
