Memories of Florida
A couple of weeks ago, my family went to Orlando for a little vacation and break from city life. Time to unwind. My inlaws came with us which was a great help travelling with a baby and also meant we had some babysitters.
We went the week hurricane Ike arrived but thankfully were unaffected other than an afternoon of thunderstorms. The rest of the week was warm and very humid. Beautiful. Swimming at 11pm was as warm as an afternoon in Toronto.
As this was my first time to visit Florida, I was left with some impressions other than just the beauty.
Wildlife - it was a strange mix of rainforest and forest animals. There were small lizards constantly jumping out of your way, signs for “don’t feed the alligators”, under which a rabbit was chomping away on the grass and a squirrel running past. What a juxtaposition. A medly of animals waiting to get eaten by a gator (which we sadly never saw).
Recycling - I’m not a totally environmental nut (I drive an SUV) but I definitely take steps to help the earth where possible and recycling has been something ingrained since I was a kid. But we couldn’t find recycling facilities at all. The hotel didn’t have any. We had to throw newspapers, glass baby bottles and plastic water bottles into the garbage. My stomach churned. I didn’t notice recycle bins at the mall or on the streets either. Did I simply miss them? Hey American readers, what is recycling like in your city? Leave me some comments.
Litigious - I’ve always seen the lawyer commercial spoofs on SNL and other shows but now I see how prevalent suing is in the US. Every commercial break had lawyer commercials wanting to “get you top dollar” for injury claims cases or suing a drug company. And there were soooo many Judge shows on daytime tv, all sorts of new judges I’d never heard of. Just shocking to see.
But overall, I really enjoyed Orlando. Hot, clean and sunny. I’ll definitely be back again in future years when I’ve got older kids to take to the amusement parks.
