Alligator Tuesday!

The team ready for departure

Blue Tuesday. Woke up tired and hung over, again. But Eirik was pushing through as host and served us scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Very pleasant.

After some laughing about last night, we headed for the car and set of towards Palms Bay for kayaking into the Turkey Creek Sanctuary. Sunscreen was applied and smiles put on before well headed up there river.

Eirik showing the way

We had a great 90 minutes paddle up to the dam, filled with jumping fish, turtles, alligators and squirrels. The only thing missing was a manatee.

When we set of we were told that alligators were present, but I imagined that they would be small any cute. But the feeling of sitting in a kayak that was actually smaller than the gator, and passing within 5 meters of it was quite exciting. It could easily broken the kayak in two if it wanted.

The turtles on the other hand. Super cute where they stand on branches out of the water and soaking up the sun.

Big friendly alligator

After paddling all the way back to base, we went to a Japanese buffet restaurant and had all we could eat sushi and every other conceivable Japanese dish for the whopping price of $8.95. Crazy cheap.

Laundry was done, and drinks were had.

The evening was spent watching a thunderstorm and later playing beer-bingo at a local pub.

Whack a turtle

Get inside!

Didn't get bingo

Monday Morning Blues

Taco Bell!

Monday morning. Spend it on the beach in Clearwater, and drive to Melbourne in the afternoon, or drive in the morning and spend the afternoon on the beach in Melbourne? We decided on option 3, sleep in the morning, drive during the day, and arrive in Melbourne in the evening. To minimize our exposure to the sun. (or maybe just remember to put on an alarm the next time).

Stian took the wheel today, and Sindre the position as mapreader, with me safely placed in the back seat with a book. They guided us safely to our destination, even with a small detour to the airport in Tampa. I read like 100 pages in my book, and concluded that american roads are perfect for backseat reading.

Sindre working Indiana Harbour Beach

We finally found a TacoBell and had a great meal there. Some of us even had two.

Our arrival in Melbourne was a bit in front of schedule, so we went to a beach to throw balls while waiting for Eirik to finish his defence.

Kava-bar in Melbourne

We met up at his place at 4 with beer and ice, and spent the rest of the sunny hours by the pool in his "luxury apartment resort".

Our movement today

After getting tipsy, we decided to try out the monday night party scene in Melbourne, which turned out to be non-existent.

Sunny Sunday!

Heia Bloggen!

Tampa Bay LFC Supporters

A couple of days ago we decided that we needed to decide what to do on our spare Sunday. We decided on going to Clearwater (without much reasearch) because it seemed to be the beach town closest to Tampa.


But before we headed out west, me and Stian had to go to Four Green Fields in Tampa to watch the all important Liverpool vs Man City-game, at 0837am local time, in a hangover. This was a true nervewrecker, but we pulled through and got the three points.

Important with the correct tools

After the game, we went back to our friend Howard Johnson and picked up Sindre for our "short" drive to the beach. Sindre got behind the wheel for the first time, and did well. But surprisingly enough, there was a massive queue. Apparently people in Tampa also likes to go to the beach on Sundays.

Arriving at Clearwater we understood that our choice was good. The weather was perfect, the beach was sweet and the water a refreshing 23 (73) degrees. I won't say much more, and just show some  nice pics instead.

We did some hard work with  tanning oil, and went early to bed, tired from last night, to be ready for our drive to Melbourne and Eirik.

Beachwalkin'

Getting our ass whopped in volleyball

Solkongen

Lots of ppl

Work that singlet

Best ppl on the bests beach

Roundabout in amerika?!

Sunset playtime

Praise that ball

Where we went

Saturday funday

After a great partynight in Ybor City after the hockey game, we woke up in our very nice hotel annoyed that we didn't spend the extra money to stay in the same hotel two nights.

But whats done is done, so our bags were packed, and we jumped in our beloved Chevy, which uses 8 liters/100 km on highways, and drove the 10 minutes to our new home, the Howard Johnson Downtown Plaza.

We did a stop on Channelside Drive on our way over for breakfast/lunch at Hooters (who actually had their first restaurant just outside Tampa). The girls were nice and pretty, but the food was very average, probably not going back there again. Then we did some shopping, guy style. Go to the first shop you find, but the first stuff you find in the store, and go home. We got 4 shorts, 10 t-shirts, a wallet and some jandals in less than 30 mins. Efficiency!

A lot of time was spent branstorming about who this Howard Johnson really was, and we decided that he probably was infamous in the drug business or something. The hotel showed real signs of being build during the peak years of the chain, the 70s, when it was probably super fancy, but the age was starting to show now.

Anyhow.

The rest of the daylight was enjoyed in the sun next to the extremely cold pool working on the tan, and practicing watervolleyball.

We had some greek food for dinner, a mixed experience. Hair in one dish, missing plates, a missing dish, super loud music, the main course arrived at the same time as the appertizers and so on. In addition my hair almost got burnt by some fireshow they had for our neighbor. The food itself was ok, but I would not recommend this place to anyone else. You cant always trust TripAdvisor.

After this we became happy, again, only this time we ended up in Hyde Park/Soho, instead of Ybor City.

I'm very positively suprised by Tampa. Didn't have any expectations, but we had a really good time here!

I have apparently not taken any (publishable)photos of anything from saturday. So I'll just leave you with a map of our movement.

Drive on

Hei Bloggen!

Today we drove from Miami to Tampa. Stopped by Sjømannskirken, but it was closed. Missed the exit to Everglades City, so didn't see any alligators, stopped in Naples for an ice cream, and then to Tampa.

Got a nice hotel, watched the NHL game, and went out. Super hungover, so can't write more now.

Tampa Skyline

Lightning vs Blue Jackets

Beach in Naples

Hungover transport

Not much to write about today, woke up tired and hungover. Packed our bags, and headed back to Miami.

Stian had his first day in the drivers seat, and did very well, while I had to be the GPS-operator.

The drive from Key West was much nicer without rain, so we had a good time. Sindre didn't see much, since he was mostly sleeping while listening to DDE and Tønes.

In Miami we checked into our hotel, got a huge pizza, and ended up falling asleep in the evening. We woke up around 10pm and decided to go out a short trip to this apparently very fancy lounge. We had an stupidly expensive "mojito", and made up stories about the other people there, before we decided to go home and save up energy for the long drive to Tampa, and the NHL-match tomorrow.

Did You Say Fish?

After a good night sleep, we were ready for one the highly anticipated fishing trip out of Key West. We woke up at 7, packed our bags and set off. First to the drive through ATM (nice touch america), then subway for breakfast, and then to the marina to find our boat.At the marina we met Cory, a canadian guy who was joining the fun.

Our biggest fish

We all paid, loaded the beer into the boat, and set of. All quite nervous for the conditions at sea, because there was a frisky wind. Luckily for us, the waves were quite small inn the beginning of the trip, so we managed to stay happy for at least the first part of the trip. After a good hour of boating, the first fish bit, and we put our Canadian friend in charge of getting the fish into the boat. This didn't go very well, because it snapped of after 10 minutes of fighting, to bad, seemed to be a big one!

Sindres biggest fish

Up next was me and Sindre, when two fish bit at the same time. We pulled up two nice Mahi Mahis, at around 7 kg. Quite big, but nothing compared to what was coming. Stian took the next one, and got an even bigger one, at 18 kg! Cory then got the biggest so far, but it escaped when our first mate tried to get it onboard. We heard on the radio later that another boat caught a 20+kg mahimai with a hook in its mouth, probably his. Finally I got a blackfin tuna, and then our luck ran out. The waves grew big, the fish stopped biting, and we mostly felt sick.

Safely back on dry land we did some posing with our fish, went to the pool to relax, and then into town for dinner and drinks. Key West is really a charming little city.

We had a good time, and I even beat both Sindre and Stian in pool (will never happen again), and went to bed way after midnight.

All in all a great day! :)

Where we fished

DIE DIE DIE! Fishfwrestling

The big one that got away

Catch of the day

Nice at the pool.