New Orleans: New Orleans, I feel, is a place I really got to know while on this trip. I have spent an entire week at the same hostel within the city, which is more time than I have spent anywhere else since I've been gone, and I am glad. New Orleans is so full of culture and history. It seems someone always has a new story to tell you about the city's past or present. Also, the homes, the buildings, the street cars, the food! It's a wonderful place to be when the only hurricane around is in your glass.

I know that most people come down here for Burbon Street; to drink, show their boobs, go into naughty stores, and do other naughty things, and that, so I have been told is what the French settlers intended. While down here, I went on a cemetary/voodoo tour. It wasn't scary at all, but it was packed with awesome stories and historical information. The man that lead my tour told me that when the French first settled here, they were trying to set up a mini Paris. Many people flocked to New Orleans because of it's port and the job opportunities it brought. For sometime, New Orleans was the wealthiest city in the U.S. per capita. However, do to the climate, the mosquitos, and people being so close together, yellow fever and turburculosis became the serial killers of city. People never new how long they had to live, so they made the most of their lives by celebrating and enjoying their health while they had it.

Although, yellow fever and turburculosis don't quite affect our population any more, cancer does. Since I have been planning my travels, there are those who completely support my decisions and there are those who don't because they're worried something might happen to me. No one knows what's coming their way or when it's coming. Like the French, I'd rather spend my time enjoying my health meeting new people and seeing new places than sitting in the same spot, if you will, waiting for death to come to me.

Side note: Saw Benjamin Button after 3 full days of exploring New Orleans. It was awesome being able to identify many of the places in the movie while watching it.

lots of buses

Oh. how far I have come since Miami. Since Miami I have been to Florida city/the everglades, the keys, backup to fort lauderdale, and New Orleans. To reach all of these destinations I participated in a lot of public transportation, which happened to be some of the best people watching I have done in a long time. Meth woman number one: about 5'5", no more than 90 pounds, short blond hair that she continually brushed in between doing and saying innapropriate things. At one point she got up mumbled some swears, turned around and smacked her booty. Although there were many more amuzing things witnessed while bus ridding, she was my favorite.

Florida City/Everglades: we stayed in an awesome hostel with a backyard like the secret garden. in the garden was a gazebo, which had a couch that circled 3/4 of the inside. the couch was covered with an assortment of blankets, pillows, and bean bags. There were white Christmas lights around the top and covering a christmas tree in the corner. In the center was a coffee table with a huka and a variety of different flavored tobacos. I want to live in that gazebo. I probably spent about 5-6 hours in there reading. besides hanging out in the gazebo, i went to an alligator farm. i fed some baby alligators, went on one of those airboats through the everglades, and saw a snake show. It was a very family friendly kind of day. After the alligator farm we headed over to "robert is here" farmers market. steve and i got ourselves a homemade strawberry key lime milk shake. so good...uh, uh, so good....uh, uh. we also bought some fresh veggies and a giant avacado and made ourselves one hell of a salad that evening.

Key West: In key west, we treated ourselves to a real hotel with a swimminig pool and sleep comfort mattresses. steve and i spent about an hour playing with/adjusting the mattress to our comfort level. Our first night there we had a few alcoholic beverages, ate dinner, and miandered around town. One of the places we miandered into, of course happened to be an Irish Pub. The pub greatly resembled buckhead, including the live music, not including men wearing striped collared shirts. The band was great. One of the guys looked like axel rose and played the drumtar... yes... a drumtar. Our second day we went to hemmingways house and the southernmost point in the U.S. Hemmingways house was amazing! I petted so many cute little 6 toed cats. Our day adventure in key west was followed by more frozen tropical drinks, chips and salsa, and a vegitarian hot dog froom a vender on the side of the street.

New Orleans: to get to new orleans from the keys, this is what we went through. One, 1 1/2 hour bus ride from Key West to Keylargo area. Our first bus was late so we had to wait about 3 hours at mcdonalds for our nex bus. Our next bus from Keylargo to Florida city was about another 1 1/2 hours. From Florida city to the inner part of miami another hour. Switched onto a train for about a half an hour, then had to take another bus for a half an hour to a a hostel in southbeach. we spent the night there, got up at 7 am to take 3 different buses- 2 hours to the fort lauderdale airport. took an hour flight to charolette, waited in the charolette airport for an hour. got on another hour flight to new orleans. took a one hour bus ride to our hostel. I know I have a very stiff neck...
so far the travel seemed worth it. our first night in our friend dan took us to a ragae bar; good music, awesome people watching. our second day, steve and i went to a suggested area... magazine street. we spent the whole day bumming around, not realizing where we actually were and where we needed to be to get back. we walked a good 6 miles. after our long day of walking, dan had us over for some traditional new orleans food he cooked up himself. He mad jumbaly- mine vegitarian of course, and fried okra. He did a fabulous job. It was a good day.
(i apologize for poor spelling and sometimes refusing to use capital letters... i am writting for the sake of writting, not for publishing)

A1A-Beach Front Avenue

Unfortunately folks, my creative juices have not been flowing so in order to save you some time and provide you with some entertainment, I will sum things up quickly and expand only on a few intresting characters and situations...
My voyage began last Thursday, January 8th, 2009. I flew into Fort Lauderdale, where I was picked up by one of my most favoritest people in the world, my aunt jen. From there we headed to her home in Hollywood. I had a blast hanging out with her and my little cousins, Ethan 7, and Jonathan 5. While in Hollywood, we hung out at the beach, ate ice cream, got sushi, helped Jen pick out a paint color for her house, went to a Scottish Festival which cost $20 to get into, and for those of you from my wonderful home town of Oak Creek, this festival was worse than Lions Fest. Long story of how we got there in the first place. Other things we did... saw the private jets my uncle flys for Toyota, ate more delicous food and drank booze at my other uncles house, whose backyard is literally the ocean. However, the greatest part of Hollywood was the plastic Madagascar hippo from Mcdonald's my aunt had in her car. The hippo has three phrases that it will randomly spew out at any given time (the voice clearly of a colored woman).... "Alirighty boys!" one in which I can not remember, and "mmmmm....hmmmmm... you got that right!" which became the most famous and hilarious during our visit. The last phrase that I mentioned always seemed to be stated by the hippo at the most appropriate time. For example, after the Scottish festival, my aunt and I were sitting in the car, just her and I waiting for everyone else. I stated that I was quite dirty, she replied that she was as well, then so did the hippo with, "mmm...hmmmm....you got that right." This situation happened at least 5 times a day.
Moving on... Steve and I are now in Miami. Lots of shops, lots of food, lots of people trying to be sexy. I attempted that, but it's that time of the month so I feel and probably look like a pig on a roasting stick. All I need is the apple stuffed in my mouth, which I could easily make happen. The first hostel we stayed at seemed pretty cool at first with an age range of 18-60, males, females, people from all over the world. However, we sooned discoverd that it was filled with drunk idiots and drama that had escalated before we had even got there. We shared a room with 10 other people the first night, one being "bitch" She had the body of a 12 year old and the face of a bad looking 50 year old. I could not distinguish her true age. While being there, she spent much time fixing her hair in front of the one sink and mirror 12 people shared, making Steve scared to wash his hands after using the restroom. Apparently she got sick at some point and kept telling Steve to turn off the AC. He kept replying that he did not have the ability to do so. She continued to ask him 5 more times. In the morning she bitched at another guy for about 10 minutes for farting in his sleep. We left immediately that morning.
That morning we hung out on the beach for a while and drank some wine. We went shopping and I got Steve to buy 2 new shirts. Yes... Steve bought clothes from American Apparel! After shopping and walking around a bit, we decided to stop and have a cocktail and appetizer. We shared a jumbo drink of 42 oz called "ocean's motion" and chowed on some delicious nachos at sidewalk table- perfect for people watching. While enjoying our litttle snack we witnessed a man in a fairy looking tutu, nothing underneath, a batman hat/mask, a black tank top, dirty grey socks and tennis shoes put his face into a black woman's huge boosoms. Couldn't have asked for better entertainment. Later that day we showered up and went to the "erotica museum." It was like watching a porn for 2 and a half hours, but educational. ha ha. Really, it was. What consisted in some of those paintings and the periods they came from really makes you wonder what was going on back then when supposedly conservatism was in. I highly reccomend it!