I finally had enough! After months of slaving away dusting, polishing, vacuuming, washing and the like (while Mrs G swans around attending classes, writing essays and the like) I felt it was high time I had a holiday!
On Wednesday the lovely, bubbly Jenny Miller picked us up just after 6:00 am and took us to Bradley International Airport where we leisurely boarded a plane and set off for Florida. A mere 2.5 hours later we touched down at Orlando International Airport to be greeted by blue skies, sunshine and palm trees. Could be a rough few days I thought.
Rebekah had travelled ahead a couple of days earlier and came to pick us up in the hire car. Sadly the sat nav she was using took her into some road works, into the airport and then out of the airport again. She did eventually manage to get to us and we were soon on the way to Kissimmee, with me driving.
Having driven on the wrong (right) side of the road in Greece (where the concept of rules of the road appears not to have reached) I was fairly calm about driving in The States. We’d purchased a sat nav of our own and the delightful Irish lady directed us to our villa with a minimum of fuss and bother.
And what a villa! It’s built to comfortably hold eight so with just three of us here it seems practically palatial!! After spending some time running excitedly around the whole place I cracked open a beer and relaxed with a spot of internet browsing followed by a wee nap.
After napping Mrs G and I decided to do a little shopping and search out a steak at one of the multitude of eating spots located on the 192.
First stop, Wal Mart! We bought a few food items, beer, wine, jeans for me ($16.50) and sweat pants ($5.00). As ethical consumers we probably shouldn’t go near the place but at those prices who gives a toss about ethics!!
After that we hunted down our steak. A giant billboard announcing Ponderosa Steakhouse that we noticed as soon as we left Wal Mart was clearly a sign from above so we headed there immediately.
Unlike any other eating establishment we’ve ever been to we had to order our food before being shown to a table. There was a handy guide showing photographs of what colo(u)r your slab of meat would look like depending on how you wanted it cooked. I opted for my usual medium rare while Mrs G went for medium. We also chose the skewered shrimps option.
After ordering and paying we were shown to a booth. Having expected to discover a wonderful slice of Americana it was somewhat disconcerting to notice that the walls were covered with football (soccer) scarves from English clubs with a smattering of Scottish, Welsh, Irish and European teams also represented.
Our meal included an all you can pile on your plate buffet so we started by helping ourselves to the various salad items as well as noodles, pizza, meatballs and enough other assorted items with which one could feed an impoverished Third World nation for three months.
Eventually our steak and shrimps arrived and they were done exactly as we had asked. The quality was far superior to what you’d expect to receive at a drunken Englishman’s barbecue and after helping ourselves to the all you can eat dessert we made our way back to the villa content that we had made the world a better place.
We rounded off our evening with a drink or two while watching trashy American reality TV.
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