My trip to Florida was awesome. We saw so much in just two weeks! Here’s a quick summary:
After driving 2.5 days, we finally made it to Key West from Nashville. On our first night we walked to Mallory Square to watch the sunset. While watching a street performer do tricks, and I was chosen to be a part of the show! He told me to lay flat on my back while he walked on a tightrope held up like a tug-of-rope by more volunteers. Then, he started juggled knives right over me. Whew! Also while in Key West, we sailed to a reef and snorkeled with tons of beautiful fish, had some awesome lemonade from a local named Izzy, almost went spear fishing with Captain Upchuck, and ate a “Cheeseburger in Paradise” from Jimmy Buffet’s original Margaritaville.
Next we headed to John Pennekamp State Park in Key Largo to do some camping. We went snorkeling and saw a barracuda, did a kayak trip through the mangrove swamps, but the most exciting thing was the tarpon experience…After finishing our kayak trip, the locals encouraged us to feed the tarpon, a very large game fish that can grow up to 6 feet long and weigh up to 350 lbs. We bought a bucket of fish and took it out to the dock where approximately 150 tarpon were swimming. They told us to hold the fish in our hands right over the water and the tarpon would jump out of the water and bite our arms until we let go of the fish. They assured us that unlike sharks, tarpon have sandpaper mouths instead of sharp teeth and it wouldn’t hurt. We did as they said, and sure enough the tarpon leaped out of the water, bit our arms, then slid down taking the fish with them…wow! Check out the video here:
After Key Largo, we headed to the everglades. On our first day, we took a ranger-guided boardwalk tour and saw over 20 alligators in the swamp right under the boardwalk! The next day, we took a boat ride and saw a crocodile and some small sharks too. Here’s a video of some wildlife We also discovered that McDonalds in Florida sells cheeseburgers for $.60 a piece on Tuesdays. Naturally, my roommate and I decided to buy 33 cheeseburgers and eat as many as we could…it turned out to be not as good of an idea as it initially sounded.
After the everglades we continued onto Miami, our final destination. The walking tour of South Beach was cool, especially the interesting Art Deco architecture. We visited a famous tattoo parlor where they film the show “Miami Ink” on TLC. Little Havana was interesting and we ate some great Cuban sandwiches, bought some Spanish CDs, and found a cool cigar shop. On our last day, we visited a “fronton” where the interesting sport of “Ja-Alai” is played. Read a description of the sport here: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jai_alai) Tons of locals were gambling and yelling at the players and it was really exciting.
After returning from my trip I thought I would have time to relax, but instead my cousin Rachael had just graduated high school and my relatives were in town to help celebrate. We had a great time catching up, laughing, and eating good food.
I fly to Washington DC on Monday, June 1 and Thursday is my first day at the Woodrow Wilson Center internship. I’ll keep you posted!
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