Travel Diary Day 3

This trip is sure taking a lot of energy out of me, and has made me realize that I haven't had caffeine since Tuesday. No wonder I'm falling asleep on swamp tours! I was a little late meeting my group for breakfast, really only 10 minutes, but our guide likes to keep everyone on time. He left me two voicemails, I didn't think it called for that. As I'm still not accustomed to eating breakfast, my queasy stomach didn't want anything too big. Luckily today's breakfast in the hotel was buffet style so I could take just what I wanted. I went with a cheese omelet and bacon in small portions.

On today's agenda, our first stop was a drive to Butterfly World. This was something that I was looking forward to because I like butterflies. Fun fact, Vanessa is a name for a genus of butterfly. It was interesting to see all the different types of butterflies flying around me, but I was worried about stepping on one of them. If I killed a butterfly this would have been a very sad day. Along with butterflies, they also had many birds flying around which made me a little more worried that they would swoop down on me. Then of course there was a special area with just birds that like to land on people. There was even a sign that said if you have a fear of birds landing on you, you should not go inside. I listened to that.

Everyone else in my group went inside the area but me. I didn't want to be a complete wuss so I went in for about a minute. A bird flew right by my face and then I promptly left. I think it was very smart that I did because six birds landed on one of my group members and were just climbing all over her. I wouldn't have been ok with that.

When we were done at Butterfly World we went to grab lunch at the H20 Cafe. My breakfast had me still pretty filled up so I passed on eating. All I got was ice tea, my first caffeine drink on this trip. I felt I would need this for everything else we were going to do today.

I think what I really would like to do in the future is to go around and rate bathrooms. Ever since I was little and I would go out, I had to always see the bathroom. So far all the bathrooms I have seen here were pretty nice, except the one at the Swamp Safari which smelled like an animal house.

Anyway, I brought up bathrooms because I decided to use the one at the H20 cafe and came out to see my group had left. I actually thought they had driven off, which really didn't have been that upset. Honestly, I would have just walked back to my hotel, because I wasn't that far from it, and relax. Sadly, or rather I should say, Luckily, my group had only walked to the shopping district up ahead to get the tickets for our next activity.

Yes, next was the Duck Tour, and I thought that would be mildly interesting because ducks are nice. This tour was very misleading! It shouldn't even be called a duck tour, it should be called the "History of Ft. Lauderdale Tour...Now with Water!". We didn't see a single duck, the only duck relation was that the overhyped tour guide kept making the bus quack like idiots to the people in the different places we passed. And to top it off, it was raining. It really was just a history tour where the guide pointed to places and told us some information and history about it. Then when we finally hit the water I thought finally this is where we'll see the ducks. No, then it turned to a house tour, poitning at different houses along the water and telling us who use to live there while boating at the slowest speed possible. This tour should have been the one that made me feel like sleeping, and at points I felt it, but I managed to stay wide-eyed.

Then our guide gave us free time to do whatever we want. I was going to go to either the pool or the beach, but since it was still rainy and cloudy I didn't want to. So I just came back to my room and relaxed. I'm planning tomorrow morning to use the pool, hopefully the sun will be shining!

When my free time was over, I met my group back in the lobby for dinner at the Mai Kai Resturant. I really liked the place, it was authentically decorated like a Polyensian village. Even the bathrooms were authentic. Since they knew we were on a press trip, they gave us a tour of the place and gave us a special menu to order from. I had crab rangoon, soy sirlon steak, and tiramasu. I also had my first alcoholic drink on the trip ad it came in a take home glass...I love those! Then they had a show with dinner that was basically alot of hula shaking and fire throwing. It was fun to watch, and they even pulled up my guide to dance on stage. Since they had a gift shop, I decided to look because I thought they must have some nice things.

I saw a very pretty tiki necklace with matching earrings so I asked the worker how much it was. $75! Are they out of their freaky tiki mind? Of course I didn't buy it, but at least I still have my souvienar glass. When we were done, we had to go back to our rooms very fast because we had to be at this sea turtle thing at a certain time.

Now the purpose of going to this sea turtle attraction was because we were suppose to see the turtles come out and lay their eggs. It was very boring for me. What we were really doing was turtle hunting because the entire crew was scouting the beach to see if a turtle was coming out of the water. They had us on the beach watching the waters in silent for 45 mintues.

At this point, waiting to see the turtle wasn't the only problem. All the food that I ate at dinner wasn't blending so well in my stomach and pain was coming in waves. So when we started walking to the other end of the beach I told my guide that I was going back to the main area where the bathrooms were. Then our driver gave me the keys to the van so I could sit inside the car and not be outside anymore. Wouldn't you know it, the damn turtle came out right after I left.

Once again my day concludes back in my room here writing. Tomorrow is when I leave, so this trip is almost over. This time I get to sleep a little more because everyone else in my group is going surfing at 6am, I kindly passed on that one. Surfing would be cool to do one day in my life, but doing it hours before my flight made me nervous. So tomorrow is my day where I can do whatever I want before I leave. I just hope for no rain!