Treasure Island

our family lives in a pretty touristy area. central florida can be a sprawling, congested, urban smear filled with bad crime and badder drivers, but, at the same time, it offers limitless sources of entertainment.

we live in orlando, but not in the touristy part you may be accustomed to. we live in a golf club part of town, which, while nice, feels nothing like touristy florida. jimmy buffet cannot be heard in the streets, but T.I. can. there are palm trees, sure, but only at major intersections and at the gates of fancy planned communities. in order to get that traditional, 'fun in the tropics' experience down here in central florida, you have to a.) go to a theme park, or b.) drive a couple hours to either coast and escape central florida all together.

now, we have a couple friends down here who have always been more than generous in the area of park admittance. its appreciated, and its awesome (as the countless pictures already posted across this here blog attest to). however, for our first 'family' vacation (as a dynamic trio), we decided to spend a few days on the coast in a beachfront hotel, living it up like a gang of tourists.

our destination: treasure island.

treasure island is located a few miles north of st. petersburg, in the greater tampa area, and is absolutely gorgeous. kris ended up finding dirt-cheap rates for a room at the treasure island bay & marina hotel, which was, by far, the best room we've ever stayed in (with the exception of a room we got once while traversing the bahamas). the view from our balcony was of the ocean and beach itself, which was literally a five minute walk from our hotel room door.

we spent as much time on that beach as humanly possible (or, rather, as alayna could tolerate without going ape-shit ballistic), and did more than our fair share of souvenir shopping along the main strip.

we also hit up john's pass - which we coincidently went to during our april mini-reunion with ex-peace corps compatriots lauren, brett, bonnie, and susannah - while we were in the neighborhood, and yours truly bought himself a new old man hat to replace my grandpa's (which i'd prefer to preserve as long as possible). in addition, we also picked up a hermit crab as a new pet while we were out there, which i was adamant about obtaining from day one...

as far as souvenirs go, you really can't go wrong with hermit crabs.

all in all, it was a solid, touristy vacation in the tropics, with a final price tag of about $400. not too shabby at all, and highly recommended for you locals out there looking for a change of scenery (as for you non-locals, it'd still run you about $400, but then add a couple hundred for the rental car and a few hundred for the plane tickets).

so yeah... our first 'family' vacation was a success. henceforth, we're making treasure island our annual mid-summer family vacation/getaway as long as we're stuck down here in the sunshine state (see also america's wang).

slainte,

- brian

Peace Corps Shebang 2009

A couple months of planning, but we finally made it happen. We headed out towards Tampa on Friday (Alayna's first weekend away); and settled in for a crazy weekend with Brett, Bonnie, Lauren and Susannah. We hadn't seen any of them since our wedding, with the exception of a couple hours with Lauren about a year ago. It was like a breath of fresh air.

The weekend suited us all just right. Elaborate details for simple plans. Our first day we planned to sit on the beach and just enjoy the sun and one anothers company. Well, after a little drive and parking to check out a 'private island,' we waited about an hour in line to buy tickets for a ferry.

Once we got to the "secluded" area and tried setting up camp, the wind was so crazy that both of the packed umbrellas kept blowing over and we were once again forced to choke up some dough to rent an umbrella that was already well set up. It was a nice time after that, but it did take a few hours until we all felt the relaxation the beach was supposed to provide. (Mind you, Cannonball was fine the entire time with sand entering every crack possible) The night ended with grilling and eating dinner around 10.

- kristina

one thing that never fails in a peace corps reunion of any size is the inability for all rpcvs present to complicate rather simple matters beyond all rational thought. this may be due to our old habits of facilitating and administering highly complex orginizational settings in a foriegn land, bridging cross-cultural barriers and trying not to get ourselves killed, but, without fail, we cannot make simple plans when hanging out with one another anymore.

everybody wants to run the show.

don't get me wrong here , either - i expected this kind of mess well before i even reunited with these rascals, and i think nothing less of them because of it. i truly believe that this sort of dilemma is bound to happen when you force a bunch of 'leaders' to hang out with one another. i guess that's what drew us all into the peace corps into the first place...

you don't see many 'sheeple' signing up for foriegn diplomacy work.

anyway, going back to our tale, the second day saw a bunch of near-thirty'ers hung over from the previous night's white russians and martinis, but nevertheless resilient in their epic quest for beachery and jet skiing. i, myself, had no desire to jet ski, but was down for the beach... so, once again, our group set off for the coast where brett, susannah, lauren, and joe went jet skiing, while bonnie, kristina and i had what i'm considering to be the worst lunch i've ever had (in terms of service). i won't bore any of you with the details, but the food was disgusting and i got pooped on. literally.

waiting around for the others to return was boring, but having a few drinks along the pier boardwalk wasn't. i didn't mind that too much at all. alas, as evening was sitting in, people's minds and stomachs were ready for sushi and so the whole caravan of extravagant planners high-tailed it back to headquarters, where susannah's expert sushi-making prowess was put to the test. she didn't disappoint.

the next morning, we all slept in and, consequently, missed church on Easter sunday. the cannonball did get to watch her parents decorate eggs and make a mess in someone else's kitchen, which was fun enough i suppose. following that thrown-together easter mess (we had forgotten her basket and everything else associated with the holiday at our place back in orlando before we had set off for tampa), we said our farewells and departed back towards central florida and normalcy.

if there is a moral to this tale, kids, it is probably this: keep it simple.

...that, or else don't trust susannah on a jet ski.

not gonja and damn proud of it,

- chief maliguna

sankpala, northern region