five: the trip so far

the trip that i am escorting on is called the florida sunshine. and although it started of with a storm, it has been very sunny. the tour starts for cost efficiency reasons in hollywood florida. nice quiet beach town just north of miami and closer to fort lauderdale. boring as well and way too far away from the cool south beach area. i took the bus to south beach to drive past the art deco housesm however it was early morning and south beach should be visited at night. traffic jams were long as it was the first work day after the hurricane so we went straight to key west not stopping in downtown or coral gables or coconut grove. the latter two aren't interesting anyways. downtown is nice though and off the beaten track. key largo isn't that spectacular so we didn't stop. the drive on highway one was cool but there's not that much to see in the beginning. apart from outlets and hamburger joints. i had no problem talking to the people though. we stopped in front of the seven mile bridge for a picture and that was a good tip by my driver BIG JOHN who has been really helpful on this tour.

Key west was empty as almost every town in south florida. it's low season and with the hurricane nobody comes down south. the weather was beautiful though and i already have a tan. i like key west but it still didn't leave a wow impression on me. i spent more than an hour on the phone with my new york buddy sean who has gotten a southern accent living in atlanta. sean, it was so cool talking to you. i will call you as soon as i can. the tour is pretty exhausting for me as it's one administrative mess. i spend way too much time trying to set things straight.

today we drove from key west to naples with a stop at the everglades safari park to do a propellorboat tour on the swamp and see an alligator wrestling show. the tour sucked. we only saw two small alligators and one turtle. pfff. the wrestling was a bore as well. however, the people had fun i guess. i had warned the bus for mosquitos and made them all but repellent on. you should have smelt the bus!!!! but as little alligators we saw as little musquitos we saw too. the drive to naples is boring as hell but we stopped at the smallest postal office in the states. just a funny picture stop. i dropped off part of the people in naples and went to take the other party to fort myers beach, an hour away from naples. the drive up there is cool. but naples? well i am here in front of the computer and just spent two hours in my hotel trying to fix reservation mistakes etc.

but i like it though. i really do. this is shit too, but cool shit. no proximus shit. although i have had to give them cell phone advice on dual bands and berichtencentralenummers. haha.

more this week. ciao

four: my people

i could write pages about my first impressions of the people on my bus. however internet is expensive here. one dollar per five minutes. i have 11 dutch people some of them are really cool and three of which are of turkish descent. i have 10 flemish on the bus too. they are typicaly flemish. i suspect four of them to be gay. three of them are cool gay. they smoke and burp. one is weird gay and travels on his own. there are 8 irish on the bus who stay in a different hotel evey night. as if i don't have enough situations to deal with, this is a little extra that makes this tour very weird. i made the perfect start by adressing him as being english. but they are nice. there's two people from kassel and i love talking german to them. i have two swiss people on the bus one of which is a very dependent 25y old who's mother sent a fax that he has a mental disorder and needs to be cared after really one. there's nothing wrong with this guy apart from having such a mental mother who's overworried. he's very insecure though. and of course there's two french speaking belgians on the bus from brussels. my first thought was: NO. I ran away from brussels not wanting to speak french any more and there you have it. but they are cool. she's french cool but i guess she's belgian, he's black and has a speech impediment but is cute. Thieronce question: Mukendi c'est un nom congolais ou ruandais?

three: chat buddies and new chicks and dudes

i love americans. there are such easy targets for my social behaviour. i talk and they talk back. cool. they love europeans and i love being european. but i do tend to act very american too.

on my electricityless friday i met two chatbuddies of mine. marco is one of the hottest people i know. he's a puerto rican single dad who works for the fbi and who i met two years ago in fort lauderdale. however, his coolness makes him so cold that he gets boring after a while. it was nice meeting him again though. micah is an all american mix of native american/black/white and is a pretty down to earth guy. his friends however are so camp i nearly had to throw up listening to their laughs and chitchat and stories about getting their eyebrows done. whatever. thankfully micah had a fight with his bf and the party at his rich bf's place ended soon.

i met a nice finnish girl on the flight to miami who was on her way to costa rica and who had a brother who was passionate about brazil. i think i'll keep in touch and visit helsinki one day. michelle is the canadian front desk manager of the marriott in hollywood and she's one tough lady but cool. she's sephardic and was surprised i knew so much about it (thank you for that yair and pier).

two: tv addiction relapse and rebirth of cool

Y'all know who made me lose my cool. but the COol is back in niCOol. i walk around on hollywood (beach) boulevard and i really feel like the coolest guy on the planet. i have been watching tv too much yesterday when the electricity got back. i just love tv here. MTV2 and VH1 are on all the time and i switch to discovery channel, nbc and the weather channel too. mtv2 plays rock. yeah. and vh1 has rock reality shows. ROCKSTAR is a popstar thing where they look for the new singer of INXS presented by dave navarro. it's really cool. gene simmons (kiss) teaches british kids in a boarding school some lessons in ROCK. that's cool too. and the rock top 20 has bands like alkaline trio and the killers and stuff and i love it. the ROCK is back in nico favoROCK. i haven't really gone clubbing yet. and you don't really hear that much dance music here.

one: katrina and the waves

i have no idea if the meteorologists thought about the british pop band of 'walking on sunshine to name this hurricane katrina but she sure made some waves. i survived my first hurricane and i thought it was cool. really, scary but cool. i arrived here on thursday evening and the drive up here was tough. traffic lights swinging around, trees breaking down, nobody on the freeway... upon arrival in the hotel there was a power cut. it lasted for two and a half days. no tv no airco no elevators and NO LIGHTS. the hotel is a hospital like resort near the beach and looked so empty that it looked like the hotel from The Shining. after an hour or so i heard breaking glass.. some rooms facing the ocean got broken windows. rain poured in the rooms. suddenly there was panic because of a guy who had been cut in his face running in the corridor. but americans wouldnt be americans if their first thought wasn't to get the camera and go out filming. i have to admit i took my camera too, but it was too dark to take pictures and hey it wasn't that spectacular.

today (sunday) and it's so cool weather here. very hot. and humid. i sweat like hell and i already got a sunburn on my legs. i had protected the rest. I LOVE THE OCEAN. i really do. i need to really live near the ocean. fuck brussels. my new favorite passtime: go lie on your back on the water eyes closed and wait for the wave to either sweep you somewhere else or just get all over you. cool