Sunday, September 02, 2012
Winter Park in 95F - Mon 20/8
Rules is rules - and if anyone likes a good rule more than us Brits, it's the Americans. So when we arrived at our Villa and the rules stated "Quiet Time 10PM - 8AM" we nodded sagely and knew it would be observed flawlessly - even by Conor...............
So how come we're all woken this morning by some right noisy feckers next door having a pool party at seven in the morning? Surely they must be French or something to so blatantly ignore the rules? No, they're bloody English, and they're really fucking loud - Moz is apoplectic - this ain't gonna end well...
With everyone knackered from a big day yesterday we decide to chill out and do what we do best - shopping, lunch and a leisurely boat trip. To this end we head of to historic, and rather ironically named Winter Park, for some posh shopping. Unfortunately it would be more than fair to say that it's a right snooty place, full of poncey little shops and French Patisseries - run by gay Frenchmen we are later told - and really isn't the place for combat shorts, back to front baseball caps and AC/DC shirts, and that was just Paula. I won't shop in any place that makes me ring a bell first so they can check me out before they let me in, these are $500 sunglasses don't you know!!??
Luckily in all this toss we find a little oasis of cool - 310 Park South - a top little restaurant that doesn't bat an eyelid at our disheveled appearance and quickly has us seated with designer beers and the ubiquitous Diet Coke and Sprite for the younger members of the team.
The food is excellent - my steak sarine and fries is sublime, the Old Bay flavoured fish sandwich fabulous, and the Club sandwich was enormous - and all served with a good eye for detail and presentation. No wonder the place is packed. To be honest, I could have sat there all day drinking beer and watching Americans gossip but there's a boat trip to take don'tcha know?
The boat trip takes us round three big lakes - Osceola, Virgina and Maitland and all of them have one thing in common, mahoosive houses on the shore front that you couldn't even afford to step onto their boat docks...some seriously impressive real estate - just not necessarily very interesting....it would have been fine if you were even vaguely native to the area, but honestly loads of big houses owned by people you never heard gets a bit tedious. Except for one story about the New York socialite in the 20's who moved here and had an industrial meat freezer fitted in her house to keep her fur coats in to stop them molting......
It's been a really hot one and as nobody fancies going out for dinner we decide to fall back on one of our favourite American dinners - Michael Angelo's frozen pasta. Pasta so good Lisa swears she'd pass it off as her own - no arguments from me there. It's a good end to a very hot, and possibly too relaxed a day, but no doubt tomorrow will be more exciting :-)
So how come we're all woken this morning by some right noisy feckers next door having a pool party at seven in the morning? Surely they must be French or something to so blatantly ignore the rules? No, they're bloody English, and they're really fucking loud - Moz is apoplectic - this ain't gonna end well...
With everyone knackered from a big day yesterday we decide to chill out and do what we do best - shopping, lunch and a leisurely boat trip. To this end we head of to historic, and rather ironically named Winter Park, for some posh shopping. Unfortunately it would be more than fair to say that it's a right snooty place, full of poncey little shops and French Patisseries - run by gay Frenchmen we are later told - and really isn't the place for combat shorts, back to front baseball caps and AC/DC shirts, and that was just Paula. I won't shop in any place that makes me ring a bell first so they can check me out before they let me in, these are $500 sunglasses don't you know!!??
Luckily in all this toss we find a little oasis of cool - 310 Park South - a top little restaurant that doesn't bat an eyelid at our disheveled appearance and quickly has us seated with designer beers and the ubiquitous Diet Coke and Sprite for the younger members of the team.
The food is excellent - my steak sarine and fries is sublime, the Old Bay flavoured fish sandwich fabulous, and the Club sandwich was enormous - and all served with a good eye for detail and presentation. No wonder the place is packed. To be honest, I could have sat there all day drinking beer and watching Americans gossip but there's a boat trip to take don'tcha know?
The boat trip takes us round three big lakes - Osceola, Virgina and Maitland and all of them have one thing in common, mahoosive houses on the shore front that you couldn't even afford to step onto their boat docks...some seriously impressive real estate - just not necessarily very interesting....it would have been fine if you were even vaguely native to the area, but honestly loads of big houses owned by people you never heard gets a bit tedious. Except for one story about the New York socialite in the 20's who moved here and had an industrial meat freezer fitted in her house to keep her fur coats in to stop them molting......
It's been a really hot one and as nobody fancies going out for dinner we decide to fall back on one of our favourite American dinners - Michael Angelo's frozen pasta. Pasta so good Lisa swears she'd pass it off as her own - no arguments from me there. It's a good end to a very hot, and possibly too relaxed a day, but no doubt tomorrow will be more exciting :-)
# posted by Bucko! @ 12:17 PM 
