DAY 106
Week 16
KISSIMMEE & ORLANDO ~ Theme Parks (Florida, USA)
Wednesday October 4th, 2006
TODAYS MILEAGE – 20 miles or 32 kilometres
TRIP MILEAGE – 14098 miles or 22689 kilometres
Finally – Mickey gets to meet Fitzy!!! 
Last night, at the recommendation of Mita, the resort's reception Manager, I dined on on my first Puerto Rican/Latin meal at the Tropico Mofongo restaurant, which is just around the corner from where I'm staying.
Picture this Aussie ordering Pernil with Arroz Con Gandules and Maduros to an old man who speaks very little English. What worried me is when I repeated the order, he'd raise and eyebrow or squeeze his eyelids tightly shut. I'm not sure if it was because I was butchering his native tongue, or I'd simply ordered a bisexual one legged chicken, to perform unnatural sacrificial acts upon, as the clock strikes midnight.
They must have been out of chooks as I received a huge helping of shredded pork accompanied by dirty rice with Gandules beans and fried plantains. The meal with a kiwifruit and strawberry drink ran $7.80, was really tasty, filling to the point that I couldn't eat it all AND it was so cheap.
Today I actually got out & about and had a look at the EPCOT Center. One of the first things you notice with all these theme parks is the actual size of them all – they're huge. Bigger than Ben Hur mate. Be it Disneyworld, Sea World, Universal Studios or whatever, you are going to be covering some miles if you want to see everything the attraction has to offer.
The second thing you notice is how much of a hit to the wallet any of the attractions can be. EPCOT runs $71.25 per day plus $10.00 for parking. A small coke runs $2.15 and a burger is $7.00. It just seems to me that they have all but perfected the art of extracting every possible worth from ones wallet. They probably figure that most people are like "bugger it, we're only going to do this once in a lifetime". Yeah you're dead right!!! I can't imagine what it would cost a family of 4 for a week rolling around, especially if they are staying at any of the resort hotels.
Don't worry, I found ways to get cheap tickets, all you have to do is tour a time share sales office, pretend you're interested, listen to thier pitch for an hour or and then get two adult entry tickets for $25-00.
EPCOT was pretty cool, all be it that it is aimed squarley at the younger market. There wasn't a lot of things to keep a man of my vintage, family and marital status interested. I had fun people watching and the kids were just precious. The excitement in their eyes and actions was worth the price of admission.
EPCOT's tribute to the nations had recreated the street scenes and cuisine of countries like Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Morocco, Norway, Mexico, Japan, Italy, China and the United States, but no Australia. This seemed odd to me as most Americans I've ever met, are intrigued by anything to do with us Aussie's.
The only time I felt awkward was buying some stuff for 5 year old Makenna. Try explaining to the checkout chick you need assistance in sizings for a 5 year old girl and it's not your daughter or relative. The bitch treated me like I was Michael Jackson in a pre-school or something. I really felt awkward and embarrassed, but sanity prevailed and single mum Stella from Ohio saved the day by getting me on the right road as she has a 5 year old herself.
Why is it us men always have issues with women's sizes - no matter what the age??? Yeah, granted, a lot of men have real issues with arithmetic (i.e. how many beers we have), or difficulties in architecture (i.e. size of objects and so forth) – but woman, over time, have come to understand that completely. On the other hand, us men, we have women's sizes and NO fucking idea!!!! You call that equality??? I think not!!!
Anyway's, after covering more territory than the early explorer, I was off out of there like Trump after his next quid and it was 5 o'clock somewhere, time for a visit from my White Russian brethren.
I wonder what tomorrow brings.
• ORLANDO ~ EPCOT Center (Florida, USA)
• ORLANDO ~ Wide World Of Sports (Florida, USA)
• KISSIMMEE ~ Fantasy World Club Villa's (Florida, USA)