Friday, April 29, 2011

Back from Florida!

I had such a great time in Florida!  I figure that because I forget, I should jot down some notes about the places I went to!  But first, I have to say that Lululemon clothes are really great to travel in.  I brought lots of Lulu, such as 4 Cool Racerback tanks (to wear as PJs and to the beach), 2 pairs of Dance Studio Crops (oh yeah, my 3rd pair, the white ones, arrived the day after I left so I didn't get to bring them!), No Limit tank, Dance Strap tanks, 5 different pairs of shorts (Hot Move, Fast, Effortless, Do It All, Explore), and Energy Bra, and used every single item!  They are easy to pack because they don't wrinkle, and they are great to move around in.  I feel like it's money well spent since I can use the clothes to work out in and for trips!

The place we stayed at most of the time was Del Rey beach, which was somewhat of a tourist town.  But it also has a small town feel.  I think lots of the residents there are older retired people who want to spend winters in a warm climate.  My fiance's aunt and her friends that we've met all only live there in the winter time.  During the summer when it's starting to get too hot there, they migrate back to New York area.  That's a pretty nice lifestyle!  I'd be all over that too if I didn't have to work.  I wish I was retired already... LOL!

Everyday after we woke up, we would walk across the street to the beach and spend most of the days there.  Let me just say that anything less than SPF 30 burns!!  Here in California I'm used to using SPF 15 or 8, and I would never burn.  But I managed to learn from my mistakes on day one, and ended up with a great tan now!  In the evenings we went out to dinner every night.  There were some great restaurants we ate at!  The best one was called City Oyster which was a seafood place.  I had a seafood bowl that came with plenty of shrimp, scallop, and tuna.  It was ammmaaazzing and definitely worth the price!  I think it was the best restaurant we went to there.  Another restaurant we went to called The Office had the best tuna tacos!  It was actually an appetizer item but I had it as my entree and thought it was enough food.  But this restaurant was way over priced.  Well, they could get away with the prices I guess, because the wait to eat there was over an hour!  Both City Oyster and The Office are on the main street called Atlantic where all the restaurants and bars are located next to each other.  It's very cute and lively, and you can walk from one place to another so it's very convenient.  I definitely enjoyed Del Rey Beach.  It was such a relaxing time!  I love doing stuff during vacations, but sometimes it's really nice to have nothing planned and no schedules to follow. 

We drove to Key West on Easter Sunday.  It was about a 4 hour drive.  When you get to the bridge part, it's very beautiful because you see the ocean on both sides of the 2 lane road.  So even though it's annoying if you get stuck behind a slow driver, at least you can enjoy the sight!  I didn't know that Key West was such a small island, only 4 square mile all the way around.  A lot of boutique hotels there are so cute!  They blend into the neighborhood because they look just like houses on the street.  I always like it when they keep the character of the town.  The main strip that everyone goes to is called Duvall Street that has tons of restaurants, bars, and shops.  The hotel we stayed at that we found at the very last minute was about 3 blocks away so we were able to walk there.  But we still rented scooters so we could ride around for fun!  I had never done that before, but I was surprisingly good at it!  Not that it's very hard.  Most of the rental places were rather pricey, but we found one on yelp called Tropical Rentals that was by far the cheapest and had great reviews.  I think it was like $35 a day.  The others were pretty much double that price.  So I would definitely recommend that place.  Renting bikes was really cheap as well, I think it was $7 a day.

So after we rented the scooters, we drove over to the Southern Most Point!  There was a line of people waiting to take pictures by the sign and we were too impatient so no pics!  We were in a hurry to get to the other side of town where at sunset everyday, people gather around to watch it together.  It was beautiful and we have about 50 pictures of the sunset now!

After that we grabbed some dinner which was very average and not worth mentioning.  Then we around to visit some of the bars.  Oh yeah, we went into a strip club!  Never thought I would spend Easter Sunday night at a strip club!  But we were bored and it was there.  Must say, most of the girls there were pretty hard on the eyes!  LOL!  So we left after a few minutes.  Then we went to this place called Garden of Eden which was a clothing optional place!  But they do body painting, so you don't have to be "naked naked".  We did not partake.  In fact, most people there were there to watch others.  But there were some older and not so good looking people who were all over that.  Why is it that people who usually like to walk around naked like in the locker room at the gym are always the people who you don't really want to see naked??  I think the only person I know who is good looking and likes to walk around naked is one of my roommates in college.  She is this hot blond bombshell who for some reason does not like to keep her clothes on.  Lol.  Anyway, so Garden of Eden was very interesting.  I might have gotten scarred from seeing some old men walking around without pants, but it was definitely an experience.  It was almost like you can't help but to watch them!

So after the night out, we slept in a little the next day and started driving back shortly after.  It was a short over night trip but luckily we were able to see everything.  On the way back we stopped at South Beach Miami to check out the scene.  Too bad we didn't have time to experience the night life there.  But we saw the beautiful beach, and were surprised by the lack of nakedness there.  We were with my fiance's brother who is single and very ready to mingle.  He was very disappointed to not have spotted many topless sunbathers!

There were so many restaurants in South Beach, and they all compete with each other so prices were very reasonable.  We were there during happy hour and all these people were trying to get us to go to their restaurants by offering free bottles of wine and things like that.  But of course we ended up at the only restaurant that didn't have happy hour!  We wanted to have Cuban food so we went to this restaurant called Larios on the Beach.  It was soooo mediocre, and very pricey for what it was.  We all regretted it and wished we had just taken up one of the offers at the other restaurants!  So I guess our restaurant experience wasn't very successful in Florida overall except for a few in Del Rey.  Oh well!

So after a very long flight, I am back home!  This time I don't feel like I need another vacation from vacation because it was so relaxing!  We didn't even work out at all there, because we felt so lazy and just wanted to chill and do nothing!  I don't think I could have worked out in that heat anyways even if I wanted to.  I told my fiance that we should make this an annual trip since we can stay there for free and all!  So Del Rey better watch out, we will be back!

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