Goodbye Philly….Hello Florida!

Got an early morning call at 6am, showered packed the rest of my stuff and drove to the airport around seven.
Leaving Philly                                             My home for the last 5 nights
  

Dropped the rental car off at the airport, took the shuttle to the terminal and checked in for my 9:30 flight to Ft Lauderdale. Made my way to the US Airways Exec lounge and had some croissants and orange juice for breakfast. I watched an episode of 90210 on my laptop before making my way down to the gate to board my flight. The captain came on the intercom and let us all know it was clear skies and 78`  at the moment and this was at 9am! I’d been looking forward to this leg of the tour not only because of the weather but because i was staying at my good friend Ralph and Loris house in West Palm Beach.

I slept for half the flight, woke up drooling and wondering if anyone had seen me!! The rest of the flight i typed up my blog and checked a few pictures form some of the shows. Landed in Florida around 1:30 and felt the humidity hit me the second i walked off the plane! There was no way id be needing my hoodie for the next few days that  i had brought with me which id be wearing all the time in Philly!! this was T shirt and shorts weather! yay!

The rental car line was pretty long, at least 20 people in front of me and if you've rented a car in the US you’ll know that these lines just don't seem to move! It took me nearly an hour to get from the back of the line to actually sitting in the car and setting off. My first question now when i collect my rental car is “ what sort of car is it?” I've been dreading getting one of those damn cube car things and the guy at the check in said i had a Nissan Sentra, that was good, id seen a few of these on the road and it didn't look anything out of the ordinary so i was happy with that. I smiled to myself when i got in the car and it said 83` on the outside temperature dial:)

Blue skies and open roads of Florida                                                        In case their cars breakdown?

 

Ralphs house was about a 50 minute drive away and after driving around Philly for the last 5 days it was nice to not have to  drive through countless lanes of traffic and stationary vehicles!

I got to Ralphs house just in time to set off again to go pick my friend Greg up who was flying into West Palm Beach airport at 4:20pm i said hello to Ralph and his daughter Christina, Lorri was still getting ready so Ralph and i headed straight out to pick up Greg. Was great to see Ralph again, he had seen the show already in Chicago but has seen the 4th show there and that was the only one i had had to miss of the whole tour so we didn't get to meet up. The last time we saw each other was when we went on the Think Floyd cruise from Miami a couple of years ago and at the dark side shows a couple of years before that.

Ralph, Christina and Lorri, great hosts.        Lorri, Ralph, Greg and I                My new friend

    

Greg called us as we were sat in the cell phone lot at the airport and said he was still sat on the tarmac in the pane and they wouldn't let them out! Ralph then remembered there had been a small plane crash at the airport the day before and a couple of people had been killed! Greg said he was gonna light a cigarette up so they would let him off the plane but we didn't hear from him for another 45 minutes so I'm guessing he didn't or it didn't work!!

Greg had also been on the Think Floyd cruise with us a couple of years ago but he had also been in Chicago with us all a few weeks earlier for the shows so we’d seen each other a few weeks ago.  We headed back to Ralphs house at which point Ralphs wife  Lorri was all dressed and ready to see us.

Ralph was a pizza chef for seven years and started off making dinner when we got back to the house.Lorri had gone out and bought all the drinks needed to make me Long Island Iced teas as well as a cooler full of beer and a fridge full of wine! Not only had myself and Greg been looking forward to being here but Lorri and Ralph were so excited to see us! You guys are the best and i cant thank you enough for your hospitality and I've only been here one night!

     

The pizza was amazing!! and tasted soo fresh!! Ralph made four huge pizzas in total and i think we devoured two of them between us and that's just reminded me there still some in the fridge for breakfast this morning! i LOVE cold pizza in the morning,lol need to go for a run first though.

Lorri had a shot at making a long island iced tea, bartenders make it look soooooooo easy when you watch them, they seem to get the amount of each drink that goes into it just right, Lorri made me pick a shot glass from their collection in the kitchen cupboard, i though the one below suited me well  as smiling is something i do a lot when I'm drunk!

My shot glass                                          Ingredients for my Long Islands!

Lorri added an equal amount of each drink, shook it in the shaker and then added a splash of coke,i tasted it for the first time, WHOOOO AHHHHHH its a good job i was not near any naked fames or I'd have instantly combusted!! we added a splash more coke and then a splash more and a splash more till it was just right. I made the second one and for some reason everything just seemed to work well together! it came out great!  Its funny,  hate and i mean HATE all the drinks that go into a Long Island but seriously when you mix them al together its just like something magic happens!! i really don't drink anything else apart from the odd glass of wine and i don't drink AT ALL when I'm in the UK.

We ate pizza, chatted outside, drank great drinks and then started to play bowling on the Wii! that was so much fin, I've only played Wii once before and it was good i enjoyed it but throw in some great friends and a few drinks and boy did we have some fun!

Greg and Ralph Wii’ing!!

 

After playing bowling we moved on to the golf game, that was fun but i think i enjoyed the bowling more. More drinks flowed more pizza got eaten and more games were played! Ralph has a dartboard on the wall and that's not all there is on the wall! he has a few trophies of the things he’s shot over the years including a bear that his dad shot and is now in the living room!!

     

After a touch of confusion over the fact that Lorri wanted to play cricket!! we all went over to the dartboard. I was shocked when Lorri announced that she knew how to play the game of Cricket, she was the first American person whom I'd met that knew anything at all about cricket! however my shock soon turned out to be nothing as what i didn't know was she meant a game that's played with darts called cricket!! you have to get three of each number from 20 to 15 and then three bulls! I of course being English beet the crap out of the Americans:)

Greg's friend Mike from Tampa arrived  around 11 ish and the drinking and games continued another hour before i was hit by a huge blast of tiredness and made my excuses and made my way to the bedroom that was mine for the three nights i was here.

My bedroom for the night!!

   

Its now nearly 11am Saturday morning , Maria just knocked at the door! her and Jack didn't get in till late last night and went straight to their hotel and drove over here (about a 45 minutes drive) to see us all, everyone's still in bed and I'm just gonna go for a run! Last night was fantastic and we didn't have a show to see so I'm guessing tonight's going to be even more of a blast and the partying is gonna continue after the show for sure back here!

More pics from last night below:

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