A week before midterms leading right into spring break I planned a short vacation to Florida with my friend Lauren and her friend Alex. Lauren’s Dad has a house down in Fort Meyers and everything seemed to be simple while planning the trip at the very last minute. Our flight was at 6am Sunday morning, the same morning daylight savings sprung forward for spring. Just our luck. I ended up getting around two hours of sleep and barely made up trying for it on the flight.
Sunday: When we arrived we went down and got our rental car where we were basically mistreated due to our young age. See, you have to pay more when you are under the age of 25 renting a car. We originally reserved a rental car with Alamo through Priceline.com, and it came up at $360.00, the Alamo sales associate told us they had “no connection” with priceline.com and that these “extra fees” were not added when we first selected them online. This was way too confusing for someone who has had very little sleep. The sales associate ended up charging us about $456.00. He also told us that our rental car was in "perfect condition" and boy was he wrong. We got to our car and got in without really looking at it, first mistake on our part. As we got to the grocery store we got a perfect glimpse of how scratched up this rental car was in the Florida sunlight. There were black scratch marks all over this white little Kia. There was even a pen width hole on the front hood of the car. Lauren immediately took pictures on her phone to note the date of when we saw this and to prove we did not do this. To add to this "in perfect condition car" the breaks were in terrible shape. It was impossible for Alex to ease into a red light or stop sign since there seemed to be nothing left of the break pads. I asked my Dad how bad a rental car should be on over 28k miles. He was outraged and said that rental car companies rarely give out cars after they hit 15k miles.
It turns out after calling Priceline.com, Alamo was supposed to oblige by our confirmed statement on what we paid for prior to arriving in Florida. These issues are still being battled with today and I am trying to get my money back from Priceline.com since I didn’t even use their insurance, etc. It is complete fraud.
BREATHE.
When we finally arrived at Lauren’s house in Estero, Florida we headed to the pool. Since her Dad’s house is in a gated community there is a community pool. We immediately met some neighbors in the community who were older, but we learned quite quickly that this did not mean they were not fun to be around. Jean, our actual neighbor, was laying on a flotation device in the pool getting her sun tanning in, while Lynne, another neighbor close by, was smoking a cigarette and bopping her head and feet to a local rap radio station. We thought this was so funny, well mostly on Lynne's actions. We would never have pictured a woman Lynne’s age pumping up rap music. Jean introduced herself and told us about what hot spots that were a "must see" in the area. After enough sun and lack of sleep we headed back to get ready for dinner. We ended up just going to T.G.I.Fridays since it was the only place we found right away. We then met some friendly employees who gave us free buttons with phrases of “Kiss me I’m NOT IRISH” and “Kiss me I’m IRISH”. I still have my button. It’s so cute!
After dinner we went back and got ready for a night out. We just didn’t know where to go that was in a reasonable distance. We ended up calling up a local bar and eatery about a mile away where we explained that we were on spring break looking for a local place to hangout, etc. We mentioned that we were from New Jersey and NO, we were not to be associated with the cast of MTV's, the Jersey Shore. We ended up finding out that the man talking on the phone with us was the owner after a hilarious thirty-minute conversation. He told us he would warn his staff that the Jersey Girls were coming in. Meanwhile he tried to do his best to brag about how much fun his place was and how there was going to be a decent crowd of people. We headed out via taxi to Uptown Larrys…raw bar and grill. We walked in and of course it was DEAD on a Sunday night. But yes, we brought the fun. We immediately met some of the staff and told them that the owner had raved about their bar. Although we were disappointed about how small the turnout was, we still made the best of it. I had hoped to meet the infamous owner we talked to on the phone, but he had mentioned he would not be working until Wednesday.
At Uptown Larry’s we met a group of college students from the area and made conversation with them on what they were studying, where they were from, etc. We ended up becoming friends with them and met them back at Uptown Larry’s that Tuesday and Wednesday night. We also became friendly with some of the staff and bartenders. One girl, Meghan, was so sweet. She wrote out an entire itinerary for our five days there… what beaches to go to, what places to eat, shop, and see. She even gave us her number if we had any questions. These people were just so friendly and we didn’t have to go far to find them!
Monday: We woke up, went to Fort Meyers beach since Meghan told us it was a must. We tried to get up as early as we could since Meg told us it would take hours to get over this one lane bridge if you leave around 10am, we left at 9am and still got caught in traffic. It was all worth it because we headed to the public beach and began enjoying the beautiful Florida sun. After about an hour Lauren and I decided to go check out the prices to rent a Jet Ski. We ended up signing up, but in order to rent one and ride a Jet Ski, you had to take a License test. It was hilarious that this was required because anyone could pass it. When we first got on the Jet Ski I must say I was a little nervous even though Lauren was the one starting to drive. I was holding on for dear life and was scared I was going to fall off or even pull her off with me. Fortunately, neither of those two things happened. When I began to drive the Jet Ski I realized how difficult it was compared to how simple I thought it originally looked.
We returned to our beach towels where Alex had stayed napping and decided to go walk around to see what places we could find that Meg had mentioned to us. We ended up at one of them after five minutes into our walk, the Lani Khai. This was a well known rustic hotel along Fort Meyers beach notorious for college students on spring break. Surprisingly we found a wide age group of people forming a crowd in front of a makeshift stage. We decided to see what they were waiting for. It turns out a group of firemen from Cincinnati, Ohio come down to Fort Meyers this time of the year to raise money for children with cancer. These men were of all age groups and sizes and put on a show for the crowd. This show was absolutely hilarious. These men came out dancing in speedos and other obscene outfits to get a reaction from the large crowd. In the meantime drunk college students from Iowa and Indiana State University were dancing and drinking out on their balconies hovering over this little. I do not know which act should have been more embarrassed, the drunk students, or the half naked firemen? At least the firemen were sober and knew what they were getting into, right?
After watching the various acts the firemen put on we began our walk back to get our stuff and head back to the house for lunch. Later that evening we went shopping in a major mall complex a few miles down the highway where we then sat down for dinner at a nice cafe. Being a waitress for a short time you learn that tips are greatly appreciated. Ever since I began waitressing last spring I always tip around 20%, unless the service is completely terrible. Well this waitress was absolutely terrible and clearly was not trying. She should have realized how respectful I was when giving tips, but she lost that chance. After leaving dinner, angry about the service we had, we went into Barnes and Noble to buy Scrabble. As silly as it sounds we really wanted to play scrabble and I found a great travel Scrabble game for only $25.00. As we were leaving the store we passed by a woman in her mid-sixties asking if any of us knew how to get a key out of a locked car. We decided to immediately help out of nowhere. As we approached her white Toyota SUV we saw that on the passenger side there was about two and a half inches of window open for us to reach in. Unfortunately none of our arms were skinny enough to get to the unlock button on the car. I even tried calling 911 just to get the local non-emergency number to help get her keys out but it turns out that the Police do not help you get your keys out of locked cars, lucky for us. Mall Security was strolling by on his scooter just watching us. Then the woman we were helping, Peggy, gave us a long duster-like object to try and use to press a button to unlock the car through entering the window. We tried, but after ten minutes there was no luck with this device. As time progressed we wondered how we were going to get this done. We were so determined to help this woman and she even told us she was going to treat us all to drinks after which was really funny. Soon we got a man from Barnes and Noble to help us as he brought out a hanger to get the keys. After about ten more minutes we got it out! With all the help from mall security, to us, to Jose from Barnes and Noble, we succeeded! Even a kind man from Boston stayed until we had unlocked the car.
After it was over Peggy insisted that she buy us all drinks. The three of us were the only ones left and we decided to once again head over to Fridays. It turns out we ended up staying and chatting with Peggy for about two hours. It was so interesting hearing about this woman’s life, originally from D.C. now helping out her daughter in Florida with her new granddaughter. I was so inspired by all of the work she does down in Estero at her church and with a sex trafficking shelter for very young girls. Who would have known that sex trafficking is here in our own country? I knew it could be, but it never hit me until now how relevant of a problem it is.
After an amazing time meeting an amazing woman who suddenly turned into an old friend, it was time to head back and relax for another day at the beach.
Tuesday: We went to the beach again and laid low in the sun until we were ready to head back. We decided to just order in pizza that night and relax before we went out to Uptown Larry’s for another night out.
Wednesday: Headed to the pool, did some laundry, and went out to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. And ended the fun filled week at our favorite place, Uptown Larry’s.
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