So I'm in Fort Lauderdale with two of my Wheaton friends for spring break! So far, everything's been great. We got here late Friday night on a direct flight from Boston. Then the taxi dropped us off at the hostel but the main office was closed. They had left us a key card and a map to our room in the mail box, but when we tried using the map, we failed. We wandered around for about an hour, people continuously asking us what we were doing simply walking around in circles with all our luggage. We asked for help and no one knew how to read the map...it made no sense! But we found it. Eventually. After I'd spent some time wondering if we were just going to sleep on the beach or what. So we got settled and then went out for drinks at a restaurant on the beach. Then, totally beat, went back and slept.
We spent Saturday on the Hollywood beach. We're apparently in an area called Hollywood, a bit outside of Fort Lauderdale (in the south, so close to Miami). There are a lot of old people. And restaurants and oldies blaring on the radios...it's a funny place, although I'm glad we ended up here. We had Greek food for dinner and then went to the Taco Shack (we'd been there earlier for lunch - they have amazing Korean inspired tacos!). There was a band playing that was great but the tables were all full. A waitress looked up and thought we were with a different group - "six people?" - and when we tried to correct her, people in the other group said we were with them. So that's how we ended up having drinks with two guys from Brazil and a woman from Venezuela. The band actually took a break so that the Brazilian guys could do a capoeira performance for the whole restaurant! It was really cool.
So on Sunday we actually ended up leaving Hollywood beach for a beach in Fort Lauderdale, which basically had a ton of college students on spring break. We went there with several Australians we'd met at our hostel - a couple of them are actually from the same place that Sara went to for study abroad. Also, on our way there, I got a call from Sean, one of my friends from study abroad in Xi'an. He had just dropped off a friend at the Fort Lauderdale airport and so he was in the area. Unfortunately, it took him like an hour to park (there was an insane amount of people there) but he made it and it was so amazing seeing someone from China! We all hung out, and went for a couple swims. The water was so nice, but the waves were really strong! The lifeguards kept blowing their whistles to keep people from going too far. Then Sean gave us a ride back to the hostel, and we got some really good pizza which we ate while watching the boats go by on the canal opposite from the beach. Now I'm back at the hostel, just hanging out at the common room. We have the Hangover playing on the TV. The wind outside is incredibly strong, I think there might be a storm starting. Hopefully it doesn't last too long! I want to maybe go kayaking tomorrow.
