Sunday, February 15, 2009

What Went Wrong

Today is the last day of my vacation, and I am sad. How can a week go by so freakin’ quickly, I ask you?

But rather than spending today feeling sad that all of the great experiences from this past Florida vacation are now over, I decided to instead recall what went wrong on our trip. That should make me feel better, right?

So let me tell you about Orlando—or as I like to call it, The Most Confusing City in the World. Okay, I guess it would have helped if we would have brought directions, but it shouldn’t be that hard to find downtown Orlando, right? You just look for the big buildings, right?

Wrong. Here is essentially what happened:

7:30 PM—Iwanski and I take one of the three exits that are designated for “Downtown Orlando.”

7:40 PM—We realize that we don’t seem to be anywhere near downtown Orlando.

7:50 PM—We drive around what appears to be a lake. What is a lake doing in the middle of a city?

8:00 PM—We no longer see any tall buildings and instead, appear to be in a retirement community.

8:05 PM—We get out of the old people area and start heading in the other direction.

8:15 PM—We start to see big buildings again. Hooray!

8:20 PM—We are definitely in downtown Orlando now. We search for Pine Street (the street our hotel is
on).

8:25 PM—We get to Pine Street, but there are two signs on the street—one that says “No left turn” and one
that says “No right turn.”

8:30 PM—We drive around the block and don’t see any more signs. Iwanski turns right on Pine Street. (There are two cop cars parked on the corner.)

8:31 PM—A construction guy yells “Wrong way, buddy!”

8:32 PM—Iwanski turns off the street and starts to freak out, positive that he’ll now be getting a ticket in the mail for going the wrong way down a one-way street.

8:35 PM—I finally manage to calm Iwanski down, and now we are going the right way down Pine Street.

8:36 PM—We see our hotel and drive up. We notice that there is valet parking only.

8:37 PM—Iwanski starts to freak out about valet parking, which we’ve never had to do before. When do you tip the guy??

8:40 PM—Iwanski turns over the car to the valet guy and we check in to the hotel.

8:45 PM—We drag our heavy suitcases up to our room.

8:50 PM—We open our hotel room door and notice that there are dirty towels on the floor, the wastebasket is full of garbage, and there is a lemon wedge lying in the middle of the carpet.

8:51 PM—We call down to the front desk, and they tell us to come down so they can give us a key to a different room.

8:52 PM—We drag our heavy suitcases back down to the front desk.

8:55 PM—We get our new room key and drag our heavy suitcases up to our new room.

9:00 PM—We open the door to our new room and—well, everything is perfect, thank God!

9:05 PM—Iwanski goes back down to tip the valet guy.


OK, I do feel a little bit better now. I’m glad that at least those hassles are over!

11 comments:

MaryRuth said...

Don't think about it as "what went wrong"...think of it as "an adventure"!
Print out that pic of you and the two little birds and put it on your desk at work...that will be sure to put a smile on your face.

Anonymous said...

Used to live in Orlando in '95, and like you I used the tall buildings as my way of finding downtown.

I must also note that your tolerance for gators is much higher than mine. After they chased me away I haven't been back since.

Unknown said...

It sounds like a fantastic adventure.

Maria said...

Ah...so hard to come home from vacation.

sageweb said...

Orlando is a confusing city..I lived there for 6 months and got lost all the time.

Br. Jonathan said...

I'm still laughing at the thought of Iwanski encountering a lemon wedge!

Sling said...

I sympathize with you guys having to navigate around Orlando..It's like trying to make your way about a Las Vegas casino.
Once you're in,it's nearly impossible to find your way out.

lisahgolden said...

I'm go glad it's not just us! We're big on the drive around until you find it method of getting where we're supposed to go.

I'm sorry your vacation is over so soon. Surely there are more retirement communities to tour!

Kimberly Ann said...

Any place half-way warm sounds good to me at the moment!

LP Cards Fan said...

Adventures in travel are always fun. And look on the bright side, the dirty hotel room wasn't an occupied hotel room. On a business trip I opened my hotel room and there was a guy. Sitting at the desk Working on his laptop. In his boxers.

We'll just refer to that as... unexpected.

rosemary said...

If you had used a valet to schlep those bags it would have been several more tips!!!!