Xmas trip to Florida

I have been away from blogging for a while, so thought I would restart this new year.

I was off from work for almost 3 weeks during December. I stayed home most of the time, except for a nice vacation to Florida with friends and family. It was great to get away from the cold winter in Ottawa.

We got a great deal from Syracuse to Orlando for the week of the 24th. We drove to Syracuse from Ottawa and parked our car at the covered parking garage at the airport. Just when we were ready to get our boarding passes, we were notified that our flight to Chicago was delayed and we would miss the connection from Chicago to Orlando. We reached Chicago around 10:30 PM and checked into a hotel closeby. On the 25th, we took a flight from Chicago to Atlanta to Orlando. We finally reached Orlando at 1 PM, almost 13 hours late than our scheduled arrival.

The temperature in Orlando was ~18C, which was markedly different from Ottawa (-25C with windchill). We met our friends in Orlando and headed out to Fort Lauderdale to meet my dad's uncle,aunt and cousins. We reached Fort Lauderdale around 7 PM and had dinner at our uncle's house. The dinner was awesome, with special south indian specialty items that I hadn't tasted in ages.

The next day, we headed to Key West. The drive to Key West was beautiful, especially the 7 mile stretch. By the time we reached Key West, it was 6 PM. We went to the visitor center and booked a room at Holiday Inn. Keys is an expensive place to stay during the Xmas/New Year break. A basic hotel room costs ~250 USD. The rates at the visitor center were much better than through internet booking.

We spent the evening at Duval Street in Key West. I enjoyed a nice drink at Sloppy Joes, the famous bar where Ernest Hemmingway spent time writing.