Last Stop -> St. Augustine +Orlando

CAUTION: This trip will cost you 5 minutes of your life time.

Dear readers,
You might be surprised that this posting is written in English. In fact, this is the first text of its kind on this blog, though many of my travels described here have been to the United States of America. Unfortunately this is the last post dealing with my East Coast-trip and I decided to challenge your and my English skills to honour this event ;)
So, hoping nobody is offended and you are still all with me, I will bring this story to an end...

After we had spent our secound lovely day at the beach, we packed our bags and drove further into the south. To my surprise I have recently heard that the southern states of the US actually do not consider Florida to be one of their kind -at least in spirit... Well I suppose it's a similar situation like the relationships among the federal states of Southern Germany.
However, our first sight here to visit is an original fortress built by the Spanish military force in the late 17th century.

As you can see the weather wasn't that friendly but it didn't rain and we were able to view everything. The adult entrance fee was $ 7.

This is a closeup view of the brickwork in which you can see that the stones are made of sea shell sediment. (click to zoom in)

By this photo one can get a feeling for the proportions. Do you see the cannons? Besides, I think in Germany this kind of castle would be called Zitadelle.

Lovely bay view from the top...

or into the courtyard.

There are several rooms to tour and to find out how the soldiers ate, slept and lived here but they have not been the only people who stayed here in the past. At some point in its history this building has also been used to imprison reluctant Native Americans who could accurately be described as civilians (more information below).

Can you see the drawing?

...Here's the picture and the story behind it:

Personally, I am very happy that Fortuna led me to this place. I have read a short comment about its gruesome past in the novel "Green Grass, Running Water" in which it was referred to as Fort Marion, so I did not notice the connection until I came here.

Well, we can recommend a stroll through the village itself. There are some other attractions like wax works or minigolf. However, in my opinion its very charming because many buildings are in an old Spanish style such as the visitors center and the town hall.

Our last two days were spent in Orlando, where we had to catch our return flight. Surprisingly our guidebook admitted that there is not much to see here other than the few theme parks. Anyway, accompanied by friends we once visited a Japanese steakhouse and a buffett restaurant the next day which can be quite an exotic thing to do as a tourists but we have no photos of these 'experiences' so let's get back to the amusement parks... ;)

To begin with, the climate was very hot (about 36 °C) and sticky so my circulation openly expressed its dislike. For this and other reasons we chose Disney's Animal Kingdome to be the place we wanted to explore... okay, okay, the place to chill... It's basically a zoo with a few other attractions and not more than one rollercoaster -pleased now ;)

As you can imagine the parking lot has the length of several football fields and there's a pick up-service to get to the entrance and back to your car. In the park one can rent scooters and baby strollers which reflects a positive attitude towards people with special needs as a principal in the USA. *Thumbs up*

Here's were you get the pricey tickets. I don't know an amusement park in Germany that costs 66 Euros p.P. (= $89), but these high prices are common in the US and might have something to do with lower income taxes...?

We went on a Safari for which we waited approximately 30 minutes. Although quite pleased that we stood shadily, there was still no fan or air conditioning to cool down a bit so I used a leaflet to imitate the desired breeze.

It was not always easy to spot the animals but our female busdriver and guide helped us to detect them in the outback-like compound.

Afterwards we made a rafting tour and got wet to the bones.

Luckily our soaked selfs dried quickly enough to visit the Nemo Musical (air conditioning!)

The actual performance was great but believe me you do not want to be here half an hour early like it's recommended. Not later than in five minutes time you could take over the attendant's speech cheering: "Please come into the front to sit in the bubble zone!" My observation after the show: The bubbles landed everywhere! (grrrr)

However, over all we enjoyed the experience. Despite the crowed of people we managed to relax and have fun on our last day in the US and used the opportunity to buy merchandise, for example, a "Tough Guy"-Grumpy-t-shirt for menfolk.
Last but not least, I want to mention the oversized exotic-looking tree with animals carved into its trunk, which is the parks special landmark. Therefore, it's really the best setting for a souvenir photo. Needless to say, we got ourselves a family portrait.

And with this -even for me- surprising rhyme, this blog post and trip has come to an end.  
-Thank you for reading!!! Hugs and kisses!!! Byeeee!!!


P.S.: If this took you longer than 5 minutes -try to sue me for that! ;D