Brrrrrr

One of my first jobs when I returned was to get my car on the road again. I had promised it that if it started first time then I would give it an oil change. It started first time - well after I charged the battery, but I let that go. I insured it and gave it a new exhaust immediately (the last one had fallen off in May) as a result it sounds far less tractorish. Well today I changed the oil too and the EGOmobile is properly back on the road. For those that don't know the EGO is a Mk 2 Golf GTI. Number plate Fxxx EGO. 17 years old and it has all the character that you would expect of a car that is that old and has probably been ragged for most of it's life.

Working outside today I had on 2 pairs socks, 2 pairs jeans, 2 t-shirts, 3 sweatshirts, jacket and hat. I thought Florida was getting cold when I had to wear a jumper. The weather was pretty cold today with wind out of the North, and the sea temperature is 8 deg Celsius, which means that I won't be going kitesurfing soon.

At the moment, I am having problems deliberating where to go to study groundschool. Every place I am considering has it's own plus and minus points that in my mind seem to cancel each other out. I am going to try and force a decision by the end of the week. Will let you know where I will be going.

Played squash on Saturday which was cool though I ached after like I haven't since when I first started playing. Kind of a nice pain though, the aches and strains you pick up after sport. I hope that others think that and I am not just a masochist that hasn't realised it yet. Went for a run in the Sussex countryside this evening. I was so struck by how beautiful it is with the folds of land forming hills and dales crowned by curious sheep. After the billiard table flatness of Florida, I was glad to be back. I also tired quickly and had joggers nipple. Not so good.

It seems that I may carry on with the blog. I have had a couple of encouraging messages that have inspired me to continue.

Home again

You know what they say about absence? It makes you do stupid things and makes you feel sick the next morning. Oh no, that is absinthe. Well, I guess the point that I am trying to make is that it is good to see friends again.

The plan is to start groundschool in a few weeks and it will last 6 months or so. I just haven't decided where to start it yet: either in Bournemouth or London.

Also I am not sure whether to carry on writing this BLOG. I expect that I will as my quest to fly still continues. Probably just not as often.

Well, thanks for reading. It is nice to know that some people were with me on the (ongoing) journey.

More Miami

We met up with Ken's friends in Fort Lauderdale and they were Irish so we drank a fair bit for a couple of days. They had hired a condo set in a hotel. This condo was so big that it had it's 3 doors along the corridor. We also had access to the jacussi, sauna and pool. All good fun. Paul chatted up a tranny, had a fight with a girl and Benny was on the loose. It also rained or was overcast the whole time.


Paul, Ken and Benny(before he was on the loose)

There is a famous statistic that I was reminded of driving down to Miami: 85% of Americans don't even own a passport. The Americans I have spoken to seem to back this up and infact probably about half of the young people I have spoken to in Kissimmee have never left Florida. The crazy thing I find about this is that it means that they have never seen a hill, much less a mountain. I thought I saw a hill on the cruise down South, but as I passed it I saw it was a landfill site.

It is my last night before returning to the joys of winter. At least the bad weather we have been having here will act as a bit of a half-way stage before getting back to England. I also went for a flight with Mark as I won't get any more for a while. Decent enough landings from myself and good solid ones from Slippery ;)


These are your maniacs speaking....

Coconut Grove

Had a really good day today. I will try and remember some of it.

Three of us, Ken, an Irish guy, Jo, an aussie girl and myself drove down south of Miami to check out what was out of the city limits and look for kiting spots. We found a spot, but it was way to windy to even bother rigging up.

We also found the best tree-climbing tree in the world ever. I have said in the past that certain trees are good climbing, but now in my revised scale of trees, I realise that I have never seen a good climbing tree before. They have trees here that grow up and then down again so that all the branches interlock in a crazy fashion. They also have hanging branches, similar to ropes plenty strong enough to swing on. This alone would have made today a really good day.

Lunch in Coconut Grove, which was the place to go in Miami before South Beach(where the hostel is) was cool. It is also filled with boutiques and with the cafes has a bit of an European feel to it. We ate a cracking meal in a French restaurant, I think the best thing I have eaten out since I have been here.

We have just visited a monument to the holocaust victims. Very sobering. I did know a fair bit about the 6,000,000 that were killed but something that I have only just learned is that at the time there were only 9,000,000 Jews in Europe. Woah.

There was a security guard at the monument that asked us why we were wasting our time there. When he realised where we came from he took the piss out of me for calling baked beans on toast a snack when a snack should be ice-cream or candy. Unfortunately my friends didn't take his side, so he proudly told us that in America, they have all kinds of baked beans. Ones with weiners in the can, sweetened beans, big cans, little cans and even vegetarian beans. Surely not.

Well it is fairly warm and sticky here and almost 6pm which is when the bar opens. Speak to you soon.

Miami

Down in Miami again. I'm staying in the South Beach area, famous for it's Art Deco style. I have to agree that it looks quite cool. It is said that a lot of it has been retro fitted in order to make everywhere look in keeping, but as Art Deco is for aesthetical and not structural reasons, I can't see a problem with that. One very noticable thing about Miami is the number of people taking their dogs for walks while strutting their stuff.

I am staying in a Hostel, which is really refreshing. Everyone is crammed in 4 to a room that is about the size of the average microwave, but it is really good to meet lots of travelling people. I spent last night with about 9 people, only two of which came from the same country. Sweden, they were twins. Strangely I didn't pick up on the fact they were identical twins until quite late in the evening. Still can't quite get over that.

Tried to go kite-surfing today, but the wind was a bit soft and direct on-shore. It seems to be like that most of the time. The forecast is better for tomorrow however.

Wakeboarding

Yesterday, I found a cable-tow water park. It is where you can go waterskiing or wakeboarding without the expense or hassle or a boat. Basically there is a cable that runs in a rectangular course around a lake and you are towed by ropes suspended from it.

There is one in Thorpe Park that we have been to before, and one must have been copied from the other, because the set-up was weirdly identical.

It was ideal really, 25 mins from the flying school, but having only just discovered it yesterday, it is now shutting for it's winter break. As I am going back to the UK in one week, that isn't so helpful.

Oh well, it was a really good session and was good to be going in just a pair of board shorts. Not bad for the middle of winter hey?

Being an Alien

That is what I am apparently.

I also keep getting told, when meeting the natives, that I have a really thick accent. I have never been told that before, but seem to get it consistently here.

Two things on the radio that I heard yesterday.

The first may of been in the news back home, but I thought was pretty cool. The story goes that a 10 year old British girl was in SE Asia, and saw the water getting sucked out along and she had just learned in science that when this happened and the water bubbled, it meant a Tsunami (not sure if this should have a capital, but is seems appropriate somehow) was on the way. She told her family who shouted to people on the beach and so this 10 year old girl saved dozens maybe hundreds of people.

The second was disturbing and was on Talk Radio. It is a station with no music and people basically just ring up and speak what is on their mind. People then ring up and say that Mr A was a jerk etc. As you can imagine you get some pretty polarised opinion on there. I find it fairly compulsive listening. A guy rang yesterday to say that the victims of the Tsunami had what was coming to them as they were all terrorists and were the ones attacking Americans. "Screw them", he said. Don't think that I am having a dig at Americans in general BTW, I am just amazed and appalled by the few.

The Tsunami in Asia, is shocking, there is nothing that I can add that haven't already been thought or said by anyone reading this. The only thing I will say is that one of the ways we can help the most is by continuing to take our valuable tourist pounds/dollars over there.

Waiting for wind

I stayed down in Miami for about 5 days in total. I did manage to get on the water for some of that though I was limited by two things. Firstly after a day and half, my feet had swollen so that I couldn't fit them in the bindings. Not sure why as it isn't a kiting injury that I have had before. Secondly in that 5 days there was probably only about 5/6 hours of decent wind. Most of the rest of the time it was light and straight on-shore. It was still good to get wet.

I am back in Kissimmee now and there is a few guys back that I knew from before. Always good to catch up with a beer or two. OFT(The flying school) has loads of new faces and everything has changed in the last few weeks. In theory it is for the better, but......

My plan is to do a few more hours flying here. Mainly night flights as I only have around 7 hours night and quite enjoy the night flying. Probably about a dozen more. I have around 120 hours in total so that will take me to around 130 hours, leaving a nice chunk to do before the Commercial(150 required before starting). This should ensure that I am not too rusty.

The wind is forecast to pick up in the next few days, so that should be worthy of a trip down to Miami. I quite fancy going out there as there seemed to be a good atmosphere when I was there. It seemed different to everywhere else I have been in Florida. Probably because there seemed to be more travellers as opposed to holiday makers.

Homesick

I am not typically a sufferer of homesickness having boarded and travelled a fair bit. Today though I really was missing friends, family and dogs.

New Years Eve was pretty tame, probably the calmest on in the last 10 years. Went to a couple of bars and got to bed at around 4am, but felt fine this morning.

This afternoon I went kitesurfing again and it is slowly coming back. Which is good.

Miss you guys though.......