What a holiday it was - not only did I spend some quality time with a couple of great mates from university, but it was sooooo relaxing it was unbelievable!!

It was a great choice (thanks Raffi!) for renting a car, cos you definitely need one to venture anywhere!

Anyway, we saw a lot of places, went to some amazing beaches met up with some great people, and tanned very nicely!

Food was fantastic - though I must admit the Big Red Cinnammon Chewing Gum gave me a bit of a shock - ergh it caused me to have a "burning" sensation in my mough - which made it difficult to eat anything.  Weird...!!  It felt like you just put a burning hot slice of pizza or boiling water in your mouth!

Anyway our fun adventures went like this...we started with a nice meal in Hooters....some relaxing strolls along the beaches around the West coast of Florida. We had plenty of pool-side fun in the 30C Florida sunshine, TGI Friday meal (where we tried the TGI-speciality Guinness Milkshake), some healthy options at Sweet Tomotoes, tried an IHOP brekkie - interesting indeed (that's like 4 pancakes with a fry-up!). We went on to a German meal one evening - very nice indeedy, very popular place. We tried to see the penultimate shuttle launch (the last for Endeavour), but it got canned at the last minute (grrr!), I saw my first Baseball game with the USF Bulls against St John's (Bulls won - yay!), relaxing in Clearwater, followed by Japenese Teppanyaki, with some licking fun with Karalyn's 2 dogs...a stroll in St Petersburg, a great burger at Mel's Hot Dogs, a few drinks at some nice drinking establishments, an afternoon adventure down historic Ybor, our first kick-ball experience (USF won at this too!), and a row down Hillsborough River alongside some 'gators. Wow!  Whilst rowing along the Hillsborough River, I learnt that put your oar down means stick it in the water (as a brake) - ha!  I chose the "lets just crash into a tree" approach to slow us down) ... Anyway, our hunt for my wildlife continued...well they hunted us down :) We then concluded our trip with a relaxing dinner at Clearwater beach - watching a magical sunset with great friends and great company - a nice way to conclude our Florida holiday!! PS if you wanna tip for a great Florida beach - try Siesta Keys - absolutely stunning!!!!

Great fun, great friends, great entertainment and definitely a relaxing trip indeedy! Right, time for the next holiday!