My name is Thaddaeus but Jac coined the term Thadii to accommodate to my multiple personalities.
I am nice and friendly and I am currently located in GeorgiaTech.
Surfing is NOT EASY. Snowboarding (which I picked up during the North Carolina ski trip) is a piece of cake compared to surfing. Surfing is hard. You literally fight the elements and 90% of the time, you're desperately trying to paddle and fight the waves to get out to the "surf" zone. 101% shag. Every inch of my muscle could feel the strain.
We didn't manage to ride the waves like pros, but after 4 hours of wild thrashing and determined attitude, most of us managed to stay standing on smaller waves for a good whole 5 seconds or so =)
Day 2: Disneyland, Magic Kingdom
Disneyland brought the kid out in me. All my childhood started flooding as I went through the fantastical theme park...Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, The Little Mermaid, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves...the list goes on...
Dreams Come True.
The place is obviously unreal, yet everything is carefully engineered to create a warm and fuzzy feeling within you. From the staff, to the life-size characters, to the rides, and the decorative details, nothing here is a mistake. I thoroughly enjoyed myself immersing myself in the exciting and fantastical shows, parades and rides.
In the evening, just before night fell, we were treated to a special sight that wasn't engineered by Disneyland...
This is by far my favorite firework picture...not because it has been excellently taken (obviously it's out of focus, I'm a noob photographer remember?), but because of the shape of the firework...
Lots of great rides and experience here. Lots of great thrills. I do pity the "tour guides" of each attraction somewhat though...I salute their professionalism and ability to entertain each batch of endless tourists...without them, most of Universal Studios would probably have been boring.
Now I'm going to give a mindless list of ride/attraction recommendations. Bear with me.
I love crazy roller coasters, free-fall, and weightlessness!
No pictures though...I don't have an underwater camera. Alan did manage to see a Nurse Shark though...lucky bugger!
Now check this out. Coral Castle.
In brief, it's a castle carved out entirely of coral by a single man, Edward Leedskalnin in the 1960s (I think). Till this day, it's a mystery how he did it with simple tools, and moved the corals as well to create such an intriguing piece of architecture. The story goes that he wanted to marry a 16-year-old girl, Agnes, but the marriage was foiled due to reasons of parental objection due to a 10-year age difference. Heartbroken, he eventually made this castle in memory of her...and lovingly refers to her as "Sweet Sixteen".
Simply fascinating!
We saw a couple of sea turtles along the way too, coming up to the surface for oxygen. Sadly they dipped down really quickly. There's simply no telling when these magnificient sea creatures would appear, thus no pictures =(
Cool eh? They have really sharp teeth and can bite themselves free if a normal fishing line is used, thus wire lines are used to catch these nasty creatures instead. When the barracuda bit the bait and got hooked, there was a REALLY audible snap.
This is gonna get hilarious, but nearing the street that led down to the above marker monuement, everything was marketing themselves as "southernmost". There was the "Southernmost Inn", "Southernmost Restaurant", and even "Southernmost House".
But this one cracked me up big. It was a house nearest to the monument, and after the house shown in the above picture.
Certainly, it takes the cake hahaha...oh and the dinner we had here at Keys? Seafood. VERY VERY VERY FRESH SEAFOOD. YUM!