My holiday blog: Here Gators! (Day 9)

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Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

Since our previous attempt to see an alligator hadn't been entirely successful (!), we decided that we ought to take a trip to Orlando's best half-day attraction, Gatorland... oh, come on, we didn't go to any other theme parks while we were in Orlando!

We set out around mid-day, as we did pretty much ever day, seeing as we'd got into the late getting-up, late going-to-bed routine, proudly sporting our unemployment beards for all to enjoy. Mary-Anne kindly drove us to a Burger King situated directly opposite a McDonald's, their signs standing tall over either side of the freeway like fast food totem poles. Inside, I was delighted by the menu on offer - Burger King in the US has a MUCH wider selection of meals, including things like salads with hot prawns. More importantly, they had 1/3lb Aberdeen Angus Burgers plus chips and a drink for $5. I was not amused that they're able to sell burgers made of quality British meat like this, prepared-to-order for such a low price, when we in the UK have to eat burgers made from oestrogen-pumped cattle from the Amazon rainforest! However, since returning home, I've read that this has helped them increase market share in the US by 12.5%, and they will be bringing this burger to the EU and Britain next year. Good news, I think, but we'll have to see how the price will be set.

So, onto Gatorland. Gatorland was a lot of fun, the world centre for alligator excellence, if you like. Just as we walked into the park, there was a sizeable crowd gathering around the outsides of a large pool to watch the alligator jumparoo (where they try to get alligators to jump out of the water by dangling chicken entrails over the surface). Despite cries of "here gator! gator! gator!" from the bizarre prozac™-induced woman leading the whole event, the gators weren't really that bothered to 'jumparoo', knowing they'd get the meat in the end, one way or another.

We went around the rest of the park, looking at the gators, truly impressive reptiles and (get this, people from the RSPCA) surprisingly resilient to having quarters thrown at them - they don't even wake up when you're really hoping to get some sort of jaw-snapping reaction from them. That day was unbelievably hot, at least in the high 20s on the centigrade scale, and highly unusual even for Florida in January, which perhaps explains the lack of reptilian reaction. Still, they were impressive. We also caught a Gator Wrasslin' show, where 2 blokes dressed as Indiana Jones whipped and wrestled child alligators, charging small British children $10 to sit on the back of a gator and pose for a photo. They had some cool tricks too, like keeping a gator's snout shut within the mouth of one of the gator-masters.

That night, everyone agreed that we could go somewhere where I could buy a big steak. You always hear about people eating stupid weights of steak in the US, and I thought I ought to try it while I was there. At the Alehouse I ordered a 20 ounce steak. It was a beast, but I beat it, then went on to eat a small burger Thurston couldn't finish, some of his fries, and a fried piece of cheese. Don't forget this is the day I'd already eaten a third of a pound of Angus steak [Frank, I hope you are pleased by this prospect!].

Half an hour after leaving Alehouse, however, my body decided it couldn't cope with the sheer weight of steak ingested and it left my system again. The less said about that, the better.

That evening we were due to go to Will's Pub again, but we couldn't get in due to fire regulations (they thought a man who'd eaten over a pound of meat could pose a fire hazard), so in the end we went to a place called The Peacock Room where we saw a really good band called Hurrah. I seriously enjoyed them, and I recommend you check them out, just my kind of band. This was my idea of a really good day, capped off by accidentally finding a venue as we walked past it and heard a band playing, and accidentally discovering a band you really like.