My Holiday Diary: Back to Orlando (Day 6)

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Originally uploaded by ambroseneville.

We all woke up a little worse for the wear on the Tuesday, following the One Dollar Per Pint Incident (as I like to call it; noone else calls it that).

By mid-morning I'd realised that I needed to take advantage of the free wireless internet access that three of Karin's neighbours were broadcasting my way, to get some work done (I didn't get around to doing it before I came to Florida so had to email it off because it was date-sensitive). While I was frantically typing away in the room abutting the kitchen, I could hear the programme Andrew, Jack and T were watching, about the growth of white supremacist movements and neo-Nazism in America. It actually sounded pretty informative, and I was sorry I was working on work work instead.

As we left G'ville, I persuaded Andrew to drive us to a guitar shop, which sadly ended up no longer being in existence. On our way there, we stopped at a middle eastern cafe for lunch. I had falaffel for lunch and as we were about to leave someone spotted a Camel Rider special on the blackboard. God knows what that meant!

The homeward journey yielded few surprises other than the dubious roadside adverts aimed at truckers. A short stop-off at the road-side services also gave me the opportunity to enjoy some retro arcade game action on a machine running the original Street Fighter II (hadoken!).

That evening we were all pretty washed-out, but me, T and Jack went out in search of pizza. We stopped off at the pizza place (literally a large, enclosed hut) and watched cops come and go. Thurston had told us the previous day that this was where the local cops provided some special protection to the owners in return for pizza, and the delivery drivers didn't go out on deliveries without being armed. Nice!

We went Downtown again that evening, and after a couple of drinks in the Bar B Q, where we played Cursive, The Mars Volta and At the Drive-In on the jukebox (!) courtesy of an old washed-up Guns and Roses fan who insisted he wanted to hear some new music, went next door to The Social.

Within minutes of us arriving at this altogether more trendy establishment, a live hip hop group had started up. Between them, they delivered a ten-minute speech about how 'for real' they were, but then actually launched into something very that was very musically-interesting, like a version of the Black Eyed Peas for serious musicians. Their backing was played live on two sampling drum-machines by a really talented percussionist and the rap-singing was well-rehearsed and full of syncopation.

It takes a lot to get me excited about hip-hop, but I'm really glad we stayed to watch most of this set, because it was good.

(Unfortunately we forgot what they were called on our way home. Maybe Thurston or Jack can add something to this in the 'comments' section of this diary entry)