south florida

shirt i should have bought.

squiggly alligators

we headed down to florida city from miami, the last stop before the keys. we stayed at a place called everglades hostel. very cool place, very much a hostel. outside is a bungalow with a hookah, the kitchen is full compartments and food with masking tape and people's names on them. they always have pancake mix on hand to make yourself pancakes in the morning. it's great. there are cats and a dog, picnic tables and a tv room. the tv is one of those old big screens with a faded picture that is only visible from one specific vantage point--straight on, about eight feet back. the ideal position on the couch is permanently occupied by a skinny old white haired, long white bearded man who smells a bit and wears a sort of hood slumped over his forehead (to block glare presumably). he didn't vacate the spot for the two days we were there, moving only his hand to the remote which was rubberbanded to the armrest. i know he watched jurassic park 3 at least twice.

we went to an alligator farm and went on an airboat ride in the everglades. touristy, but good fun. 

squiggly hemmingway cat. note his opposable thumb.

my faith was renewed in humanity and hostels by having good conversations with a carpenter from kentucky, a public health worker from france, and a myriad of american college students and new zealand travellers. 

we made it down to the keys via public transport. throw transport down the well. (borat reference). but really, the u.s. was not intended to be traveled by any way save personal vehicle. public buses are cheap, but slow slow slow. on the plus side, i finally finished lolita, which took me about a year of reading a half a page a night in bed and then falling asleep. sadly, i didn't read much fiction or anything that i really wanted to over the last year and a half. instead, i went to grad school and read god knows what about libraries and information sciences and stared at computer screens under flourescent lighting for just enough hours a day to get a chronicly stiff neck and an excellent tension headache each night by 7 pm. regardless, it was hard for me to focus on nabokov's ornate language when it was so much easier to watch family guy or pbs. lolita is great though, disturbing, profound, and filled with lines so great that it makes me pissed i am not a better writer.  maybe i'll go back and write down some of the descriptions he uses.

so we made it to key west. it was good fun. had several drinks of such diverse natures as to give me a pleasent rotting and or bleeding stomach feeling in the morning. we went to hemingway's house which was great. i took a number of photos of the six-toed cats and just kind looked around in awe, with a warm fuzzy feeling and the desire to start writing seriously. i felt it fitting to drink a little wine while i toured the estate, in a sun also rises kind of homage and spent fifty-one cents to have a penny with hemmingway's mug (old man and the sea era) stamped on it. it's my lucky penny now.

today we headed back up to miami via profuse day of public transit (nine hours, six of actual travel on bus and rail). we're staying at the cheap hostel we spent our first night, the other one was full. incidentally, as i'm writing this the drunken slob i referenced in the last blog (douchebag from cleveland, or so i assumed aas he was wearing a cleveland jersey last time) just stumbled in, literally, with his motions slow and lumbering, his eyes mere slits, saying, in an overly loud voice since no one was listening, "ohhhhhheeyyyyyy" to no one in particular.

headed to new orleans tomorrow.