The beginning of something great

As some of you may know, I was just in Florida for a week. This trip has been in the works since January when I was discussing with Hive account@kubbyelizabeth and Hive account@scaredycatguide about my need to use up some airline points before April. Florida is easy (2.5 hours) and cheap-ish for me to get to—plus they live there—so it seemed like the logical choice. Then Hive account@scaredycatguide suggested St Paddy's Day, Hive account@crimsonclad got wind of it and wanted in, and the international Minnow Support Project (MSP) Florida meet-up was born.

After that, we put together a Discord group with ourselves, Hive account@swelker101, Hive account@isaria, Hive account@meno, Hive account@ankapolo, Hive account@morodiene, Hive account@negativer and Hive account@lenadr to flesh out the details since flights had to be booked, accommodation organised, and a general itinerary of events agreed upon. Then, about a week before this meet-up extravaganza, Hive account@aggroed decided he needed a break from his life and the cold and booked a flight. Then, excited at the prospect of hugging so many steemians in the one place, Hive account@clayboyn got in his car and drove 14 hours to be there.

Wednesday

After weeks/months/years even—hey, this is crypto—of planning and getting excited about it in Discord, the day finally arrived. Because I'm "such a tourist" (Hive account@scaredycatguide's words), I wanted to go to Miami and invited Hive account@kubbyelizabeth to come hang with me for a couple of days. This would obviously be more fun than going to a backpackers and having to meet strangers not from the internet.

My flight wasn't until lunchtime so I managed to get one last crossfit workout in that morning. It was all arms that day. Strict pull-ups, hand release push-ups, and overhead squats among some other things. It killed me. I could hardly lift my water bottle at the end. I was worried my body would be 50% DOMS by the time I got off the plane and Kubby would have to carry my bag.

At around 9am I got a text from Kubby saying she was already at Miami airport. Hmm, that's early, I hadn't even left yet. It turns out she had my arrival time at around lunchtime, not 4pm-ish plus immigration. Of course, Kubby being Kubby had made a friend about 30 seconds after getting off the train at the airport so it's not like she sat there doing nothing for eight hours. He even bought her pancakes.

After taking a shower and packing up the last of my stuff I headed outside to get the bus to the airport. Since it's Panama there's no real-time public transport info. I don't even think there's a bus timetable. So I waited, and waited, and waited some more. Then I started to get worried because I'd been at the bus stop for 30mins and no airport buses—legal or illegal—had gone past. I should point out at this stage there are two things in life that really stress me out:

Getting to the airport.
The fuel light coming on in the car.

Obviously this means I have a story about the fuel light coming on while in a rental car going to the airport. I was in Hawaii; it was one of the most stressful times of my life, and my friend who was with me thought it was totally hilarious. She's not my friend anymore.

Anyway back to this story, I was about a minute away from hailing a cab when a bunch of buses came into view. One of them was airport bound. Thankfully there was no traffic to stress me out even more and I checked in with time to spare. Cortisol levels back to normal.

Airport security in Panama is weird. First, you go through the standard security section where you have to do the usual strip of belts, shoes, whatever, and they scan your bags for all things you could assemble Macgyver-like into a bomb once airborne. Then you walk—in this case about 20m—to the gate. If you're early they allow you to sit down but then 45mins or so before boarding you get kicked out of your seat. Then they cordon off the area and make you go through exactly the same security measures again— but at the gate—so you can sit back down in the same place. It's a total waste of time. I'm not quite sure what they think the duty free shops are selling. They also don't let you take empty water bottles on the plane either. Panama is the only place I've seen with that rule.

While Hive account@aggroed was scrolling through my photos looking for nudes, he held this up and said "wow, great photo choo". But I took it to illustrate my point here. Also, get out of my phone!

After a relatively quick flight including a decent vegan meal, I landed in Miami. Then the fun of US immigration began. I thought LAX sucked, but it turns out I hate Miami more. And, I didn't get asked on a date by the immigration officer who let me in this time either. Maybe he wasn't working today. Hmm, pity I don't remember his name. I could have asked this guy where he was. Anyway, by the time I got out, it was well after 5pm. I needed wifi to see where Kubby was, but of course, my phone wouldn't connect for all the WhatsApp messages she'd sent me so I had to get out my laptop and email her, where she briefly filled me in on the hotel drama.

As expected, she'd got the free shuttle to our hotel several hours earlier. Except the hotel fucked up the booking so she'd spent some time waiting for them to sort that out. On the plus side, we got an upgrade to one of their better hotels. Woo!

Eventually, I arrived at the Croydon Hotel and Kubby and I finally met in person. It was a magical moment in steemit/MSP history. It was also halfway through happy hour for hotel guests. We each grabbed a drink and then Kubby proceeded to spill hers everywhere. After a replacement was procured we sat down the conversation flowed like we'd been friends forever.

Thursday

Our fancy hotel was one street back from the beach so we went there and it was glorious. This hotel offered free beach towels and chairs which was a nice bonus. It was about 23C which is a bit too cold for me normally, but perfect for the beach when you're in the direct sun but the ocean is too cold to get in if you're too hot. We worked on our tans before working out how to get the overly complicated free buses down to Wholefoods—my favourite place in the US.

After ordering a vegan pizza and stocking up on vegan snacks that are only cheap in the US, we headed back to our hotel. It took slightly less time now that we'd worked out the free buses. Our hotel had a lovely heated pool but no sun thanks to the surrounding buildings. It was chilly in the breeze so we stayed in the water most of the time since that was way more pleasant than using our towels as blankets. Of course Kubby did not want to risk the chill of getting out of the pool first and made me run to the towels and bring hers over. We then shivered all the way back to our room.

We then got ready for our evening and feasted on our Wholefoods salad bar boxes before heading down to the bar. Hive account@scaredycatguide and his mate were supposed to be meeting us at 8.30pm. They didn't arrive til 10.30pm but justified this with "well the club doesn't open until 11pm anyway". I can't even remember the last time I went somewhere that opened at 11pm. Jeez, I don't even like being awake at 11pm these days. So while we waited for them we drank some more free happy hour drinks and talked to some random guys about how we were bloggers that met off the internet.

Then Kubby got hungry and ordered a panini while some big, angry ladies beside us got a bunch of free stuff and a 30% discount because they'd waited a couple of hours for their table and then another hour for their dinners. This passed the time until the guys arrived.

Finally I got to meet Hive account@scaredycatguide. I was excited for this moment since we have a good rapport. I've talked to him a lot on Discord and have been a guest on his show. He did not disappoint—he's a cool guy. He's also very tall and I was not prepared for that. We looked odd standing beside each other even with me in heels. Anyway, off to the club we go where it's ladies night, so Kubby and I get more free drinks. At this point I've not paid for one drink in Miami. Also, this never happens in Australia. Happy hour means slightly cheaper drinks if you're lucky, but never free drinks. God bless America!

Hive account@scaredycatguide's mate really wanted to know what his Aussie name would be. His name is Gary so I naturally said Gazza. He kept saying Gaza like the strip. I had to keep shaking my head and saying "no Gazza, not Gaza". Americans. Sometimes they just don't get stuff even when you're yelling it to their faces. Then me and Gazza not Gaza played some pool and thankfully I was not terrible. It was also mix of Australian and American pool rules, which made the game more interesting. Apparently, Kubby and the Cat placed bets on who would win, although the Cat denied this. Maybe cos he lost? All in all, it was a fun night despite my going to bed at 2am, which is very late now that I'm old and a morning person.

Friday

The next morning we checked out of our hotel and headed back to Kubby's place in Boca Raton, about an hour or so north of Miami.

Top-up time! While we were waiting for our shuttle, we got a rooftop tanning session in.

We weren't at Kubby's long before we headed out again to pick up Hive account@lenadr. Our original plan was to go look at cute designer yoga clothes on the way to Fort Lauderdale airport, but the traffic was terrible so that didn't happen. The ride back to Kubby's was just as slow but we did see a bunch of iguanas casually climbing up an overpass which we would have missed if we'd been travelling at normal speeds.

Not long after getting back to Kubby's everyone came around to for a Brazilian feast. Her parents cooked up a heap of delicious food suitable for vegans and meat-eaters alike. Kubby's dad did keep holding up slabs of raw meat and waving them at me though. I don't know why meat eaters always do this. It's not like waving chocolate at someone on a restrictive diet. Vegans and vegetarians literally have no interest in eating meat. We don't see it as food. You could wave a cardboard box at us and we'd give you exactly the same reaction. But that aside, the non-meat part of the meal was superb. I went back for seconds. Then, to make a great meal even better, Hive account@negativer and Hive account@morodiene brought non-dairy ice cream. I instantly liked them.

It was a great night and fun meeting Hive account@crimsonclad, Hive account@swelker101, Hive account@isaria, Hive account@meno, Hive account@ankapolo, Hive account@morodiene, Hive account@negativer and Hive account@clayboyn for the first time. There were no awkward silences, but instead gun talk, blaming Shane for various things, and general MSP gossip/chit-chat. It was just like being in Discord but with actual lols and real hugs—most of which I escaped up to this point. But as the Borg say "resistance is futile". Hugs were coming my way.