Miami to Key West

After we finally managed to rouse the slumbering Preno, we said our goodbyes to all of our new friends from the hostel, exchanged facebook details, cleaned up the massive mess that had accumulated in our room and hit the road at about 11 – bound for Key West.

Key West is the southernmost town in the US and can only be reached by driving through Florida Keys – which is basically a sequence of small islands which are linked by bridges. If you’ve seen True Lies or Mission: Impossible 3 then you know the bridges I’m talking about – the ones that are really really long, surrounded by pristine turquoise water and, if Hollywood is to be believed, continually being attacked by Harrier Jets.

With this in mind we were quite looking forward to the drive, despite our sore heads and severe collective sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, though the scenery and the bridges were as spectacular as expected, the traffic was awful and what Emily told us would be a three hour drive took most of the day. However, the drive was redeemed somewhat by the level of conversation which started out relatively dignified with real talk and ended up well below gutter.

Upon arrival in Key West, which is a renowned party town, notorious for its flamboyant gay community, we checked into our motel and went for a wander – in search of some groceries. The two highlights of this were trying some authentic Key Lime icecream (the reviews of which ranged from “oh it’s alright” to “dear God it tastes like cough medicine) and Cleland getting groped by a homeless, toothless, predatory, gay man on the street.

At this point we were all feeling very much as though the past week in Miami had caught up with us, but stirfry ala Jez, Rocky IV, a few delicious Bud Lites and an hour spent watching “The 100 most unbelievable moments in sport” and we were ready to hit the town. We did so in fine style adhering to our new rule that we were only allowed to have one drink in each pub unless CENSORED. The first few bars we went to were largely uneventful and occupied primarily by real talk. However, once we got a couple of suicides under our belt, the vetboys got out on the DF to rock out to the cubic shuffle and the night proper had begun. We watched some pretty cool live music, did some stupid shots and soon we were invited en masse back to a party at a house with a Jacuzzi. At this point it was approximately 3:30. Gotta hate those Aussie accents. The rest of the night is something of a blur for all of us, though none more so than buzz who decided that a series of impromptu naps was appropriate. We eventually made it back to our motel at about 6:30, though we did stop to chase the crowing roosters on our way home. It was at this point that we realised that Cleland was nowhere to be found. We retraced our steps to try and find him but our efforts were to no avail. We would later find out that he was asleep on a pile of palm fronds on the side of the road. All plans of going snorkelling or jetskiing in the morning had officially been binned.

My body hates me,

Jez