So my next stop was Florida! So I left Savannah after thanks giving and headed south. Florida is where all the older people retire as the weather is always nice and really tropical, palm trees are everywhere and the swamps from Georgia to Florida are becoming more frequent. Also the standard of driving has decreased, this is what happens when a mass of old people live in the same area and are still allowed to drive, and they go crazy! So my mum always has a fear of when we drive on the M25, I find this easy driving yet annoying with the traffic, well you have not seen anything like it when you get to some of the main cities in Florida, there is 7 lanes to contend with, traffic coming from all angles, huge trucks that when you look in the rear view mirror all you can see is a grill and you can also undertake in the US, its madness and slow going!

I finally make it to St Augustine in the afternoon and find my hostel with no major problems except traffic, the sun is out but there is a strong wind as I'm still skirting the coast. It's a lovely place, with Spanish style building, lots of tourists walking down the pedestrian side streets that are filled with bars, restaurants and shops.

Again I wonder how I do it, but I attract a guy in the hostel the moment I walk in, he is a nice enough guy who offers to show me around as he has been in the area a while. He is over confident and not very tolerable of people, but it's nice to have someone show me around the nice streets and the waterfront. When we get back to the hostel he even makes me dinner of left over thanks giving dinner which is excellent. However at this point I had attracted another guy from the hostel and it seem to be some horrible battle of who could try and keep my attention, it was annoying and also embarrassing so I proceeded to get drunk and ended up playing pool with a couple of kids who were on holiday with their parents!!

So as I previously mentioned in my last blog I had met an Austrian girl called Sabine who was over in the US travelling and visiting family and she had gone to Disneyworld for the Thanksgiving weekend and had asked me to join them for a day or 2 if I was heading that way so decided to go. So I drove to Kissimmee which is about half an hour outside of the parks, where there was a hostel on the lake side. Again the drive down was tedious, get stuck in traffic and witnessing more and more crashes, they really can't drive in this state!!

So I made it to the motel/hostel, it's a motel but they have laid out some of the rooms to be hostels and they have a communal kitchen and common room, swimming pool and lake view, it's lovely as I saw an American bald eagle, lots of other weird birds and lizards! So when I arrived I decided to just chill out as the weather had got to be lovely here, 25 to 26 degrees, so dug out my shorts and flip flops and enjoyed the afternoon off!!

So I'm on a budget so I am trying to be extra careful with the money as things here can get expensive, especially with paying for accommodation and food but I thought one day in a park wouldn't be too bad and I was to meet Sabine in Animal Kingdom for the day. I hopped on the bus and headed to the park to buy my ticket at the entrance only to find out that a one day pass was $95!!! Crazy amounts of money but I had already agreed to it. I'm glad I did as I had an amazing time of watching shows and parades, going on safari and rides and spending the day with a familiar face in an amazing place. I would love to come back and do all the parks as part of a package but that will have to be for another time!! We decided in the evening to head to Downtown Disney to have dinner and everything was lit up for xmas and people were doing street entertainment and the atmosphere was brilliant. Had an awesome time and this part actually felt like a holiday which was a nice break from all the sightseeing and driving.

So the next day I headed to the Kennedy Space Centre, this was an awesome place about an hour's drive from where I was staying, as you approached you could make out cape Canaveral from a distance and start seeing all the launch tours. The area that NASA is on is massive and is all national park, with alligators and wildlife of all sorts, now I know I'm in Florida when I saw an alligator lounging by the road!!! So I got a tour of the National park and around the buildings and Launch pads and saw so many rockets and space shuttles, experienced their Imax programmes about the Hubble telescope and wanted to be an astronaut after that (that's not going to happen), they were even supposed to have a launch that day but it got postponed which I was very gutted about!!

So the next day I carry on south and head to Hollywood in Florida, it's like they can't think of original names here so they recycle the same name in different states, also there is a lot of English town and cities names here, some unfortunate ones like Peterborough, ha ha!! So I am staying in Hollywood with Sandra and Rick which is a sister of Steve who is my boss and friend at the college. They live in a gated community close to the beach and the place is amazing. It has an onsite gym which is free to residents as well as a swimming pool. The weather is scorching here and it's like summer in December. Sandra and Rick are amazing, made me feel at home and part of the family instantly, been going to the gym every day, going to the beach or pool and generally chilling out and being well fed! Now this part has definitely felt like a holiday, didn't move my car for the time I was here, cycled to the beach, ate amazing food and just relaxed, it was nice to be in one place for more than 3 days and be with amazing people.

So it's getting to be Xmas but its so weird being in shorts all day and night long, going to xmas markets, festivals and parades with all the lights when the weather is amazing, they light the palm trees with fairy lights and it has a lovely feel about it. Nice to see all the decorations and celebrations but still doesn't feel right that it's not freezing and wet but I'm definitely not complaining! Got myself a nice tan again!!

So Reg the car has done me so well, I've driven about 14000km in it over 3 months, only broke down once at the beginning and thought it would be a shame to scrap it already, especially as I am coming back to the US in March to do the Southern and west states. So I found some cheap storage and extended my insurance so that I can continue my adventures in Reg when I return. It's nice to get that all sorted.

So I'm off to Guatemala next for the volunteer conservation work and there has yet again been a few hiccups with the company, all my money was refunded by the UK company as the company in Guatemala wants the money paid directly to them from me, not a problem, except when I contact them, they don't seem to know I am arriving!!! After a few emails exchanged between the UK company and Guatemala they find my reservation and everything is sorted, however my flights change a week before I leave, instead of a morning flight, getting me there in the evening (for some reason I'm going via El Salvador) they are now and evening flight with a layover in Guatemala city for 9 hours before I fly to Flores. So it looks like there will be an airport camp out and I arrive to the Flores on the 11th where I will be picked up from the airport to go to the project.

If anyone is interested, the project is Arcasvolunteer animal project in Petén, you are more than welcome to come and join me as I'm there till the 10th Jan and then move to their coastal project for a month with the same volunteer group, I say come along!!!

So armed with a Spanish Phrase book, cheesecake that I couldn't eat from last night's meal out (I couldn't choose which I wanted and ended up with 2 slices the size of a cake each) and a bag of sandwiches made by Rick, I'm off to Guatemala for the next 2 months.

I have no idea what it will be like and if there is any internet, but do not worry, I always make it there in the end in one way or another! Catch you all on the other side!!