As the night turned to day I awoke in sunny Florida to find that half of the people who fell asleep in our room had vanished. Nothing evil. They just had flights to catch but eerie nonetheless. Torie was still asleep in her fortress... David and I awoke at the same time and began to make our way outside. Our plan was to hit the beach. Rachel overheard us and ended up coming along. First, we got some food at a nice little bar where a Jamaican steel drummer was playing with his own homeless back-up dancer. The beach was lovely. Everytime we went to the beach in Ft. Lauderdale it was amazing. Nice waves and the water temp. was just right.
The important thing to note about the hostel is all of the characters that were staying there. Not only were there lots of foreign folks but there were some real instant classics. (David could better enlighten on this point.) One guy we met was Steve. Steve used to live in MA, and worked on fishing boats. We got along well with him. Everytime he went to the beach he'd mention "taking in 'the view.'" (quotes are all mine) in reference to the hot tail that was all over the place in Florida. Another significant thing about Steve was that he looked kind of like an out of shape Steven Seagal. Maybe Steve was a nickname. Anyway, both David and I missed Steve once we left. Another guy we liked was named Shawn. Shawn was English and he stopped at nothing to "take the piss out" of anyone. He was hilarious and referred to everyone as "geezer" or "muush." He also claimed to know Ricky Gervais but I think he was "having a laugh." (Which is what he said nonstop.)
Then there was Bernard. Bernard was a real doozy. He was an older gentleman and at one point on the beach he told Steven, David, and I that he liked to "go pee in the ocean. I like to hold my arms in the air and jump as the waves come and let it all go..."
All of these guys were what Steven referred to as, "Full Timers." Which means they live there. Awesome.
The other significant thing was the second robbery.
On the last night we were there. Saturday. We got back pretty late from The Miami Improv and we had picked up a twelve pack of Corona at some point. We ended up hanging out with Steve, Shawn, and a few others. Mostly we just listened as Shawn made fun of people and waited for our turn to be made fun of. Eventually, I finally made it into bed at around six in the AM. When I finally woke up, at around eleven, this is what I woke up to. "FUCK!... ...FUUUCCKK!..." What a great thing to hear coming from an alleyway in the morning. Apparently, sometime in the night: Theft number 2. Soon after all of us had gone to bed a person (or persons) went into one of the common rooms, took an entire locker, dragged it outside, through the hostel, through another room, into a back alleyway, and then worked on the locker with a crab mallet. Keyword in that sentence (incase you missed it) crab mallet. Somebody walked away with a brand new laptop...
-Chris
Take a good look bugs. Many of your kind have perished on the hood of our car and many more will meet their demise before we're through. We could clean it but we're leaving the carcasses of your fallen friends as a warning: stay away from the highway while we're on it. Which'll be tomorrow from daybreak to sundown. Anywhere from Memphis to Chicago. So, you'd be wise to stay away from Interstate 55 North. Otherwise get crushed by a couple of Kurt Russells, on the front end of "The Grey Ghoul"...
