Ease to the Florida Keys !

A couple of weekends ago Uday and I visited the Florida Keys. We got up at 5:00 AM on a Saturday morning after staying up until midnight packing what we needed, since we would be camping the first evening. That morning we arrived at Key Largo and directly went on a snorkeling trip at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. We met up with a friend named Scott (who started a non-profit Christian-based organization called Outlanders several years ago, where he organizes camp-outs and outdoor activities) and we made some new friends who also accompanied us on the snorkeling trip. This is suppose to be the best place in the United States to snorkel and the one of the two living reefs in the United States. The coral reef was very beautiful and we enjoyed seeing it up close and personal.

The fish were also beautiful but there was not as many fish as I thought there should be. There has been a lot of talk about our oceans becoming depleted of fish and it was a bit scary to observe this ourselves! We did see a sand shark on our water adventure and got a picture of it with our under water camera. It is a little hidden under the coral, but check this out and see if you can find it.


After snorkeling, Uday and I left our friends for a while and went to the Key called Islamorada and visited a place called Theater of the Sea. It was pretty awesome to be so close to the Dolphins and Sea Lions. Theater of the Sea is a Marine Conservation Center where they perform Dolphin, Sea Lion, and Parrots shows and allow many audience members to participate with touching the animals during the show. They also help turtles and I have a pictures of some turtles that they were helping. There were two turtles there that they made floats for to keep hem from drowning since they had a problem with their shell which would cause them to sink without the floats. There were a few other animals and fish at the park as well. The park itself is pretty small and the shows were about every half an hour. We got through the whole park in about three hours and saw he Dolphin and Sea Lion show twice. Check out our pictures as most came out really good since we were able to get so close to the animals. There is a picture of a dolphin kissing me but it is hard to see since we got it off of our video camera. We also got the picture of the Sea Lion kissing me from our video camera but this one came out better.











After snorkeling and walking around Theater of the Sea we worked up an appetite... We went to go feed the Tarpoon (a huge fish) and a Pelican around a place called "The Hungry Tarpoon". We planned to eat at the restaurant here but it was dinner time and the place was only open for breakfast and lunch. We ended up eating at a really good restaurant called Lazy Days. Here we really stuffed ourselves as they had the best banana bread I have ever tasted. We also had really good coconut shrimp for an appetizer and for dinner I had fried fish and Uday had a juicy steak dish. I would highly recommend this restaurant for anyone traveling towards Key West.

That night we camped at Bahia Honda State Park. We got there around sunset and it was pretty since the park is on the beach. Our friends from snorkeling met us at the camp site. The sky was so clear that night and there was a section in the park where we all went to look at the billions of bright stars and star dust that covered the sky. It was so amazing and I also mentioned how glad I was to see such a clear sky as this meant we would not have any rain that night as we camped.

We finally settled into our tent and began to fall asleep when we were suddenly woken up by the sound of wind and thunder. As it came closer and closer I made Uday get up and sit in the car with me. He was mad at me and thought I was being paranoid. A few minutes later it began to pour. We slept in the car the rest of the night and the tent was flooded by morning. This was a second night in a row with little sleep. By morning it was bright and sunny and we were on our way to Key West. We drove on the long slender bridge that connects the different keys leading down to Key West. It was quite an experience driving through the middle of the ocean and gazing at the old rail bridge running parallel to us, that now stood ruined in places due to the 1935 hurricane.


We spent the rest of the day in Key West and visited the "Southern Most Point" of the United States.

We saw the beach (not that impressive) and spent the rest of our time looking at the shops, bars and people of Key West. It was very hot and we found some salvation from the heat at "Ripley's Believe It or Not" Museum. It was a small museum but interesting and fun. We probably could have left by mid afternoon as we saw everything we wanted to see but had to wait to see the sunset and the street entertainers at sunset at Mallory Square as Uday's boss told him not to come back without seeing the sunset at Mallory Square. The sunset that night was not that impressive but Mallory Square is a must see. We did not even see half of the street performers as there were so many and we were getting exhausted and still had about a four and a half hour drive back home.

Overall, we had another fun experience visiting the Keys. My only recommendation would be to visit when it is cooler and not to camp in a tent in the summer in south Florida!

I hope this blog will help you know where to go and what to do if you visit the Keys!

Enjoy the pictures!

Click on the picture below to see all of our pictures from our trip to the Florida Keys:

"Our Version of In Brugges"

Finally I have the video from our visit to Brugges, Belgium up and ready. I admit it has taken me some time to complete this video but there are a couple of reasons that I would like to share about what took me so long.

The first reason is that Uday and I saw the movie, "In Brugges" and I can not tell you how disappointed I was. Uday's expectations were lower than mine and even he could not believe how bad this movie was. The movie, "In Brugges" was bad on two levels. It had a slow and depressing plot. Secondly, it was supposed to be funny, but it only had one funny scene in the whole movie and that only caused me to slightly giggle.

The second reason why it took me so long to make this video is because I really enjoyed Brugges since it is such a "fairy-tale city" (at least they do say that in the movie with the "F-word" in front). We ended up taking a lot of video footage in making this video and I made it a point to put extra love and care into "Our version of In Brugges" to give the city a more fair representation of what it really is. I am not sure I can do Brugges justice with our amateur camera, videography, and software for editing, but I know that "Our Version of In Brugges" comes a lot closer than Hollywood's. I do not recommend that anyone see the dark, depressing and boring movie called, "In Brugges", but I definitely recommend that if you get a chance, go see the real city of Brugges in Belgium. Whether you get to go or not, check out "Our Version of In Brugges" and see for yourself how magical this city really is.

Click on the picture below to watch our video:

Jungle Island

This weekend Uday and I decided to head down to Miami, Florida to visit Jungle Island. This wonderful place is one of those places that we have alway said, "I want to go there some time..." and then never go. Uday and I decided to try and continue to do as much as we can in Florida and take advantage of all it has to offer. We have collected a large stack of brochures of places we want to visit in south Florida and are almost half way through. Sometimes the more places we visit, the more we find out about other places to visit.

We really enjoyed this adventure to Jungle Island. We especailly enjoyed the bird show, reptile show, and the tiger show. This place used to be called Parrot Jungle and was full of beautiful parrots and macaws. For, me it was truly amazing to feed and pat the kangaroos

and hold and feed a baby tiger.

This experience also reminded me that sometimes one does not have to travel the world in order to encounter such awesome, once in a lifetime experiences. For us, it was practically in our backyard.

While we were there, we also talked with one of the girls, named Dulce, who was in charge of taking care of the monkeys, tigers, and Ligers who volunteered for the company called T.I.G.E.R.S. We learned that the Liger is part lion and part tiger. When a male lion mates with a female tiger, the resulting cub is a Liger, and when a male tiger mates with a female lion, the resulting cub is called a Tigon. A Liger is one of the biggest cats there is and can weigh about 1000 pounds! Whereas, a Tigon is dwarfed and weighs about 400 pounds. Dulce also reported that all of the people involved with working with the big cats volunteered and lived on a reservation and were given food and shelter for working the show and taking care of the animals. She told us that she works 7 days a week and this is her only life. Dulce was in her early to mid 20's and she also stated that it took her a year to get into the program.

During the reptile show, Uday was one of the participants picked from the audience to help hold a Burmese python, 15 feet long!

Living in Florida, we often come across alligators, but it was very interesting to see a humongous salt water crocodile (which they called the crocosaurus and was from Indonesia) quietly soaking up the sun. It felt like we were looking at a pre-historic monster. You will see pictures of it in the link we have provided below. Uday was even more amazed by the albino alligator! This was a completely white alligator and Uday had never heard nor seen such a thing before.

Beware of checking out the rest of our pictures as you might just get Jungle fever yourself!

Click on the picture below to see all of our other pictures.

4th of July in West Palm Beach, FL

Uday and I decided to stay around home for this 4th of July since we have some more travel plans coming up in a few months. We were happy to spend some time with a friend of mine whom I met at work, Cathy and her husband Gary. Cathy and I have now known each other for a few years but did not get a chance to hang out until this year. We went down Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach to see the fireworks. Uday and I forgot our camera but thankfully Cathy and Gary had a new camera that took some awesome pictures. Cathy is about 4 months pregnant and her baby was kicking with joy when the fireworks began. I bet this is a 4th of July that she will never forget!! I took the picture of her with her husband which is very cute. Right before the fireworks began, people from the fire department unroll a big US flag from a very high building, which you can see in the picture. It looks pretty cool, and if given a choice it is also something Uday and I would love to do. You can also see in another picture the band called, "Simple Plan" who performed for free on this night! The fireworks went on for a long time and I told Uday several times, "this is the finale". We only included a few of the fireworks pictures to give you an idea.

Click on the picture below in order to view all other pictures (courtesy of Cathy and Gary).


The 4th of July is my favorite holiday as I really enjoy my freedom and independence! Perhaps it is also in my blood for this celebration to be special to me since I am related to John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Sam Adams and Abagail Adams. I have always had a good time on this night since I was a kid and because of this it did make me miss New Hampshire and Massachusetts a little bit, but it is always great making new memories on this spectacular holiday.

Later that night, after we said goodnight to Cathy and Gary, we found ourselves shaking and grooving to booty music on the dance floor at the "Mai Tai" dance club on Clematis Street, celebrating our freedom!

Paris : Saint and Sinner (Part II)

Here is some video footage of the second part of our experiences in Paris, France. The video shows our experiences at Notre Dame Cathedral, Moulin Rouge, Sacre Couer and more... just like we learned in the French class (for those of us who took French in High School). Most of the video is set to music for your viewing and listening pleasure. Unfortunately, we ran out of video tape on top of the Eiffel Tour on our second night there. This was the night when we went all the way to the top and celebrated with champagne. I wrote about our awesome experience on a previous blog post titled, Enchanting European Vacation. You can also find pictures under the "Paris" link to the right of the screen, that show some of which the video does not show.

Have a "bon" time (means "good" time in French) watching the video!

Click on the picture below to view the video: