It's hard to focus when you're on vacation

We thought we'd give you some time to adequately anticipate this post. I am currently sitting in our room at The Clip while Jess is enjoying the last few minutes of vacay on the beach. I got a secret sunburn* and am forced to sit inside eating the remaining sour worms while watching reality forensic shows. Ok, the updates:

Tuesday night:

Faced with the disappointment that our new high-end handbags did not match our outfits, we each settled for a bag from the sixteen that Jess brought and we on our way. Our Tuesday night mission was to drink one of those buckets of Corona that you see on MTV Spring Break videos. We easily found an establishment with these delicious little bundles and settled in for a cool beer. Two drinks in we were tired of the horrible cover bands and counting the interracial couples who were passing by. Note to the reader: Fort Lauderdale is a haven for interracial love. All sorts of races mixing right together here. I sent Castro a text to let him know, but I think it was lost in translation. I'm pretty sure he thought that Jess and I were running races. I digress. We asked our very helpful and blinged-up server if she knew where the locals hang out and we were off to Riverfront. There was some concern on our end when our cab driver passed Riverfront, but we soon realized that he was taking us to the real heart of 20-something living in the Fort. We sat down at a nice little outdoor table and were greeted with half-off happy hour! I had a couple "Anne Penningtons"-- (translation- Bacardi and Diet) and Jess enjoyed a couple vodka tonics. If you've been counting, this is four drinks for each of us. If you know Jess at all, you'll not be surprised that she later rocked climbed on a hotel wall on our way home. Our new server let us know there is a 2 for 1 taco deal next door and that was all it took for us to give up the half-priced happy hour for half-priced tacos. Immediately upon entering the taco establishment I noted that the bartender was clearly Latino. I'll admit that I made a generalization and said that I thought he probably spoke Spanish. To save you the trouble of going back to our vacation objectives, I'll remind you that speaking Spanish is one of our objectives. Opportunity knocks. Within moments he let us know that he is bilingual because he is Latino. Jess was amazed not only by my language proficiency, but also with my natural ability to identify Latino men given the depth of my experience is solemente Dominicano. We were engaged in brief conversation with a man stating he was from the KGB. In reality he drives a rickshaw. BUT next to that man was a man drinking a lager. Like a regular ol' Yuengling Lager! Turns out he's from Philly and just moved to the Fort! Well if that didn't make us feel like we were at home I don't know what would. We enjoyed our Grouper tacos (Jess has only called this particular fish groper) and had a nice conversation with.... you guessed it... Phillipe! He was kind enough to walk us part of the way home as well as share a cab with us. We're happy to report that we officially have a new best friend in Fort Lauderdale. I expect that Phillipe will be scouting out good bakeries so that the next time we visit we'll be able to eat some delicious pound cakes. That's important on vacation.

Wednesday:

There's not much to say about Wednesday. We laid on the beach or by the pool the entire day and went out to (finally!) a delicious dinner. We were in bed by 10. OH WAIT! Wednesday was the day the Jessika made her life choice! A life choice is best described by the person who made it. Here is what Jess has to say, "Life choices are best made on the beach. After much internal debate and counseling from various people, I've decided to stay in Philadelphia although all of my ex-boyfriends live there. That's about it. Should I say what I'm doing? I'm going to go be a Dean in Trenton and wear skirt suits everyday. My quest for love also is a quest for friends. When I said that I didn't have friends in Philadelphia, Kimberly was offended. I'm a little worried because I did just get an awesome match from a 45 year old man in Harrisburg." For those of you who are wondering how she celebrated her life choice, Jessika ate sour worms. You may be wondering why we've not been talking much about match.com. Well, Jessika decided it's now too personal so we're no longer able to report on that subject. I also realize that there is one more major event of vacation that has never been mentioned. Jess had conjunctivitis on vacay. We remedied it with ointment so don't be concerned.

I started this blog in the hotel and am finishing it at the Fort Lauderdale airport. In a few short hours we'll be back in Philly and back to work. The most exciting part about that is being able to tell everyone what we did so we've really shot ourselves in the foot with this blog. If you're reading this now, rest assured that you'll also hear these details live within the next 24 hours.

Love and sour gummy candy,

Kimber and Jess

*secret sunburn mostly means that when we came in from the beach I bragged to my mom about having my first even tan ever. It later transformed into something resembling a hot-pink topographic map.

p.s. we'll also be posting more photos. we learned from match.com that posting photos drastically increases activity.

Fried Chicken and Phillipe

It's been some time since our last post and we apologize. It is hard to keep up with the posts when you are laying on the beach, thinking about life choices and catching up with locals. Let's go back...

The last time we left you, we were off to make the best of our overcast day. At the Hertz Rental car place we chatted up Carlo. For your information, he has heard about Teach America and almost started his own non-profit, Teen Attrition. We could not tell if he was socially awkward or was chuckling at us and how we help kids. We may never be sure. Our biggest takeaway from him was that there were a ton of places to eat along the way to the mall. Reality, Carlo's version of a ton of places to eat are: Burger King, Checkers, McDonald's and assorted in-gas station Subways.

We bypassed theses fine establishments and headed straight to Sawgrass Mills Mall, a shopping mecca, otherwise known as my heaven. Because we couldn't spend time on the beach, we compensated by spending time with our wallets. More specifically, opening them and spending large amounts of money on high end bags. Kimber bought a fine green Coach bag. I am convinced that someone was hiding it and probably returned later sad and disappointed. She probably had to settle for a wristlet.

We could see the rays of light through the sunroof in the mall, so we hightailed it back to the beach. It took careful scheduling, but we were able to navigate to the Publix to buy fried chicken and get the rental car back in time. Special shout out to Jenn for helping us find the location! The sweet fragrance of the fried chicken would waft up from the package, tempting us in the store and on the car ride home. It was intense.

Back at the hotel, we laid our feast out on one of the decks so that all of the hotel patrons could be jealous of our meal. We made sure to keep things real classy. Washcloths for napkins, and there was no need for utensils even though we also got a salad. We opted for the $6.49, 8-piece special and it was worth every penny.

The night's activities deserve its own post, so I'll stop here. Just a preview: You will find out who Phillipe is, where the locals hang out, that Kimber can identify Latino men from 25 yards away, and what my life choice is.

Posted by: JR

Outside the world is ending

"I just saw lightening. It's like literally not safe for us."

Our first full day in Fort Lauderdale is looking quite grim. A crash of thunder just shook the whole hotel and on top of that, we only have two sugar packets for the in-room coffee. Jessika got up at 4:30 in the morning because our air-conditioner is one that runs all night long. I wasn't with it enough to realize her intentions and I assumed she had gotten up to go for a jog. At that point I wasn't concerned, but if Jess's parents are reading this, please know that if I think that again I'll wake myself up enough to stop her. Fingers crossed.

We went to sleep with big dreams for this morning because last night was junk. We walked down a very enjoyable beach drive. You might recall this particular avenue from a popular Vanilla Ice song in the early 90s, "A1A- Beach Front Avenue! Girls were hot wearing less than bikinis..." We finally settled on a place for a drink. All of the restaurants on this street have the same food and the same chairs in different colors. As the night progressed I saw a waiter from one restaurant go serve folks in one of the other restaurants down the street. What a scam. Jess and I opted for the 2 for 1 giant margarita special at the place with the teal pillows. To quote Jess, "that brings out the teal in your eyes." The margaritas were so syrupy and void of all alcohol that we ended up with "thick spit" and left at least a third of each on the table. We did make friends with the two men on a date at the table next to us. We also avoided the creepy cover band singer who was staring at us all night. I guess you would call this partial success.



We were so stinking full from those margaritas that we didn't even want the seafood we had originally sought out. In the spirit of full disclosure, we walked back to the hotel bloated at 8:30pm and spent the rest of the evening on the computer creating Jess's match.com profile. There are actually quite a few cute guys, but Jess refuses to view them/contact them since she found out you can see who viewed your profile. Anyway, we went to sleep dreaming of waking up and lying on the beach. Dreams are meant to be broken.

Today we've rented a car to see what this city has to offer on a rainy day since our hotel doesn't even have miniature golf.

Objectives For The Trip

• eat chicken fingers
• dominoes
• mojitos
• "You in Ten"
• Suntan
• Golden Girls
• Blog
• Publix fried chicken
• match.com
• siesta
• grouper bites
• acoustic beach rock
• clubs/bars
• Beach Place
• South Beach
• Sea Aquarium
• Hard Rock (Jess's cousin works there)
• Call cousin
• brunch
• shrimp
• speak spanish
• wireless coffee shop
• rent bikes

bolded objectives are completed. Italicized objectives are for today.

*Note to the reader, if you are a teacher you are allowed to use this article as an example of quality use of text features.


Jess keeps talking about how sad she is so I have to go throw some sour worms at her on our way to pick up our rental.

"Are you single on vacation?"

Our vacation has become quite fun since getting on the airplane. First, the man sitting in the row in front of us on the plane took quite a fancy to us. He seemingly lives in Florida and "has a band," but doesn't know where he plays because he also "has a manager" who does all of his booking. He wanted us to come to his show, but doesn't know where he plays so he insisted on giving us his phone number. One of our most awkward moments in interacting with said creepy man is when he asked, "are you single on vacation?" from the row ahead of us. All the other people on the airplane were watching as this little episode unfolded because, well, why wouldn't you? Jess told him that she is kinda single then changed her story to "no, yeah I am." See Jess is confused about her current relationship with match.com and whether that precludes her from the non-internet dating pool. We're planning on working that out over dinner.

We successfully made it to the Yankee Clipper hotel, which from now on will be referred to as "The Clip." The Clip is a charming little establishment right on the beach, but we found out at about 3:45 that they only serve hot dogs until 3:30. This was seriously disappointing. We drank pina coladas and ate one banana each instead. The best thing about traveling with Jess is that she actually brings sour worms with her on vacation, so we're not starving. We need to sign off now because we are going to shower and go get seafood. Hopefully pictures will be coming soon!

We're like the meigadelphia spin-off

This is the less funny, less entertaining version of Molly's blog, but with many of the same characters. You likely remember Jessika from reading Molly's blog about their Puerto Rico trip. Jess will be featured in this blog as well.

Right now the woman is telling us we have to board the plane. Before we go, funny things that have happened so far.

1. we got car service.

stay tuned. we really hope this trip picks up.