On the road again - Day 3

So, it's now Tuesday and it's the second day of our "sun" vacation.  Again, lots of sun....but not so much warmth.  I'm currently sitting on the couch at the hotel.   The heater is roaring, Carina is busy brewing up some hot chocolate, and i'm clad in my jeans, socks, long sleeve shirt, new sweater and toasty new slippers.  Hmmmm... yep, i think that the bathing suit might stay buried in the bottom of the bag for a long time.  We woke to see that the windows were frosty and we could see our breath.  Not good odds for jumping in the pool or getting a tan eh?  But we can't really complain eh?  We are not at home, we are enjoying some relaxation time, we have full tummies after having found an Olive Garden right around the corner from the hotel (ummmmmm, haven't had their soup and bread sticks for a very, very, very long time! and they were stilll very tasty!). 
We were all still a bit bushed from the long long, seemingly endless, epic and lengthy trek down here to Florida and needed a good sleep in and rest to recover.  We ate our breakfast late and then decided to go on a bit of a reconnaisance mission around town to see what was what. 
We grabbed our tourist map (not to scale whatsoever and apparently not feeling like it had to include even half of the roads that we came across) and bravely headed out.  Prunelope breathed a sigh of relief that we were not going on a state to state odyssey but rather just a little jaunt through the touristy countryside.  We drove past Universal Studios, Sea World, Discovery Cove and Disneyland and multiple other tourist attractions - wow this place is captain at catering to the almighty tourist dollar - anything to drain another dollar from the wallets of the masses.  Oh, i know that we are here and will do touristy things, but sometimes, sometimes, the decadence of places like this makes me shiver a bit. 
I know full well that i participated in the trends as this afternoon we headed for the outlet mall.... wow, what a zoo!!!!  I think that if people were armed, there would have been major fights about parking spots there.  As it was, it took us at least 15 minutes to find a spot, and then that was only at the back of the mall in a little lot kinda off by itself, and there were still cars parked on the grassy medians and in mud pits in non parking areas.... anything to get a deal, i suppose. 
Carina and I are not rea lly shoppers but we figured this would be a good activity to keep us warm and busy on a day like today.  I was surprised by the amounts of people there and the craziness that ensures...

 This was the scene around all the trash cans...sometimes even piles of old shoes as well!

 Oh, here we are again.. looking not quite so skeptical

 The obligatory palm tree shot, we are in Florida!  Though it's -1

 Yes, sir, valet parking at the mall...how much more decadent can you get!

 Yep, it was cold...thank goodness we had a heater!

 Just one detail shot from the well-stocked kitchen, i loved the precision of the knife-arranging - made me seriously want to mess it all up!

 The view of the kitchen from the living room...

 our bedroom

the kichen looking out to the living room, our bedroom on the left, the girls on the right

observations:
- benches of guys patiently and not so patiently waiting for their assorted female companions to extract themselves from the consumer magnets
- piles of empty shoe boxes next to the garbage pails outside all the shoe stores - people buy new footwear and ditch the boxes so they have more room and arm space to carry more stuff - even leaving their old shoes in the boxes and walking away in the new
- being disappointed by the Loft store (a real favorite from previous trips to the U.S. to shop)
- being impressed by the deals at Columbia - i got a gorgeous pair of slippers, a pair of tracky pants and another couple good deals for $70 - amazing since normally you only get one items for that price!
- leaving a store in a bit of a fog and trying to decide which direction to go, getting pushed from behind by a lady who was extremely grumpy and said "don't stop here".  When we retorted, she was royally snippy back and i felt very motivated to give her a good swat on the side of the head for being so snarky. 
And i'm sure that there's more but since i haven't blogged for so long, i'm a bit out of practice and will just keep it short and sweet for tonight (my eyelids are starting to close again too... must be time for bed???!!!!