I slept in my hostel bunk through the morning until shortly after 10. I awoke and
jumped in the shower. When I came back into the room the fellow who I found
sleeping in my bed the night before introduced himself as René King. I
apologized for having moved his belongings and he apologized to me for the
same. I explained to him that the hostel manager had told me it was O.K. for me
to move his belongings and I obliged. René said I was not to worry since he had
spoken with the hostel manager this morning already and they had double
booked us in the same bed. We talked for quite a while which led us to a
discussion of our past and future travels.
René was from the Netherlands, better known to Americans as Holland, land of
the Dutch, windmills and dikes. He started traveling at the end of February. He
quit his job in Amsterdam because of a broken promise. He was hired by a large
firm to be a salesman but instead of making sales calls in the company car as
promised, he was relegated to the warehouse the entire three months. Finally,
upset with empty promises, he quit and decided to travel the world. One of his
future promises to himself was to never work for someone else again. With this, I
totally agreed.
I told him his story sounded awfully familiar, as I was also traveling to get away
from the lies of management and the oppression of working for a large company.
René’s first stop on his trip was Boston where he visited his younger sister. He
was in Boston the same two weeks as me. He then went on to New York for a
couple of days and then on to Washington D. C. He stayed for a week until this
Thursday, when he took the train to Fort Lauderdale, arriving the same night as
me. It was a strange coincidence that we were in pretty much the same cities at
the same time and then end up being assigned the exact same bed upon our
arrival in Ft. Lauderdale.
René planned to stay in Fort Lauderdale for a only a few days, visit Miami for a
couple of days, and then head on out to visit a friend in Southern California for a
month. After California he planned to travel to Hawaii and then return to Boston
before heading back to Amsterdam.
After chatting a bit we walked to the hostel office to pay for the next nights stay.
We were kindly offered the opportunity to work a couple of hours in exchange for
a night’s stay if we wanted. We both decided that would be a good deal. So after
eating a light breakfast we began our chores! René cleaned the courtyard and
pool area while I raked the leaves behind the hostel and bagged them up.
There were plenty of leaves and this filled up our two hours of duties.
While raking the multitude of leaves I neared the back fence of the hostel which
abutted a large area of undeveloped land filled with giant tropical trees. The
humidity of Florida must be wonderful for plant life, for the vacant land was filled
with lush and green plants as well. As I raked I uncovered what appeared to be a
piece of fruit, one which I had never seen before. It had apparently dropped from
one of the tropical trees whose branches were hanging on my side of the on the
tall, thick block wall which separated the hostel from the compound. I picked the
fruit up and doing the human thing... I of course took a bite. Its flavor was a bit
tart but not too tart that I had to spit it back out. I swallowed the fruit and threw
the remaining piece back over the fence from where it had come.
Upon completing our chores I began searching the papers to see if I could find a
mountain bike for sale. This idea paid off because I found one for about a
hundred dollars less than I saw in the bike shop the night before. I called the
number in the ad to find out more. The seller said that he had hardly used the
bike, so I jotted his address down in my red travel journal and told him I would
come to his house today to look the bike over. But before going to see the bike, I
wished to go to Costco, a warehouse outlet store, to check on the price of
mountain bikes there first. I told René about my plans to take the bus to Costco
that afternoon. He wanted to go with me to look for a shirt even after I warned
him it was going to be a long bus ride.
The bus ride was very LONG! After two transfers and a couple of hours, we
ended up at a shopping mall where we needed to transfer to the last bus, which
would take us to Costco. By now René was worn out from riding buses and he
wanted to catch a bus back to the hostel. Fortunately, there was a bus waiting at
the mall with a more direct route back to the hostel than the one we had just
come on. While he sat on the bus waiting for it to go, I headed to a pay phone
inside the mall to call Costco and find out again what time the store closed. I
found out they would close in just ten minutes at 6 o'clock. There was no chance
I would make it there in ten minutes. So, I headed out of the mall and to my
surprise René’s bus had not yet left. I quickly ran to catch his bus and we headed
back to the hostel together.
An hour later the bus dropped us off near the International Bike shop, the shop I
went into last night to look for a bike. On our way back to the hostel it began to
pour down rain, a warm tropical, heavy kind of rain, so we ducked into a
restaurant and treated ourselves to a nice hot meal while we waited for the
downpour to stop.
After eating we headed back to the hostel and made plans for the coming days.
We decided we'd go together to Key West for a day, choosing Tuesday as the
best day. We would rent a car and stay late into the night for the Sunset
Festival, a big celebration they have each night to watch the sun go down in the
Gulf of Mexico. I also wanted to visit Tim, the brother of Jess, a coworker and
friend of mine from General Dynamics in San Diego. Tim had recently purchased
a Bed and Breakfast in Key West, which I was interested in visiting.
After making our plans we headed out to top the night off with a beer. René was
not happy with the bar he went to last night, a place called ‘The Candy Store’.
So, I took him to ‘The Parrot Club’, the place I went to the previous night just a
few blocks from the hostel.
While at the Parrot Club, I had the opportunity to come to the aid of a young lady
on crutches, who had lost her earring. She showed me the matching earring and
she told me she had dropped the lost one near her blonde sister who she
pointed for me was over there. I headed through the crowd and found her sister.
I then looked down and found the earring. I said hello to her sister but she was
too busy bringing down a few rude guys to take any notice of me. She didn’t
appear to be too happy with the guys. So I headed back to the girl on crutches
and gave her the earring which delighted her to no end.
I introduced myself and René and she introduced herself as Misha. René took a
immediate interest in her and they talked the rest of the time. After our second
beer, René and I headed back to the hostel but not without René getting Misha’s
parents phone number and a tentative date with her for tomorrow which
happened to be Saint Patrick’s Day.
We bedded down at about two in the morning. Once again I listened to music to
fall asleep and entered the land of sweet dreams. Little did I know that tomorrow I
wouldn’t be awakening from my dreams but instead I would begin to live in them,
live in them not for a day but for weeks to come.
jumped in the shower. When I came back into the room the fellow who I found
sleeping in my bed the night before introduced himself as René King. I
apologized for having moved his belongings and he apologized to me for the
same. I explained to him that the hostel manager had told me it was O.K. for me
to move his belongings and I obliged. René said I was not to worry since he had
spoken with the hostel manager this morning already and they had double
booked us in the same bed. We talked for quite a while which led us to a
discussion of our past and future travels.
René was from the Netherlands, better known to Americans as Holland, land of
the Dutch, windmills and dikes. He started traveling at the end of February. He
quit his job in Amsterdam because of a broken promise. He was hired by a large
firm to be a salesman but instead of making sales calls in the company car as
promised, he was relegated to the warehouse the entire three months. Finally,
upset with empty promises, he quit and decided to travel the world. One of his
future promises to himself was to never work for someone else again. With this, I
totally agreed.
I told him his story sounded awfully familiar, as I was also traveling to get away
from the lies of management and the oppression of working for a large company.
René’s first stop on his trip was Boston where he visited his younger sister. He
was in Boston the same two weeks as me. He then went on to New York for a
couple of days and then on to Washington D. C. He stayed for a week until this
Thursday, when he took the train to Fort Lauderdale, arriving the same night as
me. It was a strange coincidence that we were in pretty much the same cities at
the same time and then end up being assigned the exact same bed upon our
arrival in Ft. Lauderdale.
René planned to stay in Fort Lauderdale for a only a few days, visit Miami for a
couple of days, and then head on out to visit a friend in Southern California for a
month. After California he planned to travel to Hawaii and then return to Boston
before heading back to Amsterdam.
After chatting a bit we walked to the hostel office to pay for the next nights stay.
We were kindly offered the opportunity to work a couple of hours in exchange for
a night’s stay if we wanted. We both decided that would be a good deal. So after
eating a light breakfast we began our chores! René cleaned the courtyard and
pool area while I raked the leaves behind the hostel and bagged them up.
There were plenty of leaves and this filled up our two hours of duties.
While raking the multitude of leaves I neared the back fence of the hostel which
abutted a large area of undeveloped land filled with giant tropical trees. The
humidity of Florida must be wonderful for plant life, for the vacant land was filled
with lush and green plants as well. As I raked I uncovered what appeared to be a
piece of fruit, one which I had never seen before. It had apparently dropped from
one of the tropical trees whose branches were hanging on my side of the on the
tall, thick block wall which separated the hostel from the compound. I picked the
fruit up and doing the human thing... I of course took a bite. Its flavor was a bit
tart but not too tart that I had to spit it back out. I swallowed the fruit and threw
the remaining piece back over the fence from where it had come.
Upon completing our chores I began searching the papers to see if I could find a
mountain bike for sale. This idea paid off because I found one for about a
hundred dollars less than I saw in the bike shop the night before. I called the
number in the ad to find out more. The seller said that he had hardly used the
bike, so I jotted his address down in my red travel journal and told him I would
come to his house today to look the bike over. But before going to see the bike, I
wished to go to Costco, a warehouse outlet store, to check on the price of
mountain bikes there first. I told René about my plans to take the bus to Costco
that afternoon. He wanted to go with me to look for a shirt even after I warned
him it was going to be a long bus ride.
The bus ride was very LONG! After two transfers and a couple of hours, we
ended up at a shopping mall where we needed to transfer to the last bus, which
would take us to Costco. By now René was worn out from riding buses and he
wanted to catch a bus back to the hostel. Fortunately, there was a bus waiting at
the mall with a more direct route back to the hostel than the one we had just
come on. While he sat on the bus waiting for it to go, I headed to a pay phone
inside the mall to call Costco and find out again what time the store closed. I
found out they would close in just ten minutes at 6 o'clock. There was no chance
I would make it there in ten minutes. So, I headed out of the mall and to my
surprise René’s bus had not yet left. I quickly ran to catch his bus and we headed
back to the hostel together.
An hour later the bus dropped us off near the International Bike shop, the shop I
went into last night to look for a bike. On our way back to the hostel it began to
pour down rain, a warm tropical, heavy kind of rain, so we ducked into a
restaurant and treated ourselves to a nice hot meal while we waited for the
downpour to stop.
After eating we headed back to the hostel and made plans for the coming days.
We decided we'd go together to Key West for a day, choosing Tuesday as the
best day. We would rent a car and stay late into the night for the Sunset
Festival, a big celebration they have each night to watch the sun go down in the
Gulf of Mexico. I also wanted to visit Tim, the brother of Jess, a coworker and
friend of mine from General Dynamics in San Diego. Tim had recently purchased
a Bed and Breakfast in Key West, which I was interested in visiting.
After making our plans we headed out to top the night off with a beer. René was
not happy with the bar he went to last night, a place called ‘The Candy Store’.
So, I took him to ‘The Parrot Club’, the place I went to the previous night just a
few blocks from the hostel.
While at the Parrot Club, I had the opportunity to come to the aid of a young lady
on crutches, who had lost her earring. She showed me the matching earring and
she told me she had dropped the lost one near her blonde sister who she
pointed for me was over there. I headed through the crowd and found her sister.
I then looked down and found the earring. I said hello to her sister but she was
too busy bringing down a few rude guys to take any notice of me. She didn’t
appear to be too happy with the guys. So I headed back to the girl on crutches
and gave her the earring which delighted her to no end.
I introduced myself and René and she introduced herself as Misha. René took a
immediate interest in her and they talked the rest of the time. After our second
beer, René and I headed back to the hostel but not without René getting Misha’s
parents phone number and a tentative date with her for tomorrow which
happened to be Saint Patrick’s Day.
We bedded down at about two in the morning. Once again I listened to music to
fall asleep and entered the land of sweet dreams. Little did I know that tomorrow I
wouldn’t be awakening from my dreams but instead I would begin to live in them,
live in them not for a day but for weeks to come.
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| 2.2-1 The First Dream Day Saturday Morning until Saturday Night March 16th, 1991 |
The Parrot Club,
Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, USA
Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, USA
World Turned Upside Down
Music - Dreams by
The Cranberries
The Cranberries