It's Christmas Day in Orlando and its 75 degrees F, that's 24 degrees C and its meant to be winter!!  We're going to my boss for lunch and we're taking some seafood which we think is traditional Aussie Christmas fare.

The local fish market sells frozen shrimp and the salad also contains palmitos, celery, lettuce and lemon.

We're expecting rain and there's a hurricane alert which is a long way away from Christmas in Australia...

Well we've been in Orlando for 11 wonderful days already and are still living in an apartment in downtown Orlando where we will likely be for the next 6 weeks or so.  Downtown is a fairly quiet place during the day and it livens up at night.  There is an area near us near Orange Ave & Church St where they close off a number of streets at night over the weekend due to the large number of party goers that come to town to let their hair loose.  Wall St is another area where people head to.  We went to a bar in Church St on Friday night which specializes in Absinthe cocktails, it was nice and the bartender was lighting the drinks up...

We are staying right near a lake (Orlando has many lakes) and sometimes we go walking around it.  Over this weekend there has been a market near the lake, mainly with Central American stalls (food/trinkets/etc) and Christmas stuff.  Many houses are decorated with Christmas lights which is great to see although ours is decorated with a Menorah and we've been lighting the candles every night so far.

Last weekend we went down to Miami to visit one of Laura's friends...Miami is a massive metropolis, with old buildings, new buildings and many others under construction - we went to South Beach and Miami Beach, both places where many movies have been filmed.

I started work last Monday at Marriott Vacation Club International - they are developers of the largest timeshare and fractional ownership resorts in the world and are located about 30 mins south of downtown Orlando.  They occupy 3 x 5 storey buildings in an office park and there is lots of parking on site, public transport is non existent.  I am working in the Cost Management team with 4 others and we are part of the A&C (Architecture & Construction) Division which also comprises architects, contract administration, FF&E (Furniture, Fittings @ Equipment) and development managers.  I have been working on a large residence in St Thomas and will soon commence on a large resort in Costa Rica - its very interesting and exciting stuff and the people are great!!

On Saturday we started our search for a condo / townhouse for ourselves, rents are around $800-$1500 per month for a 2 br place and we saw about 10 of them all around town.  We have to find a place by end Jan so we have a bit of time.  Downtown Orlando is expensive and there is not much stock; Winter Park is old, a bit rundown, far from work but has a very cool main street (similar to Double Bay in a way); Baldwin Park is a modern development constructed like buildings in the 1950's with a nice pool and fitness centre but also a bit expensive; Hunter's Creek is suburbia and far from restaurants/bars and with condos around golf courses and lakes; Dr Phillips is close to amusement parks, we saw a place we liked but they're building a Wal-Mart a 1/2 mile down the road meaning tons of traffic in 6 months time.  We are now going to concentrate our looking in the Metrowest area which apparently is also quite nice.

Today we ventured out to the beach, Cocoa Beach (the closest) is 45-60 mins east of Orlando.  It is 10-20 miles south of Cape Canaveral and we could see the rocket launch gantries from the beach.  The beach is good compared to Australia with waves around 1 - 3 feet and there were a number of surfers in the water.  I body surfed a few waves in water which was around 20 degrees C, outside temp was around 23 degrees so quite warm for the middle of winter!!  The weather has been great although summer will definitely be interestingly hot.

After a swim and a beer on the pier 

 (USA seems to be known for its piers) we headed over to the fish market.  The fish market was the equivalent of a fish shop on Bondi Rd or in Bondi Beach although they had peel & eat shrimp (prawns) and some good quality fish (tuna, mahi mahi and marlin).

We had lunch at a nice seafood place which was very reasonably priced and it was a good meal. We'll definitely be heading back to Cocoa over the next few weeks/months and I look forward to catching a wave there when my board arrives.

We still have lots of things to explore around Florida. 

Lunch with my future colleagues was good, we went to a cafe downstairs from our apartment.  Laura and I then followed them to my new office via the I-4 Highway, MVCI have a 4 storey bldg and the cost management division has a small section there.  I will have my own office alongside 2 colleagues and I can pick my own color to paint the walls.

Soon afterwards we drove down to Fort Lauderdale (26 miles north of Miami) to stay with one of Laura's friends.  The drive is about 220 miles and it took us 4.5 hours with the last 50-60 miles in heavy peak hour traffic.  By heavy traffic I mean a 5 lane highway basically being a car park but it was all fine.  Driving on the right side! is going fine although I sometimes get confused , the speed limit varies from 60-75 mph but many people travel up to 100 mph and there are no police to stop anyone, nor are there speed cameras.

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale in time for Shabbat dinner, Laura's friend's sister is religious and the block they live in is 90% Jewish. At dinner there was also a couple of guys from Argentina, there are many Latin people all throughout Florida and many people speak Spanish.

On Sat morning Laura's friend drove us to Miami -

we saw Coconut Grove, Coral Grove, South Beach (lots of Art Deco buildings) and Miami Beach.  Some houses are spectacular!! and there  sooo much construction happening.  We went back home and then later went out to Miami to an art show - 3 streets were closed off for it and many cool galleries were open, you could also get wine, beer or other drinks.  Later we went to a kosher restaurant and i had malawach.

We left Miami this morning and drove back to Orlando, it took about  3 hours and we stopped at the Premium Outlet shopping center along the way.  I bought Van Heusen pants for $25 and Nautica pants & a polo shirt for $60 (I bought my suits for nothing as they don't wear suits at mvci and I don't have any other pants).  I also got a pair of Nikes for $50, lots of cheap things to buy - clothes, shoes, kitchen stuff, etc.

We then went to our local supermarket to get dinner, I went to the gym, we had dinner at home and now watching tv and then work starts tomorrow - very much looking forward to it.

 Orlando is a great place so far.

Today the temp has dropped quite low - around 11 degrees C (its 8am) and will maybe get up to 20, there is a cold front further north and the cold winds are reaching this far south.   Yesterday was warm being shorts and t-shirt weather until the evening. 

We're using Laura's laptop and there is a very very fast cable connection in the room, there are also a few wireless networks that we can log onto.

Today I'm going to join a gym that is on the other side of the lake near where we are living - its $27 for a month and is open 24 hours.

We checked car rental pricing for cars for a month - our one from AVIS was cheaper than the smallest car at Hertz and there is a drop off point near where we live. MVCI had reserved us a car at Hertz but it was too expensive.  Our car rental will be reimbursed to us in a month or two and whatever car you get the insurance is around $36 per day.  Prior to buying a car we will need Florida licenses (insurance will be much lower that way) and we'll likely do the test in our hire car.

Later today we are having lunch with my future colleagues and then driving to Miami to visit Laura's friend, we'll stay till Sunday.

Its a Chevy HHR and is very reasonably priced although insurance is more than the car hire, the link below shows the model and colour

http://www.chevrolet.com/hhr/photogallery/

a real American car...

The place we are in is fully furnished incl. dishwasher, washing machine and dryer and is nice, the the tv has over 200 channels.  Unfortunately we are opposite a building site so was an early wake up today.  Tomorrow the MVCI team I will be in are meeting us for lunch and then I'll follow them to the office to make sure I can get there, apparently its 20 mins drive away.

We left Sydney at 3.15pm yesterday for a big adventure to Orlando.

Sydney's Red Carpet Lounge was nice with lots of food and drink available and was quite full.  Business Class on the upper deck of the place was another world of flying - big seats, comfort and good food.  The service was fairly average though and it was interesting to see how the flight attendants prohibit passengers from using toilets when pilots are using them. 

There was a religious guy sitting in front of us who is the head of the program to Israel that Keren and Eli are leading, he also knows Yoni - small world.  I had a scotch lechaim with him and then slept for 6 hours. The pilot landed the big 747 so smoothly it was incredible.  U.S. customs was easy and we were fingerprinted and photographed.

The Arrivals Lounge in San Fran had showers which were great!! We were then able to continue our journey refreshed.  The flight to Orlando was packed and flight was good.  There were few clouds so we saw a lot of the country - towns, snow capped mountains and trees, etc.

My new colleagues picked us up from the airport and drove us to our temporary home in Downtown Orlando.  After arrival we went for a few drinks at the Eola Wine Company across the road, they have wines from various parts of the world including a few from Australia and Argentina.

Laura's foot swelled up a bit on the plane (after spraining it in Sunday) but is now much better. 

The homeopathic pills we took for preventing jet lag worked a treat as we had no jet lag at all.