Sunday May 18 2008
We left Asheville at noon because my brother ran a 10 K on the Biltmore grounds in the morning and I had to do some nannying until he got back.
We arrived in Orlando at 8PM after 9 hour drive from Asheville…the drive was pretty easy and actually relaxing we stopped at Cracker Barrel and picked up a book on CD …they are $3.95 for a whole week and then you can drop them off at any Cracker Barrel in the country.
We arrived at our first hotel which was $30.00 a night…and I have one word to describe it SCARY. I didn’t want o be a snob or a baby about it so I played it cool.
Heres me looking a little worried
We checked in and made our plan for the next day we had a big day planned:
Bens google maps everything for the next day
-tour 3 apartments
-tour Ben’s law school
-my orientation at the Valencia campus in Kissimmee
I hardly slept the whole night…the hotel was just kind of icky…I refused to a shower there.
Monday May 19 2008
We were up and at em early. We first toured two apartments in East Orlando.
The first place was kind of in a not so great area and we were not a fan of the pushy staff.
The second place was really nice, the staff was friendly and it had great amenities .But it was a little out of our price range for a 1 bedroom.
We had a quick lunch in Downtown Orlando and walked around a bit.
It was weird to think we would be living here in 2 months.
After Downtown we headed over to Ben’s school for a tour…he was really impressed with the faculty and the intimacy of the school.
The school suggested we look at an apartment nearby where many of the students lived…so we drove over. The staff there was great and the apartment was beautiful…but it completely blew our budget…Ben laughed when we got back in the car and said “Im not a lawyer yet” .
After that we headed back to the creepy hotel....so I could get all my stuff for the orientation and change my shoes (why did I think I should wear heels to look at apartments?)
We were off again …my orientation was about 30 minutes away from the hotel we were staying at…of course there were many WDW exits I had to ignore. My orientation was great and we decided to stop by the Mall of the Millennia for dinner. It was our first time there and we were impresses as far as malls go it was pretty awesome. We ate at the California Pizza Kitchen which was really yummy.
We headed back to out hotel and realized that our hotel was pretty much across the street from a prison…can it get any worse …oh yes it can!
the view of the prison from our hotel
That night I was so tired I actually drifted to sleep until at 2 AM there was a huge fight in the hallways…yelling, screaming, doors slamming, crying…it was really crazy I had to put all the lights on and wake Ben up. He told me to try to get back to sleep but there was no way…thank goodness we were checking into the Pop Century tomorrow.
Tuesday May 20, 2008
The next morning I was a littlie grumpy from our lack of sleep but was actually excited to check out of this terrible horrible no good very bad hotel.
We had another apartment to look at this morning in Winter Park the area we really wanted to live in. The apartment was really nice and in our price range…it actually allowed for us to get a two bedroom which would be great for Ben to study.
After we saw it we pretty much knew this would be our pick…but we decided to discuss it over a Dunkin Donut breakfast…all great decisions should be made over DD’s.
The conversation went pretty much like this..
Ben: So….
Maria: let’s get it…
So after driving around the cute winter park area we were sold and went in and put a deposit down for an apartment for August.
After all the business was taken care of it was time for the leisure part of our trip….
heres a hitchiker in the car...must know we re going to WDW!!