Got into town Thursday night with Ope Adeoye. It was a very tiring ride on Delta, 12 hrs 42 mins, direct flight from Lagos to Atlanta. The ride however from Atlanta to Orlando International took 5mins (I slept for the 1.5hrs and that's how long it felt). I succumbed to the lure of duty free and got a Titinium plated Skagen and a new reading glass to replace the two broken items I carry around at the moment, damaging my "keep it low" resolve on this trip, we're really trying to manage our very low budget for 12 days.
Touchdown was great and we started feeling the Naira-meets-dollars saga immediately. We paid $50 for a ride to the Marriot villages Hotel in a long cab, the journey was less that 25 minutes! I can't forget that's N6, 000 Naija money, plus I got a N1,000 ride for a longer distance same day in Lagos.
At the hotel next, it's $140 (forget the .99cents that is ever present in UK and US) for the night and we're definitely shopping for something not 4.5 star in the morning.
The next set of issues to be breasted includes getting a SIM and adapters for the laptops. You won't dare roam or you'll accumulate bills in the range of N10k in 2 days. As for the adapters, remember the Yankee 120volts issues? luckily the HP machines nowadays support both voltages but the pins we have can't fit the walls, so we quickly use up the remaining battery life on my system, Naija NEPA don show Ope and I was lucky to have an inverter.
The rooms are however very cosy and sleep up for grabs.
Friday 3am - Friday 11pm
Got a smaller hotel today, just for the weekend and would probably be back at the Marriot Monday for the business of software :). Took a walk to Orlando premium outlets and only got a KODAK easyshare camera, now Naija police are going to get popular from my newly acquired Paparazzi skills. Black friday sales are slated for this weekend so we're taking our time not to overshop. Everybody is waiting for the weekend sales to get a great deal.
Ope got a phone, a net 10 for $30 and we bought a call card for $10. Now you can't call Naija directly from an At&T Net 10 without a call card, but beware of those cards. The one we got lasted less than 4minutes, approx 2 minutes talking to family, approx 2 minutes phone ringing without response burned out the credits. Horrible. Now we've given friends the line and we only get in-bound calls, unless it's a life threatening situation.
Saturday 4am
Notice I've been getting up really early, either my system is still running Naija time or I'm renewed by the scenery. Orlando is beautiful, day and night. We missed the opening of the weekend sales, slept off early but maybe it's not such a bad thing. The news have it that a Walmart attendant was trampled to death because of the teaming crowd waiting to start the sales weekend and the outlet (in New York) had to be closed for hours. A woman reported she was injured in the rush but waited till she finished shopping before going to the police!
So much for the yanks, we're getting ready for breakfast now.
1 comment:
Lol! Abeg o...these Naija police need small small pictures o. Please make sure you get their badges
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