27 February 2008

It may be raining, but at least it's warm...

We are sitting in our living room, listening to the rain fall and the sound of the waterfall in the pond off the rear, netted balcony. Akeela and the Bee is on TV, and it's nice. Uplifting and mellow.

The girls are knocked out in the bedrooms from swimming and I have just eaten two Skinny Cow sandwiches. We went to Costco this morning and were overwhelmed at the sheer variety and cheapness of products. Then I went to Publix and stared at all the beautiful produce. When we got back to the apartment and started unloading our purchases I couldn't help myself: I had to take pictures of what a morning's shopping here is compared to my daily pull along trolley in Berlin. I took a picture of the inside of a fully stocked refrigerator and when I get a chance to upload it I think I will place it by a picture of what a fully stocked refrigerator in Berlin is like.
In some ways it feels a bit like being at home: I am running my third load of laundry now and I'm listening to the rain. But here the screen is open and the air wafting in with the turning of the ceiling fan. It's 46F and raining in Berlin, 30F and snowing (and snowing and snowing) in Upstate NY and it's 72F and balmy here in Orlando.

I love the place we are staying--- last year I found it by googling aound and we stayed for a 4 day vacation, which is why we are here again. The Sheraton Vistana Resort (and I get no recompense for this plug) is a wonderful family stay. We have a two bedroom (one king bed, the other two twins), two bathroom (one jacuzzi) suite with a full kitchen, washer/dryer, screened balcony with a water view and out the front door is the pool and the playground. It's a 10 minute drive from Disney world, 2 minutes from Prime Outlets and the Publix, a few minutes from Downtown Disney. And it's really cheap. Amusingly enough, I could have booked it using the German Hotels.com for the same price in Euros that I booked it from Expedia.com in dollars.

So after our restless night last night (the girls were up and watching Nemo at 3 am, only to be mad as spit when there was a black out at 4) we went shopping, swimming and just relaxing today.

Tomorrow morning we have breakfast at Cinderella's castle and then we really have no plans for the rest of the week. I expect that we will visit the Animal Kingdom one day and the rest of the time will be spontaneous. It's a beautiful thing.

1 comment:

Diane Mandy said...

Oh, it just sounds splendid. I bet you never thought shopping in an American grocery store would be such a sensory and enjoyable experience!