Well, back and refreshed. Back from Florida. I accomplished a major thing on this holiday. This was my first “long-haul” flight. I fly fairly regularly with work – quick small hop flights. Usually Birmingham to Belfast – nothing longer than about 50 minutes. This by itself is a fairly major accomplishment as I don’t like flying. Well, I’m wrong in saying that. I do like flying, it’s falling that I think I’ll hate. So, anyway, this flight was 9 hours. Actually, I quite enjoyed it – but I cannot relax on planes. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t relax, I couldn’t settle to watch a film properly. But, I got there, enjoyed the holiday and I got back. I can’t really ask much more than that can I?
Anyway, holiday was good. Saw the tourist bit of Florida – Disney / Universal and the like. The parks were amazing. Everything I expected and less. Well, some bits exceeded my expectations, others didn’t. The most overwhelming aspect I’ll bring home with me was my amazement about “Gas” (petrol) prices out there. They are currently paying about $3.85 a gallon – which by my maths is about 30p per litre (compared to our £1.30 ish per litre). I don’t mind that they pay less for fuel – but I do find myself disliking the attitude to cars and fuel in general. The impression I get is that people out there are really finding it hard to pay current fuel prices and are resenting doing it – yet I also watched numerous adverts for cars advertising “outstanding” fuel economy of 28-30 MPG – which considering my car here generates about 58-60MPG on average I think is slightly wrong. I blame most of it on the manufacturers. You see a lot of the usual makes out there – BMW, Honda, Toyota, Ford etc. All of which offer great fuel economy in this country but offer terrible fuel economy out there – it’s the “we don’t have to so we won’t” attitude that I find so wrong.
Also, what’s really interesting is the politcal and presidential debate in the states at the moment. It’s ALL about fuel and oil. World watching is getting more and more interesting at the moment. I feel like I should be more involved with politics and activism.
Talking of which – it’s Greenbelt time again at the end of the month. We have tent and are ready to go. It’s always a place to be challenged. A place to meet with friends. A place to watch some good music (and some bad!) and to generally get fired up again to push on through the year. Yes, I’m looking forward to it.
