Jolanda's Birthday in St. Arrrrr!
-gustine

This week was Homecoming Week at UF, so what's a harried grad student to do? Run! Get out of town! Aieeeeee! It was also—as is the case with these annual events—Jolanda's birthday. She decided that she wanted to go to St. Augustine. On Saturday, we all rose at the crack of 9:30 and piled into her car. At first, we thought it would just be the ladies—Jolanda, Andretta, Darise,....Lanolin,...and myself. Fortunately, though, we were joined by the guys—Marlin and Kenyon. Yea! Here we are at St. Augustine Beach where we all met up. We took a long walk up and down the beach with only the pier to orient us. (Also, I should note that we were incredibly lucky to get a picture of Marlin, as these were taken with his camera, and he was our designated picture-taker throughout.) After the beach, we went to the A1A Brewery for lunch, but, regrettably, they'd lost power and couldn't serve lunch. Something to do with construction on the old Bridge of Lions maybe. Instead, we went to the Mayan Cafe and then got some dessert at at fantastic chocolate shop next door. Then, we walked down to the old fort which cost $6 to tour. We got about $6 of entertainment pretty quickly as it was time for them to fire the cannon, and by "them," I mean fake troops. The cannon-firing was pretty cool and loud, but they didn't use an actual cannon ball. I'm thinking that, if they had, I would have paid around $10. And, then, if they'd aimed well enough to take out one of the boats, I'd have paid $20. I learned something pretty important from this experience: I think I want to wear a costume in my chosen profession...After the fort, we went down to St. George Street to do some shopping. We happened upon a fantastic store with shirts and cool purses. I got a little Christmas shopping done and bought a new purse for myself. We also pretty-much cemented the fact that Andretta wants to be a pirate for Halloween. Personally, I really need to get a handle on my own costume because I'll use it as my new blog picture. How to top Courtney Love? Enquiring minds want to know. Anyway, we got home at around 6 or so, and let me tell you I got a great night's sleep after all that walking.