I’ve lived in NYC all my life, have been to some pretty rough sections of every single borough, but it took a trip to Florida for me to finally be a victim of gun violence.
Now, before you get all weepy and concerned for my health, it was just a BB gun. Much less damage, but probably more infuriating.
Last weekend I went to do some very touristy stuff with my fiancee down in Orlando. We did the whole Universal Studios/I-Drive thing, which is weird because we’re the kind of people that actually like to know the places we’re visiting and go to the places locals go, and not do the bullshit stuff that tourists do. No complaints with Universal and Citywalk, though- it was good to be able to turn our brains off for a few days and just relax.
Anyway, the story. I was walking with my girl back to our hotel from Universal Studios late the last night we were there. She was on the left near the street, I was on the right. Along the walk I heard a strange *pop!* sound and felt something hit the back of my left arm and sting for a second. Wasn’t sure what the hell it was at first, till I saw a car drive by right after. Yep, I’d been shot. Thankfully I didn’t give them the benefit of the doubt and react like crazy right there, but as soon as they were out of sight I checked my back cause I thought it might’ve been a paintball. No paint, thankfully, so I knew it must’ve been a BB. I didn’t tell my girl for the entire walk because I didn’t want to freak her out… it was very late at night, and we still had another good 10 minutes to walk. So instead I just waited for the car to come back around for another pass. It’s a good thing the pussies didn’t, because I probably would have been arrested for kicking out their windows and throttling the (probably 16-year old) kids inside. I don’t even know how pissed I would have been if they had hit my girl instead of me… I was already seeing red and ready to go into berzerker mode.
Getting back to the hotel showed me that I was right- I had a little welt around the area where I got hit, but thankfully it didn’t hurt, of course, since it was just a bb.
But yeah, it was a weird end to our last night there.
Other things I learned about Orlando-
– No one knows how to give directions. “Across the street” = “6 blocks away”, and “make a left” = “make a right and then a left”, apparently.
– Public transportation is garbage.
– They hate pedestrians. There were two (TWO!) sidewalks that we walked on that ended, abruptly. I’m talking walking alongside a road for a while and then seeing it end, with nothing beyond it but grass and trees. What the fuck the point of having a half a sidewalk there is, I don’t know, but I’m leaning towards thinking that it’s just another way to mess with tourists.
– The food is garbage as well. The best meal we had was at the Enchanted Oak restaurant in Islands of Adventure. I’m not joking- if you go there, grab the chicken or the turkey leg… it was delicious. Just never mind that the entire area is done up like a Renaissance Fair.
– If Citywalk weren’t crawling with tourists, it’d be the best place in the world. Gotta love any place that lets you walk around with a beer in your hand.
– That new Simpsons ride? Amazing. Might even be worth the hour wait.
Course, take into consideration that we didn’t visit the real areas, or Downtown (which we’d have to go North to visit?), just the tourist traps. Next time…