Cruise

Went on a 5-day cruise this past week, and when I feel I can muster up the energy, I'm fairly certain I can post a typical JL4 sarcastic blog about it. It was indeed great fun and a wonderful trip.

First stop was Key West...the city, not the string of islands known as "The Keys". The ocean surrounding the Keys themselves is breathtaking, as I'm sure the islands away from the main poulation are as well. We didn't get to see any of the beautiful stuff though...we went to the city.

Key West is described as "historic", "quaint", and "a breath of fresh air away from modernism".
Hmmmm. The adjective I would have used is "dump".

There is the main drag (pun definitely intended for those of you who get the joke) called Duval Street. It has approximately 350 T-shirt stores, 280 phony jewelry stores, and 150 bong and water pipe stores. The truly wealthy and prosperous locals own the three-tiered T-shirt/jewelry/bong combination stores, clearly a cut above the other single-faceted establishments. And speaking of the locals...evidently having a job is waaaaaaay down the priority list, and I'm not talking retirees here. Thousands between the ages of 30 and 55 just walk the streets every day, a can of cold beer in their hand at 10 am on a Tuesday, looking as if they'd just left the South Florida bonging festival, which of course they probably just had. No one shaves, washes their hair, wears clean clothing, or owns shoes. They also are clearly perturbed at the cruise ship tourists being there. Little do they know their disdain for our presence is matched by our will to get back on the boat after about 30 minutes of walking their dingy streets.

As you walk down Duval Street and several of the side-streets, you're struck by three very distinct things:

1) About every 12th house or hotel is a beautifully restored and maintained bungalow in the best Key West traditions. These are what you see in the brochures.

2) The 11 structures that follow would make people in the South Bronx mutter, "Say Whaaa? I ain't not gonna live in that rat trap...nah ahhh....who you be bullshittin with dat $650,000.00 price tag for a 700 sq ft hurricane speed bump?"

3) Sweeping and otherwise cleaning the streets is apparently illegal in Key West. To be fair, there is no one to sweep the streets since the only people employed are working the T-shirt stores or selling you the newest version of a hash pipe. The majority of the potential work force is wandering around town drinking a Coors silver bullet and awaiting their next chance to twist one up.

In closing, I wanted to point out one other thing. In EVERY store, there was a variety of underwear for sale. All the male underwear had some sort of FART joke printed on the backside, while the female undies reflected what the other person was presumably supposed to do with what lay underneath them. Classy.

"Historic", "quaint", and "a breath of fresh air away from modernism". Ummm, not quite. To be honest, when you reside at a level beneath Wal-Mart and Spencers Gifts by a large margin, the quaintness kinda goes out the window.

Must be the constant farting.