Amusement Alley

Ahh, Orlando… more theme parks per square mile than New York has bodegas.

I spent the last couple of years working for ABC News, which, as most of you probably know, is owned by Disney. It didn’t have much effect on the general work day, but a few times a year – usually about the time Gwen was getting a generous bonus – I’d get an envelope in the mail with a formulated thank you letter and a couple complimentary passes to Disney theme parks. Great.

I pawned a couple of these off on friends who lived in Florida but for the most part the passes just sat in a desk drawer. Until now! I may have left Mickey’s family but I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to enjoy a complimentary day of waiting in lines while we were in Orlando. I mean, c’mon… it’s free.

Tampa: A Brave New (Low-Cost) World

I’m from Massachusetts, which is located in New England, so by default I have this inexplicable disdain for all things southern. We northerners think of ourselves as superior to our neighbors to the south, and we also fear southerners for their guns and confederate flags and pickup trucks. To a Yankee like me, the South is truly a terrifying and exotic place.

But then there’s Florida, a state which confuses northerners (myself included) because it’s not only the southern-most state in the US – and likewise home to numerous toothless hillbillies – but it’s also a huge colony for Octogenarians from New Jersey, as well as Cubans, who probably intended to move to New York but Florida turned out to be closer and more convenient so they just stayed. It’s also a major tourist destination for Northerners, and (since the tourists come for the weather and the theme parks and not to celebrate southern cultural achievements) the state does a good job of hiding the hillbillies and taming their drawls, giving many the impression that they’re not in the South at all, but rather in an unusually warm part of Long Island.