Orlando Magic Baby!

Taking a page out of Hesselblogger's book here: not blogging about a vacation until a couple weeks after. Just playin', Hesselblogger is great! ;)

A couple weekends ago I went to visit my buddy Chris in Orlando who you might remember from my "Lindy's burger challenge" blog last year.  Chris is living in Orlando working for THE MAGIC (w00t w00t!), but he's also getting his MBA at UCF (University of Central Florida).  While I was there, Chris hooked me up with tickets to two Magic home games: vs New Orleans and vs Los Angeles.  The Orlando Magic is one of my favorite teams in the NBA.  I'm a huge Dwight Howard fan and you know my feelings towards Gilbert Arenas. :) Anyway, both games were awesome although they lost to the Hornets by 6 in a close one.  For the Lakers game, we had great seats in the lower level as you can see in the picture below.

The NBA games were the highlight of the trip, but of course when I'm in a new city, I try my best to check out a little of the culture in terms of food, lifestyle, and nightlife.  Since Chris goes to UCF, we hit up their recreation center one of the days and played some pickup basketball.  If you didn't already know, there's a much stronger population of African Americans in Orlando, far more than in Arizona.  The games we played were pretty competitive since the competition was naturally more athletic.  Coincidentally enough, I defended a player who reminded me a lot of Gilbert Arenas...similar physique and style of play, hah.

I didn't make it a trip to see any of the famous theme parks (I've done it before when I was a kid).  One of the places we checked out was the Mall at Millenia, which was really close to where Arian lives.  Arian is one of Nate's friends who just recently moved to Orlando.  She had literally been there for a week before I made it out there, lol.  Nonetheless, the Mall at Millenia was very nice and was very similar to that of Fashion Square in Scottsdale: huge, multiple levels, and very classy retail stores.  I didn't do any shopping, but we did check out Blue Martini and DAMN, those bartenders and servers are HOT! :D

The major area for nightlife in Orlando consists of a whole block of bars and restaurants/eateries. Wall St has about 8 bars all in the same plaza and each bar has a different theme and style.  Church St is a little more south and has more restaurants with bars in them.  We didn't stay in any bar for very long since there were so many to see and we were only going to be on Wall/Church St for one night.  This block is very similar to 4th ave in Tucson or Mill Ave in Tempe.  Although the going out crowd was slightly older...then again, I am use to the younger, college crowds around the bars I go to in Arizona.

Finally, the food in Orlando was pretty solid.  I wouldn't say there's anything overly special, but a few cool things I had were Mofungo at Gustave (Puerto Rican food) and Oxtail stew at Mark's Caribbean.  As for the trip, I'm definitely glad I was able to experience such great Magic games and I thank Chris for making it all happen for me  - a motto I in turn taught him. :) However, I probably won't be going back to Orlando for a while since it is a pretty normal city and Chris doesn't plan to be there past this coming December.

As for my next planned trip?  Well, there is a lot of talk about going to Vegas for March Madness and St. Patty's Day weekend, but flights and hotels are heavily booked and more expensive than usual.  I doubt that I'm gonna go, but I've made unreasonable/impromptu trips happen before so you never know.  The only sure trip I have coming up is Washington DC in April to visit Mike.  Something I'm really looking forward to since Chris, Nate, and Ben are both planning on being there at the same time, so we'll have a nice little entourage going when I'm there! :D