10-XI-2006.
Second day of the trip. By midnight we were somewhere in one of them Carolinas. By 2:30 I was dead tired already and we found a place somewhere in SC to sleep for just 35$ - they don't have much else there but lodging.
Didn't really hurry much in the morning, and still made it to near Orlando before 16:00. Started looking for a bank, because a teller's check was required for the downpayment, and Nina was giving us directions via phone while she was tracking banks on Gugao maps :). We narrowly missed a turn at Deytona Beach, so we dropped off the I-4 at Deltona, where she actually led us to the bank, through all the zig-zagging. Deltona is the nearest approximation of a mountain village Florida has.
There was an urgent call of nature for Ricardo, and the nearest place was a McDonalds, and it was a friday, somewhere around 19:00. I drove the U-haul truck around the parking twice, as slowly as I could, while they went in and out. So I had the time to observe and take the details in (for otherwise Mc and I exist in separate universes - last time I went into one was in the previous century, and that was only to get coffee, for they were the only available source of it in the building).
The place was packed. Families with kids. Dressed up. I didn't understand, then Ricardo explained that that's their weekly "taking the family out for dinner". I couldn't imagine that a mcDinner would ever count as "dinner out" and that anyone would dress up for it. Live and learn.
We ended up sleeping at Sandston or summat, because the moron agent was unable to get us through before the scheduled time, which was saturday morning. Didn't have the keys.
How all these motels look the same. That's the idea, I suppose, the customer knows exactly what to expect. The standard just appeared by itself.
Then on that morning we were there some ten minutes ahead of schedule, and the agent appeared, and had a pass to open the gate for us - it's a gated community, there's the lean-on card to be used when entering and leaving, and so we parked the truck in front of the apartment, 2nd floor (american 3rd), and then we took most of the day to unload and haul all the things upstairs. Ricardo was in slightly better shape than three years ago, when we moved their things (fewer than now) from one building to the next, there in Richmond.
When we unloaded everything, we drove to the next, I think, Walmart, to get them stocked for the week at least, because all the transportation they'll have will be that one bicycle. It's a bit weird to ride a movers' truck to get groceries, but then that's what we had, so we managed.
Having paid the truck in advance, I didn't have to wait for monday - called U-haul, they said there's a shop, less than a mile down the street, where I can leave the truck. Nobody there, but doesn't matter, just leave it locked and drop the keys through the slot in the door. During the grocery run I also filled the tank - the deal is that you leave it with as much as it had when you took it, and it was full. On sunday afternoon I took down the bike, loaded it into the truck, drove the truck to U-haul, took out the bike, locked the truck, dropped the keys through the slot in the door, rode the bike back. I didn't forget to carry bunny's picture*, as we called those passes.
I have no clue what did we do all day. Watched movies in the evening, I guess. Go dug out the original version of „You got mail“, from 1932 or so, which IIRC happens in Budapest.
Only on tuesday I performed the long maneuver with local buses - it takes three legs and two hours of a trip to the airport - got to the airplane and flew home, some time in the afternoon.
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* from the old joke about the bear in the bar, „hey bear, what's that in your pocket, your pal the bunny?“ - the bear absentmindedly slaps the pocket, flattens the bunny, then remembers and says „nope... just bunny's picture“.
Mentions: Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gugao, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Ricardo Manuel Bariero (Ricardo), in serbian
29-XII-2007 - 30-VI-2024