A state-side vacation - through the eyes of my mate Martin...
Firstly sorry for the late diary this week - as I mentioned last week I am curtrently on holiday in Orlando and I have been rather pre-occupied as you could imagine!
As expected, this week has been a quiet one on the football front regarding Watford, although we did find out that Newcastle, Middlesbrough, West Brom and Scunthorpe with be joining us in the Championship next season.
Like me, I'm sure you'll be looking forward to the Newcastle and Middlesbrough games! Other than that, I just wanna say congrats to Clarke Carlisle and Burnley; I'm still close to Clarke and couldn't be more happy for him - an incredible achievement and hopefully they can follow in the footsteps of both Stoke and Hull in having successful seasons in the Premiership.
One other note, I will be starting a goalkeeping school as of September. For those that want more information then look me up on facebook 'Richard Anthony Lee', feel free to add me and you'll find there's a group dedicated to it.
Anyway as a change this week I've decided to let my mate Martin tell you all about the holiday that we've had so far. He flies back today but I'm heading down the coast to Sarasota then off to Vegas with my dad so I'll be sure to tell you about that next week but for now here's Martin's take on the past week.....
Why fly direct, when you can fly via Minneapolis with a three-hour stopover? Well as it turns out, you should. After 14 hours, 12 gallons of coffee, more fast food than I care to remember and over-thinking about my team, Newcastle's impending relegation, I was standing outside Orlando aiport waiting for Richard to pick me up in our Buick (oh yerrrr, a Buick) hire car.
Richard, being the organised soul that he is had pre-booked two tickets that allowed us to visit the majority of Orlando's fun-filled theme parks as many times as we liked. As a 26-year-old going on `12, the excitment levels were going through the roof. Let's start queuing now!
Now, like most children, I LOVE rollercoasters. We were flipped, spun, dropped whilst stood up, sat down and dangled all over Orlando. One waterpark ride had you standing in a capsule until the floor gave way and dropped you onto an almost vertical slide. Simply awesome!
Incidently,contrary to the photographic evidence at the rollercoaster photograph booths, Richard wasn't suffering from a week-long bout of constipation and I'm not a lapping golden retreiver...this seemed to be our standard issue pose.
Our evenings in Orlando were dominated by the NBA play-offs which we really got into. Through some contacts of Richard were got our hands on two tickets for game four of the Eastern Conference play-offs between the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers. What an incredible night...
This professional sports event, the equivalent of the FA Cup semi-final contained: cheerleaders, a seven-year-old singing the National Anthem, strobe lighting, Over-60-year-old chearleaders, an inflatable bottle of milk flying around the arena, t-shirts shot into the crowd, breakdancing nine-year-olds, free rattles, $5 cups of coffee and shouts of "DEEEEfence, DEEEEfence" & "Go Orlando, Go Orlando".
How different from football. I'm not sure I would want football to play out like this (it took three hours to play 48 minutes of basketball) but the evening had been a throughly enjoyable experience.
Well as I lie in bed writing this diary and wondering how on earth I'm going to get all this shopping packed into my suitcase, I can look back on what an amazing time I've had and forward to seeing my now beloved Minneapolis once again.
Oh, and we went down: Toon, Toon, Black n White Army.
Cheers - Martin