The most interesting part of this entry I guess is that it opened an ongoing chapter in my life. Since becoming a member of a Jamaican chat forum in 2003, I guess it was inevitable that I would eventually develop an online crush on a male member at some point over the years. Well it happened pretty much in the first few days of 2005, and he was a guy named Frederick who lived in Orlando, Florida....remember I live in Calgary, Canada.
After much flirting online, the phone calls started. It was fun and went on for a couple months. This was not unusual for me having phone calls with forum friends, I have several of them, male and female. But with this guy we felt compelled to meet each other to see if we'd click. So in February of 2005 I was on my way to Orlando. The bonus of this trip is that 3 other girls from our forum lived in Orlando so I could kill a bunch of birds with one stone. I should mention as well that the 3 girls had already met the guy a few times in person, all compliments of our forum. I remember when they met they posted pictures and stories online of the fun they had. This totally looked like something I wanted to do, and my mission became to meet as many forum friends as possible/affordable.
I bought myself an airfare/hotel package online and February 7, 2005 and my plane was touching down in Orlando. I have to admit my nerves TOTALLY had the better of me that I was meeting a guy I'd only known by phone calls and forum flirting. But worst case scenario, we wouldn't click and I'd still meet the girls and enjoy Orlando for 5 days. This was worse than a blind date because I paid a lot of money to get there! Only at least I knew what he looked and sounded like.
I get off my plane, locate my luggage and head out the airport doors to look for my ride...which was him. Soon enough his car that he'd described to me, pulled over as I nervously stood there waiting for him to get out. LOL I think I was planning in my head what excuses I could come up with just in case! But when he got out of his car, aside from being shorter than I imagined, he was the same person I thought he'd be. This began a great time in Orlando, it was hot and sunny when I just left winter back home, and anywhere where I can see the ocean is a great place.
My first day in Orlando I spent alone since Frederick had to work. I slept in long and hard that day from flying the night before. Not that its an overly long flight, just that travel knocks me out. The first thing I did when I woke up was go outside. I didn't even get dressed, I just headed out the door into the parking lot in my pajamas. I wanted to test out some warm southern weather. To my surprise, I guess they do have a little bit of winter in Florida because it wasn't as hot as I hoped it would be. BUT it still wasn't February in Canada weather. Good enough for me!
After I was showered and dressed I decided to just go out and walk. My hotel was in close proximity to shopping and food so I headed up the street until I saw a souvenir shop. I hate souvenirs but I went inside anyways. I picked up a few funky trinkets for my son and my mom and basically just browsed. I was now getting hungry so I kept walking up the street til some form of food struck me...mmmmm Pizza Hut. It was weird dining alone in Pizza Hut, every time I eat there I'm with my son.
Back at the hotel room now, I decided to get in touch with the 3 girls from the forum; Althea, Joy and Keisha, because we'd all be meeting up later that night. When Frederick got off work the 2 of us went for dinner and acted all goofy about meeting. I had never done something this weird before.....well unless you consider flying to Jamaica and staying with a police officer I barely knew, NORMAL! Okay so I'm spontaneous! Needless to say dinner was good, we talked a lot and then decided we should get to Althea's house and get this link-up started!
Frederick had already met and been to Althea's house so he knew exactly where to go. Her and I had talked on the phone a few times as well as being friends on the forum so it would be cool meeting her I thought. We arrive at her house, knock on the door and Frederick starts calling out "IMMIGRATION MAAM...open up!". I laughed so hard and was still laughing when she opened the door. It was really neat to see her in real life, before I'd only seen pictures. She invited us inside while she finished getting ready. To this day I kick myself that I wasn't the trigger-happy camera girl then that I am today. I so wish I'd taken more pictures!
We all chatted a while and the plan was for Frederick to leave since he had to work a graveyard shift that night. While he worked Althea and I would drive the 60 minutes to Joy's place and hang out. Keisha wasn't able to make it which broke my heart, I really wanted to meet her. So we hit the road, the whole while we drove her and I mostly talked about funny stuff on our forum, the relationships we've all formed, etc. Ironically while we drove, her cell phone rang and it was another guy from our forum calling her. I guess they'd chatted on the phone before too.
We arrived at Joy's house, I was really looking forward to meeting her too. She was a feisty little fireball on our forum and I wanted to see what she was like in real life. To my surprise when she answered her door she's this tiny little thing standing there. Maybe 5 foot nothing, mother of 3, cute, chatty and fun. Us 3 girls sat in her living room til 3AM the next morning talking and laughing so hard about funny stuff on the forum. The funniest part of it all is that these girls are Jamaican and if you know Jamaican females they are ridiculously funny, especially when they slip from english to Patois and start telling stories. Needless to say we had a blast that night and I didn't get dropped off at my hotel til well after 4AM.
The following day I wanted to see the beach so Frederick agreed to take me to Daytona and spend the day. The drive was really nice, and not super long. We parked and just walked up the beach and back down the boardwalk. None of the shops were open though, that was disappointing. As the sun was going down it really got chilly and this surprised me. So I guess that meant it was time to head back to the hotel. We had to get ready to go out later that night with Althea again. Frederick, Althea and I were going to go downtown Orlando and hit a nightclub. The club was a lot of fun that night. For the most part Frederick did his own thing and Althea and I danced, met people and had a great old time.
The time came for me to leave Orlando and I was really glad I made this first trip of many to meet forum friends. The girls were a blast, Frederick and I really clicked, and I had decided I'd return again soon.
Now that I had this one forum trip under my belt I decided I really wanted to keep doing this sort of thing and meet more of them. Some people think cyber-life is really surface and fake but I beg to differ on that concept. If you keep reading my blogs you will probably end up agreeing with me. To this day I still talk to the same people online all the time and keep making it my mission to meet more of them.
Stay tuned...........
