The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind...

Holiday time! Have looked forward to this for many a month. Away from dull, rainy Ireland for three weeks. Where to? The Sunshine State! Florida! Combined with 5 days of New Orleans the perfect way to forget about stress, houses, rain and other dreary topics...

So here I am, blogging from a hotel room in St. Augustine Beach, Florida. Why am I not on the beach, you ask? A hurricane is visiting Florida too. So without exageration (and I've seen my share of rain in Ireland and The Netherlands) I can tell you that I've never ever seen so much rain in such a short amount of time. Literally, sheets of rain, or rather buckets full sweep by our hotel window. It's horizontal rain too, due to the wind.

So how bad is it? Well, we're stuck. We're not in the center of the thing, so we don't see any rooftops flying by (yet) but we are seeing pieces of the hotel flying by occasionally. The hotel clerk advised us that it was only a tropical storm, so there was nothing to worry about, but still... if pieces larger than our car are being ripped off of the hotel itself, in my book, it's time to at least start blinking rapidly... Basically, time to pay attention and stop blogging.

Anyway, it was interesting to see how an entire state evacuated itself and interesting to see how little information for tourists was given on the different tv-channels. No criticism, I totally agree with that. If you're man enough to travel on your own, you should be able to figure out that if you see horizontal rain, it's time to get yourself indoors. Preferably find yourself an old building. You know, one built with stones and bricks and mortar and stuff. My motto is... if it's been there for 400 years, it might just last another 10 days.

What about those palm trees? Yes, they do rock. They don't roll (yet). What about the surf? Well, I did see some surf dudes yesterday having fun on a skateboard, racing by at 60mph, wind in the back. I guess they are still going south now, unless they've past the eye, then they're on their way back.

Saddest thing I've seen? A couple of pigeons trying to take off. They use the same technique as planes. I think. Head into the wind. Take a long deep breath of fresh air, bend your knees, then push! Open your wings, flap like crazy and keep focused on where it is you're heading... ... In hurricane winds, oh sorry, tropical storm winds, that results in two confused flaps and then being blown away by the wind in the opposite directions at incredible speeds. Together with the rain it must feel as if you're on a skateboard backwards going at 60mph without seeing whereto, while someone with a high pressure water hose is sadistically trying to remove the skin from your face.

Sad, those pigeons...