St. Augustine lighthouse

One of my dreams came true- we got to visit a lighthouse and went all the way up

As you see- there were alot of steps...

We could get all the way up here and have a great view over the city and the ocean. It is just great to be so high and feel the wind through your hair and enjoy the great scenery!

One last view on the lighthouse...

St. Augustine

Wednesday we drove up to St. Augustine. St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States and on the Atlantic Coast in Florida. It used to be a Spanish settlement and there is still a spanish quarter with lots of colonial buildings.

There also is a fort- built to keep the English people out of town. It worked pretty well since you really have the idea you're in a Mediteranean city instead of an American town.

What I really liked here was that they had lots of little stores, bakeries and cafees.

Nice little forgetten places where also to be found in St. Augustine, just had to pay attention to the surroundings.

Gainesville

On Tuesday we drove up to Gainesville again to spend a couple of days with TJ. We had dinner at a great pizza place that had a junk museum as well:)

It was some sort of hippie place, but the food was great!! The van you see was part of the restaurant, but we got somewhere else to sit, too bad!

Seeing TJ of course means playing risk! Here TJ pondering about his next move...

Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico

Tonight we went to see the sun sink in the gulf of Mexico. Here we just got on the beach, we have to be quick, it goes so fast here...!

It looked like it was going to be cloudy, but the clouds stayed away so that we could see the sun sink in the water

Behind us a thunderstorm was building up.

Florida Aquarium

This afternoon we went to the Florida Aquarium, and as you see it was really beautiful!

A jellyfish, safe behind glass where it can't do any harm:) I have some bad memories of jellyfish, but this was just fun to watch, actually they are pretty cool!

A lionfish in a beautiful scenery

A sea ananome- isn't it gorgeous? It feels really weird, though:) They live in really cold, cold water!

Flying to Florida!

Here just crossed the Irish sea and above the coast of Ireland.

The first stop I had was in Newark, New Jersey- close to New York. Everything went very smooth here, at first. No problems with customs and rechecking my luggage. I still had to wait 2,5 hours till my next flight. THe plane even came on time and we were all boarded and taxiing to the runway to take off. But then suddenly they closed everything and we were not allowed to leave because of bad weather conditions somewhere south. So we ended up waiting for more than 2 hours before we finally could take off.... This is view on the city out of the plane.

Here view on the clouds out of the plane- finally on our way to Tampa!

For the first time I would fly into Tampa when it would be light, still. But no... but I did see a beautiful sunset, so that made up for alot:)

Jan-Willem gone for 6 months

Almost a month ago already I got a phonecall from my brother-'" if you want to see me before I leave for 6 months, you have to come home now because I am flying to Miami tomorrow and to Trinidad the day after" as you can imagine that was sort of shocking and hectic! We already knew for awhile that he had to go for an internship, he is doing nautical college, so had to do an internship as navigator on a ship. But this came really unexpected, but really exciting for him of course. Less enthusiastic was Liesanne, his girlfriend (on the picture here)

One last picture with my little brother... If things go like planned I won't see him till next May. I will be gone when he gets home. Really strange feeling that my brother is so far away right now. We heard from him last weekend, then he was in Houston, now he is probably sailing in the direction of Angola (Africa)

There he goes.... on his way to Miami