Orlando

I headed to sunny Orlando this past weekend to meet Rich. He was down there to present a poster "Multiple Time Scale Numerical Methods for Oscillatory ODE" for the SIAM Conference on Computational Science. I left from the Allentown, PA airport. It was a cheap fair (~$150 to Orlando) and mostly easy to get too, even though it involved driving and long term parking. We both got down there on Friday night and stayed at the Disney Coronado Spring Resort, and Tapan and Amy picked us up for dinner at a local Giordano's for dinner after the conference welcome reception. The next day, Amy picked me up again and we went back to Downtown Orlando to walk around Lake Eola. We got lunch from a stand by the lake and then gelato from iL GelatOne. I had the pineapple mango with coconut. Amy had the pineapple mango with cream. It made me realize how much I missed having good gelato. (Hooray for the Bent Spoon in Princeton!)

After a mixup with the bus shuttle company, we went and picked Rich up from the resort. One of the Disney workers had told us that we could get a shuttle from the resort to downtown and even looked up the price for us, but the shuttle company disagreed. Downtown Orlando is ready to become the thriving urban center it wants to be. Once they finish building the grocery store downtown, people (and housing prices) will rise to the occasion. Luxury condo buildings are popping up all over the place. There are plenty of restaurants, bars, and an increasing number of cultural things for people to do. We hit a sushi restaurant for dinner and then a wine bar afterwards. Hanging out downtown was much better than spending all of our time in a neon, over-priced, theme-park restaurant area.

We even got free entertainment at the sushi restaurant. Someone had parked their white Lexus in front of the restaurant, in a clearly marked "No Parking from 6 PM to 3 AM" zone. He'd come back to his car to find the ticket, and smarted off at the officer leaving the ticket. The gentleman stormed off, leaving his car, probably to go to whatever bar was the IT bar for the night. The police officer (on bike) called another bike officer, and they called a 3rd officer in a police car. They called the towing company and towed the guy's car. What is interesting is that all 3 of them stood out on the street chatting and laughing it up, while they waited for the tow car. It is wise never to talk back to a police officer, also cheaper to go park your car for the $10 it'll cost you in a garage than to pay a $250 towing fee plus $50 parking ticket.