Orlando

Orlando is an interesting place to spend Christmas and it has nothing to do with the weather. The under 35 population in this city is extremely diverse. You'll find every ethnicity, personal background, sexual orientation and an extraordinary gap between the lower and upper class. However, within this diversity resides two major constants: almost no one is originally from Orlando and virtually everyone
works in the hospitality industry in one form or another.

This city is bustling with hotels, theme parks and chain restaurants and just about every business has its fingers in the pie. The city is also vastly spread out into an almost inexplicably large land area relative to the population (185,951) of the city. You can drive at 65 mph on the interstate for a full half hour and still be within the locality of Orlando.

The hospitality industry fosters a group of young people with constantly changing work schedules who continually switch from mornings to evenings, have random days off and never find out about their schedule more than a week or two ahead of time. This makes for a constantly burnt out group of people who have a hard time making the effort to regularly hang out with their friends. I've been fortunate in the last few years to have lived in neighborhoods where I could either walk to friends' houses lived close enough that seeing them didn't involve much effort so constantly seeing people struggle and not have that luxury has been one of the biggest attributers to my pedestrian feelings about this this city.





I came to Orlando because I wanted an adventure and I decided not to listen to any of the negative comments I got from people in the Northwest about Florida because I wanted to make up my own mind. In the words of Bryan Adams, my intentions were "straight from the heart." Following my plane landing in Seattle in May of 2008 at the end of an indescribable six month study abroad in Rome, I've been yearning to get back to that state of mind and to have another adventure as epic as that one. I wanted to like Orlando, damnit. I really did. I guess I had this crazy notion in my head that somehow this would measure up to the experience I had in Italy - that I would rediscover that youthful Marcus who somehow escaped while I was in the other room.







By and large this has been a good experience so far. The weather has been absolutely beautiful and I've been able to ride my bike to and from work every day since October.

My job has been very educational and a lot of fun and I've met some really nice people that I hope to stay in contact with for a long time. I've learned a lot and added some good experience and references to my resume and I've become a more independent and confident person. If only this job were in the northwest I'd be sailing on a cloud.

I've realized that I can't have Italy back. That was a time in my life I'll never be able to replicate. I've come a lot closer to accepting that fact and I feel like I have a much better idea of how to make the most out of what I do have control over. I'm really excited to move back to Washington with Scott and create our "little Italy" right at home.