detail from: KRK Art dizajn

MEMORIES FROM FLORIDA

I have been to Florida several times. My first trip was to Loderdeil, to a friend of Dr. Nebojsa Lekic. It was winter, in Toronto those days the temperature dropped to -40 degrees. Nebojsa had an apartment of about 100 m2, in a complex where they had an outdoor pool, sports hall, library and other services, which rarely anyone used. When I came to that pool complex, the water temperature was 28 degrees, the right thing for frozen Canadians. Nebojsa's friends stayed at the pool every day, including Mirko Tomic, who introduced himself to me as a member of the former "Foreign Legion", which robbed a train in Liverpool, which was reported by all world newspapers and television at the time, as never before seen, happening.

And, while I was spending time at the pool, Nebojsa worked on the computer on the American stock exchange. He invested about a hundred dollars every day, and he earned, as he told me, one hundred to three hundred dollars a day. Sometimes he lost, but that was also an integral part of the game.

We were occasionally visited by Nebojsa's friend Ljubisa Stamenkovic, who had a house with an orchard, in which he had several orange trees, which were ripe at the time, and we picked them as much as we wanted.

In Londerdeil, I also met his friend Voja, a native of Leskovac, who built a kindergarten in his hometown, which he was very proud of.

We just stopped by Rade and Zora Vukadinović for coffee. They had an apartment in a high-rise building by the Atlantic Ocean. Ljiljana Jokić drove me to Miami, and on the way back we stopped by Trivo Railić, from Hasani, who lived in Hollywood. I think that was the name of that place in the vicinity of Miami. Trivo wrote songs for children, and worked at night as a security guard in an institution, where he had enough free time to write. Ljiljana loved to gamble, so we stopped at the casino, where she turned a few laps. Occasionally she lost, occasionally she gained, but it was her innate passion.

With Nebojsa, I went to a huge plaza a couple of times, where all kinds of goods were sold, mostly clothes. Nebojsa called that plaza a "Thieves' Square".

On the way back from Lauderdale we landed in West Palm Beach, where we stayed longer than expected, so we arrived in Toronto only at three o'clock in the morning, and as the temperatures in Canada were very low at that time, the door on the trunk froze. , so we couldn’t get our stuff. They were delivered to our home address later in the day.

The second, and several other, trips to Florida were related to the therapies for our grandson, who was born with cerebral palsy (CP). Previously, we drove our grandson to Detroit, to Shamek and Sylvia, who were doing the therapy that the Russians first applied to the Cosmonauts after returning from space flights, when they could not walk. And, since Shamek and Sylvia moved to Celebration, Florida, we started going to them. That kind of therapy was really the best we tried. For our first stay on that therapy, we rented a house in Kissimmee, which had a swimming pool.

From Ottawa to Florida we traveled by car, our daughter Anastasia, Alexander's mother, drove, and we went with them, both grandparents. From Canada, we entered America via a bridge over a thousand islands, and then across Syracuse, then through Pennsylvania, to New Jersey, where we spent the night with relatives, Zoran and Vesna, and the next day continued through Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, to New Carolina, where we spent the night in Fayetteville. On the third day, we continued through South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. We passed through Florida through the cities of Jacksonville, Daytona Beach and Orlando, arriving in Kissimmee.

While we were driving through Georgia, I noticed that there are a lot of swamps there, where there are crocodiles, so I suggested to my cousin Zoran, who loves fishing, to buy a house in Georgia and fish for crocodiles.

Alex practiced at Shamek and Sylvia's house every morning, and in the afternoon, his mother drove him and Daniel to Disneyland.

During the second week of our stay we visited the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. We spent a whole day there and visited all the available spaces for visits. We saw launch pads in the distance, and we tested a capsule to simulate space flights. Children under 4 were not allowed in the capsule, so Daniel had to stay outside with his grandmother, and Anastasia, Alex and I (Simo) entered the capsule. The simulation of space flight takes place by accelerating the flight, during which the speed reaches 28,000 km / h, during which the capsule vibrates very strongly. And while we, like bajagi, were flying into space, which is shown on the screen, Daniel saw that mom, Alex and grandpa, went into space and he cried, thinking that we would not return. And when we got back Daniel hugged his mom and didn’t let her go for long.

We had lunch at the Kennedy Center, in the presence of an astronaut who stayed at the International Space Station three times, and sat at our table. He told us about his experiences, and in the end we asked him questions, which he answered in detail.

One day we visited Central Florida University, in the small town of Waterford, where Stasa applied and had an interview. Then the real estate agent Kirk Martin, a Slovene by the way, took us on a visit to three houses, in case Stasa got the position. One house, in a closed system of settlements, with five bedrooms, a swimming pool and three garages, cost only 369,000 dollars. Under Canadian conditions not comparably cheap.

On our way back from Florida, we stopped to visit our friend Ilija Saula, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where we spent the night and had a wonderful time with people we appreciate and respect.

Our third stay in Florida, we were in Perth, where we also had a swimming pool, and Maja and Jovan came to visit us with their children. All of them, the younger ones, went to visit Disneyland every day, and the following also visited: Fantasy Land, Mickey, Peter Pan, Pirates of the Caribbean, Ander the Cerney, Inside SpaceShip, Reflection of Earth, Jenny Into Imagination, Indiana Jones, Beauty of the Bist, Animal Kingdom, and Expeditionary Earth. LegoLand is all built of Lego bricks and is a real delight for children, and for many adults as well.

On the seventh day, during our stay in Perth, a satellite was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, exactly at 8:29 pm, which I watched from a distance of about 100 km and it looked quite nice.

On the tenth day, we drove through several places, including Tampa, and drove in front of Monica Seles' house in Sarasota. Of course, we didn't see Monica, we didn't even announce her, and we always remember her fondly, as our most successful tennis players and as our dear citizens of Novi Sad. We wish her every success.

Moment of launching satellite

SHARE THIS PAGE ON: