Happy Thanksgiving!

Having missed the Canadian Thanksgiving several weeks ago, I’m happy to report that I’ve finally experienced an American Thanksgiving. Well, not really. I experienced it in the sense that I was in the U.S. on Thanksgiving but that’s about as far as the experience wen. There was a noticeable absence of turkey.

My modest plan for the day was a dinner and a movie before returning to my hotel to get things ready for my cruise. It didn’t take long to realize that the former was only going to be a movie, as every restaurant was closed for Thanksgiving. Truth be told, I kind of think they SHOULD be closed, but I was a little surprised that they were.

There are two movie theatres near my present location – one is really close, the other about 7 km (4 miles) away. Of course, the movie I really wanted to see was only playing at the more distant theatre. The movie in question was Gone Girl. The main reason I wanted to see it was that it was directed by David Fincher. So, I headed off to the more distant theatre – which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t all that distant.

The movie theatre in question was the AMC Coral Ridge 10 and it was unlike any theatre I’ve visited. It’s actually called a “Dine-In Theatre”. With Gone Girl having been in theatres for a while I was somewhat expecting it to be in one of the small, dingy theatres. That wasn’t the case. It certainly wasn’t on the biggest screen I’ve ever seen but it was big enough. More interesting were the seats which were actually full recliners with trays. And on the trays were menus (food, drink, dessert) with a wide selection of restaurant-style meals. It looked pretty impressive. That said, I don’t go to a movie to eat a big meal. And I can’t help but think how annoying it would be to be watching a movie while dozens of other movie goers are chowing down. Fortunately, there were only three other people in the theatre and none of them had dinner (or lunch, since it was only 11:15 am).

Without going into too much detail, Gone Girl was very good (even with Ben Affleck – either he’s improved or my standards are dropping!). It wasn’t my favourite Fincher film – that’s still Fight Club – but it was very good. And despite it being 2.5 hours, it didn’t seem long. A couple of plot holes along the way and occasionally predictable but nothing I found unforgivable.

After the movie there was little to do but return to my hotel, since everything else was closed. Fortunately, I suspected that would be the case which was why I bought not one, but TWO pizzas at Little Caesars yesterday. My big U.S. Thanksgiving dinner was going to be re-heated pizza. I didn’t mind.

The rest of my day was spent going through all my gear and reorganizing it. I want to take a little as possible on the cruise with me so that I don’t have to check my bags. I figured that wouldn’t be much of a problem since I’m not really prepared to go on a cruise. I should probably try to buy a couple of non-cycling shirts as well as a bathing suit somewhere – although, it’s highly unlikely the latter will get used.

Tomorrow morning I’ll drop off my bike for storage before taking some sort of public transportation back to Miami. From what I can tell, that will be about a two hour journey – or only slightly faster than cycling. I miss my bike already.