Check in at the World Food Championship

Cookers at Celebration

Today it’s Check-In Day at the World Food Championship. At least that’s what I thought reading through my emails. So the day started off as usual, with selecting some photos, checking emails and creating a daily post for my blog to keep everybody updated on my whereabouts. We went to Waffle House, Celebration, some malls and stores before having dinner at Longhorn and heading back to the rental home.

We were very warmly welcomed at Waffle House for our late breakfast. Some people eat breakfast as soon as they step out of bed, some wait for a couple of hours. I am one of the latter persons and do not eat breakfast first thing after getting up. The breakfast was very good and the personnel was very nice. It was fun eating breakfast at this place.

From there we headed for Celebration, where a great part of the World Food Championship is being held. I thought I needed to check in there as I am volunteering, table captaining and judging. It took a little while to find a parking spot, since Celebration is not very big and are not used to having so many people visiting I guess. After looking around the area a bit, I went to the volunteering check-in, but there I noticed that this is for a different kind of volunteers. I did not have to check in at this time, so we left to head over to the Westgate Resort & Spa, where the check-in for BBQ teams is located.

There we met the wonderful people of the KCBS International Outreach team, Debby and Bill Gage and Mariah and Wayne Lohman. Also while checking in, we met Clint and Eva from the Czech Republic who are also competing. After all the form filling and photography we were ready and on our way out we met the very nice Big Papa’s, Dana Hillis.

From there we went on a shopping tour, which started at the Vineland Premium Outlet Mall, probably the biggest outlet mall in Orlando. After a while we had a snack and shopped a bit more before leaving this mall for the Mall at Millenia, the luxury mall of Orlando. There we also shopped for a while checking out stores and from there we headed over to Dick’s Sporting Goods and ended up at The Home Depot.

By the time we left The Home Depot we were getting a bit hungry again, so we decided to go for steak this time. On our way back to the rental home we stopped at Longhorn. We had some great steaks (yes with vegetables) and after this great meal we went back to the house and called it a night.

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Check in at the World Food Championship

Surprise!

Today I have a surprise for Xandrine. But that is not until the evening, so it is and will remain a surprise until then.

As I know that this will be a long day, we start slowly. After having slept almost the entire morning, Xandrine wakes up. We stay in bed for another couple of hours and I received a voucher for watching a children’s movie, so I put on Lego The Movie for her. We watched the entire movie and really enjoyed it. To her surprise (no not The surprise) at the end of the movie there are real people in the movie instead of just Lego.

After the movie she still wanted to stay in bed and watch television, but I started to get hungry, so we stood up and got ready. I already told Xandrine yesterday where we would be having our breakfast and that we would walk to it, as it was only a mile away. As we walked out the door and got around the corner of the hotel, we saw a huge sail boat approaching. After asking around, I was told that this was a very special occasion, as this is the official flagship of the columbian navy.

This special ship will stay a few days in Tampa, before heading for New York, where it will be celebrating the liberation day of Columbia, July 20th.

From there we walked further and finally got to our destination for breakfast, lunch that is. We sat down at the FirstWatch breakfast café and ordered our food. Xandrine had bacon and eggs (scrambled) with toast and fresh fruit and I had the Key West Crepe Eggs. Thin layered eggs with turkey, avocado, bacon, tomatoes and Monterey Jack cheese topped with sour cream. With that I got an English muffin and also fresh fruit. Very good breakfast-lunch.

After our lunch, we walked a bit and stumbled upon a Children’s Museum. I thought it would be a good thing to do today before going to the surprise this evening. Xandrine really enjoyed the museum, as this is not an ordinary museum, where you are not allowed to touch anything. This is a Children’s Museum, where you are supposed to touch (almost) everything. And so she did. She tried almost everything in the museum and at the end of the afternoon, it was time to go.

We headed back to the hotel and instead of going to our room, or to the surprise, we asked for the car, as I had to find one thing, she would need this evening, ear protection. So we headed to the nearest Home Depot and got some ear protection for her. Within 45 minutes we we were back again at the hotel and went to our room. We changed clothes for the evening and went to the surprise.

About 10-15 minutes of walking, we were in front of the Tampa Bay Times Forum, where Xandrine saw a merchandise stand with Katy Perry things. Now she knew what the surprise would be. She’s going to her first big concert, Katy Perry in Tampa, Florida. Inside the Times Forum, we walked around, checked out some food and drink stands, got ourselves some bites and drinks and bought some merchandise, to make this a special memorable evening.

Then we went looking for our seats, which was not so easy. We went from the 100-sections up the escalators to the 300-sections and we had to find our way to the 200-sections. After asking we found out, that we could take the stairway or the elevator near 101, which would bring us to 201 and from there we had to walk around to 212, where our seats are.

So we did and we finally found our seats. We had a great view over the entire Forum. I don’t think that the forum has any bad seats though. We saw a the first and second warming uppers trying to get the heat going before Katy Perry hit the stage. When she finally did, around 9PM, she started a show full of wardrobe changes and full of hits, which lasted for more than 2 Hrs straight. After almost 2,5 Hrs the show was over and ended with Fireworks.

Xandrine did not just love the surprise, no she she super-enjoyed the surprise.

Tomorrow we will say goodbye to Tampa and drive back to Orlando where we will stay for another week, before heading back to cold and windy Holland.

Surprise!