Lake Eola Fountain

I'm glad it's working again...

Mcdonald's Christmas Parade 2008

I went to see the Christmas Parade in Orlando on December 14, 2008. Formerly, this was the Orlando Christmas Parade, but it seemed a corporate sponsor bought the parade with the official name being the Mcdonald's Christmas Parade. The parade circled around Lake Eola and was nice and long.

It started out with the police.




Then Ronald Mcdonald's float.



There were several of these antique cars advertising Cabot Cheese. Cheese is tasty, but it doesn't go with antique cars in my opinion.


These horses were behind a float carrying a bubble machine. The bubbles seemed to be making the horses very nervous.


Johnny Martino from the Godfather movies. He was handing out autographed postcards of himself.


This float was driven all the way to Orlando from a high school in Palm Beach.


Juggler...


A pony pulling a person that seemed to big to be pulled by ponies.


The Geico Gecko...


Followed by the Tijuana Flats Iguana.


Apparently people are scared of clowns. There was a group of clowns in the parade, besides from Ronald Mcdonald. This clown in particular actually left the parade route to chase down somebody with coulrophobia across a little park at the intersection of Magnola and Palmetto. It was great.


The Orlando Fire Department.


This is Sir Gus the Kissing Camel. He travels around with the Shriners to events like this. The Shriners stick a carrot in a volunteer's mouth, and Gus reaches down and takes the carrot, thus kissing the volunteer in the process. I was kissed by Sir Gus once in Downtown Longwood.


And finally, Santa Claus at the end of the parade. Unfortunately, there was no Krampus traveling along with Santa. There should be a few of them in every Christmas parade!

Orlando's Creepy Statues #1

The Paramount is one of Downtown Orlando's newest skyscrapers. It's on Central Blvd, right across the street from Lake Eola. They did something correct in this building by opening up the first big supermarket downtown. Now people living downtown don't actually have to leave downtown in order to go food shopping. The only deterrent may be this creepy statue placed in front of the entrance to the Publix...


She's very random, very creepy, and whoever decided to place this statue here made a good choice...

Lake Eola July 4th Fireworks

On July 4, 2008, I watched the firework show that took place over Lake Eola Park in Downtown Orlando. The show was about twenty minutes long, but I was disappointed that the park didn't dim the lights or broadcast the soundtrack to the show over the park's speakers. It was still an okay show, although it seemed like Red, Hot, & Boom from the night before shot off a whole lot more fireworks. The environment of watching the show among skyscrapers was an added plus...