Key West Update

Having been here for almost two months now, we've learned quite a bit about Key West:

• There are roosters and chickens all over the place. There are heavy penalties for hurting one. Seriously.
• People stop and park their cars wherever they feel like. Usually it's right in front of a store that they are just running in and out of, instead of parking in the parking lot.
• There are just about as many scooters as there are cars on the road. Scooters are very popular here.
• You better know what a conch is. And it's pronounced "conk" not "conch".
• Things are a lot slower here. That can be good or bad. Most of the time it means you're going to get very poor customer service. But they don't care.
• The bus has stops within the three shopping centers here. We thought that there were just a bunch of homeless people hanging out, but it turns out they were just waiting for the bus. But there are quite a few homeless people here. They just hang out in the park.
• "Downtown" is about 1/4 of Key West. Instead of high rises, there are incredibly narrow streets with minimum parking.
• You can always tell when a cruise ship is docked. The population on the island just about doubles.
• Random power outages are fairly common. The first time it happened I called maintenance and the guy asked me if I was new here.