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When I got married, there were only two places to go on a honeymoon -- the Nevele Hotel in the Catskills and Florida, the latter being the more elite and expensive choice. (Of course, a few free spirits went to the Great Smokey Mountains or rented an island in the middle of Lake George where they could run around nude gathering mosquito bites.)

Since my husband already owned a great car (Chevrolet Bel-Air, green and white, paid for by his army money), and we had two salaries (he made $70 a week and I made $75, which his ego survived nicely), we went to Florida.

We chose a little-known hotel called the Promenade, which cowered in the shadow of the famous Fountainbleau of Miami Beach. There we spent 10 days, arriving each day at the pool by 3 p.m., wondering how other guests knew we were honeymooners since we never mentioned it. I had brought no money of my own and was suddenly embarrassed at having to ask my new husband for money to buy a scarf at the hotel gift shop. Too humiliated at having to ask him for money after years of independence, I never bought the scarf but the beginnings of women's lib began right there, lying dormant only to resurface years later with such ferocity as to almost shake the marriage from its foundation.

Each honeymoon day, we went next door to the Fountainbleau coffee shop for ice cream, where older men and younger women occupied the tables.

"Isn't it nice that these old men bring their daughters to Florida?" I asked my husband. He looked at me with one eyebrow raised, an "is she for real" look on his face. "Very nice," he said, spooning chocolate fudge into his mouth.

That's all I remember about Florida then. Nothing special to endear the place to me. Who would think I'd end up living there? Not in my wildest dreams. But it happened and here I am, still shell-shocked over the move, still trying to absorb the weirdness of the place, aided in part by the kind suggestions of strangers. The flora and fauna proved daunting until they told me how to handle it all.

"Don't look up with your mouth open," said one new friend when I described the egrets, ibis, anhingas, chicken hawks, gulls, and pelicans that flew over the lake behind my house.

"Why not?" I asked in my naivety.

"Look at your car and patio in the morning," she said. After the first white bombing, I got the idea.

"Don't walk in the grass. Walk on pavement," said a neighbor. She proceeded to tell a horror story about an allergic reaction to fire ants. When we had an infestation of ants indoors, we called an exterminator.

"What kind of ants do you have?" he asked on the phone.

"What kinds are there?" I replied.

"Could be red ants, sugar ants, carpenter ants, or white-footed ants."

"Are you kidding?" I said. "Do you think I'm going to get a magnifying glass and look at their feet? Just get rid of them!"

And he did -- for the moment.

A few days later, a huge snake short-circuited the air-conditioner, frying itself in the process. Now I wear closed shoes or sneakers outdoors. What a waste of my $25 pedicures!

"There are no animals around here except for rabbits and squirrels," the real estate salesman had told us. Are alligators animals, amphibians, or just monsters? Whatever they are, they sunned themselves at the edge of our lake. When I visited my parents in a seventh-floor condo above a lake with a paved walkway around it, I looked out the window and saw a 6-foot gator lying quietly at the edge of the path, only a foot or two from joggers and bicycle riders.

"They don't bother you if you don't bother them," the gardener said.

"I'm not trying to find out how they feel about me," I said. I sit at the swimming pool.

We get wasps nests as big as baseballs, coconuts fly from palms in hurricanes, the smell of mulch stinks up the street for a week after the landscapers apply it, and the heat in summer is so thick that it feels like a hot, wet cloud. Huge palm fronds fall on your head when the wind blows. My garage is full of hurricane supplies and battery operated gadgets I never knew existed. When I open my car in the summer, it's so hot inside that I need gloves to touch the steering wheel.

We have had to stop the car a few times to let an armadillo or huge turtle cross the road. Small lizards crawl under the door of the house and up the wall to frighten me, especially when I am naked in the shower. Bobcats and bears have been sighted in sparsely populated areas. Perhaps we are the intruders in animal territory because they were here before us. I don't think they like us being here one bit.

People have warned me about the drivers, too. There is no law against driving while talking on the phone or texting here. One-handed driving is bad enough, but we have driving with no hands at all in Florida. Here, a red light is merely a suggestion -- not to be taken too seriously. There is lots of handicapped parking but, since almost everyone has a handicapped parking sticker, this means nothing.

So, should I leave? Go home to New York? No way. I love it here.

Toby Rosenstrauch, an award-winning columnist, lives in Boynton Beach, Fla.