Miami

Hello,

I just set up a new blog, a sequel to my fiji blog (fijiaaron.blogspot.com) in which I will try to detail my adventures in Ecuador with my novia, Kelsey Fox. She´s mucho cool even if she has a funny voice and doesn´t know much Spanish.

We spent a night and most of a day in Miami after a layover in Atlanta. We had a rental already paid for, but they were out of Economy size at Alamo, so they said take a Compact, nada, Midsize, same. Finally we settled on a minivan, only to find we could take anything, sportscar or SUV. I almost backed it up but Kelsey was tired from walking around the garage with heavy packs for half an hour.

So we checked into our hotel which is right on the strip on Miami Beach only a block from the beach. The hotel was a bit ghetto, but clean enough. We spent the evening feeding the meter until midnight when there was free parking. We had an excellent steak dinner at the restaurant next to the hotel with a Russian hostess and Polish waitress who I asked if she was Russian.

Tip: if you ever hear an accent that you can´t place and ask them if it´s Russian, it´s sure to be Polish.

So we went to the beach at night and the next morning and then drove around downtown Miami and hung out in Coconut Grove. The ¨Barnacle¨, a historic site, wasn´t closed. City Hall was in a Marina.

I think I like Miami. Driving was easy and the weather was great, even though it was storming the night we came in. Only no surf. You should have seen how stoked the boys were for sloppy 2 foot storm swell the next morning.

We found a walgreens to get supplies and made it to the airport. Massive lines everywhere except where we had to go. No ticket line, no TSA line, etc.

Only I lost my ticket wandering around. Luckily, someone turned it into the TSA (Homeland Security) counter and just as I was panicking (while Kelsey looked for an icecream for me) I asked at the security checkpoint and they had it.

So we made it to Ecuador, flying over Cuba and Panama.