Miami, Here We Come

1/2/08, afternoon

Two blogs ago, I mentioned that we flew out of Kingston’s airport to Miami for our second half of the vacation.  The plane ride was quite eventful.  The only memorable thing was that a gentleman behind us was eating a wonderful smelling dish that he brought on board, but I couldn’t really see what it was.  Right before our plane landed, the flight attendant made her announcement about the temperature, “… and get this, 55 degrees!”  I was estatic.  I had just spent 5 days in humid hot weather that was probably over 85 degrees, so I was looking forward to partaking in the cold spell that affected Florida.

After landing, we rented our car, a Mitsubishi Gallant, and drove to the hotel, the Residence Inn Miami Coconut Grove, located in Coconut Grove, a small city south of Miami.  After we settled down in our room, we went back to the lobby becaus they have a free mini dinner.  This evening, we had lasagna, green salad, and drinks, all free to guests!  What a great start to our vacation!  Beautiful weather, clean hotel room, and free food!  My review of the room is contained here. 

After we ate, it was time to walk around Coconut Grove.  They have a shopping area called the CocoWalk, which contains many stores and restaurants, and it’s very pretty at night.  We’re in Miami, strolling around, and IT’S FREEZING!  It’s colder than home!  Of course we didn’t bring appropriate clothing; we went into the Gap and found a jacket for Caitlin.  The cashier told us that it was “the coldest day in 30 years!”  We believed him!  We strolled around CocoWalk for about 2 1/2 hours before we decided to leave; unfortunately, we never got hungry because of all the lasagna we ate, so we didn’t get to try any of the restaurants, including Cafe Tu Tu Tango.  Instead, we asked for directions to the nearest supermarket so that we could stock our refrigerators and cabinets with goodies.  We found the Milam’s supermarket next door to Walgreens.  First we went to Walgreens to buy some Bactine… remember those mosquito bites… then we went to Milam’s for some fruit, milk, and other snacks.

Afterwards, we returned to our hotel and decided to tackle the laundry!  Of course, Angela, my cousin’s housekeeper, washed some of our clothes, but we had two more loads of laundry, so we spent the next 90 minutes doing laundry at the hotel before retiring for the night.