It’s midnight now and we’ve had a very busy day. We spent the morning as tourists and took a cruise around some of the islands in Miami where we saw the homes of the rich and famous. As soon as we got back from that we were busy at work and haven’t stopped till now so I’ll keep this post short.

Shaquille O’Neal’s Place

One of the places we’ve experienced most flight delays during our trip has been in the US. Today was no exception, we were out on the tarmac nearly an hour before the plane finally got clearance to take off. Once in the air though, we almost wished we were back on the ground as there was severe turbulence nearly the entire flight to Miami. The captain did his best to cheer us up, saying that he was looking for a way above or around the turbulence and that other planes he was in radio contact with had it worse than us.

That leads me to the subject about American Airlines: it’s not a budget airline but the service is pretty close to being one. You have to pay for any meals you have on the plane - and many times they just sell chips or chocolates. Some of their ground staff we encountered didn’t speak much English, and the seats feel about the same as the ones on a budget plane.

Anyway, after a long and bumpy flight we landed in Miami to another glitch. After standing at the luggage belt for over an hour, one of our suitcases still hadn’t come out and they shut down the belt. We were not alone; there were like 6 other people who were still waiting for their luggage from the same flight. Everyone was a bit unsure what to do next and we made a bee-line to the luggage claim section where we waited in line about half an hour while the understaffed counter handled people who had come long before us.

Suddenly, and to our great relief, the luggage belt started up again and out came all the missing suitcases!

An Art Deco building in South Beach, Miami

Miami Beach is a great contrast from New York. To start with, it’s warm here! There is no longer a need to wear the heavy winter coats and sweaters that had become part of our apparel in NY and Chicago. There are fewer high-rise buildings in South Beach, and the famous beach looks great.