As expected we woke up a bit early this morning, to be exact somewhere close after 4:00 o’clock. From out of our bed we watched a movie on one of the two televisions in our room and we fell a sleep a couple of times again for some minutes but sleeping isn’t what our bodies liked to do. So at 5:30 I decided to call our little nephew with FaceTime and we had a lot of fun playing peek-a-boo with him. At 6:30 we finally left our bed to get dressed and get something to drink and eat at the Starbucks to have breakfast on the beach waiting for the sunrise.

We took some great pictures walked through the water and watched a lot of sportive people jogging over the beach. Some of them looking more interesting as others. After a short walk over the beach we walked back to our hotel over Collins Ave.

After arriving in the hotel we went directly to the pool for a swim and to work on our tan! The pool has 4 windows on the bottom where you can look through from the hotel bar which is a neat photo opportunity.

Close to 10:00 we went back to our room to shower and get prepared for the first shopping tour of this vacation! And  not even 100 meter away from the hotel entrance I hurt my toe by slipping on some concrete colored mud. It was bleeding o we went back to the hotel for some bandages. In the beginning everything went fine but after about 3 blocks the bandages couldn’t stop the blood from leaking through anymore so we went to the nearest CVS Pharmacy for a “Repair Sanders toe ASAP kit”.

After cleaning and applying we went back on our way to the Tommy Hilfiger Store at Collins Ave but before we went to the Victoria Secrets store for Danielle. At Tommy Hilfiger we spender over 2 hours to shop for the winter collections which was already on SALE. We end up with some great discounts and 2 Rugby striped tote bags. It was fun shopping there since it was a beautiful store with a small garden to walk through different buildings.

After this major shopping we both were read for something to eat and we knew there should be Johnny Rockets nearby. And since we were both looking forward to a burger and a milkshake this was the place to go to. Danielle ordered the “Route 66” and I went for the “Miami”. The milkshakes we picked were also different Danielle is a chocolate addict and got herself a Dark Chocolate Shake  made with Ghirardelli® Chocolate and I ordered the Big Apple Shake made with an actual slice of apple pie.

After lunch we rolled back to out hotel via the Miami branch of Dash, the shop from the Kardashian Sisters. Back at the hotel it was already 16:00 hour but we decided to enjoy the beach club from our hotel til 18:00 hour. After sunbathing for an hour we got some food at the Wallgreens for the evening.

After this last shopping we went to the hotel where we enjoyed the hotel and later in the evening the hotel bar. Tonight will be the last blog post from Miami because early tomorrow morning we’ll drive towards Key West.

We woke up at 5:00 while it really was 4:00 and we should feel like it was 23:00 the day before. In short we just had our first daylight saving time switch of this year. The next one will be the next weekend.

At exactly 5:00 I started the car fully loaded with 2 almost empty cabin suitcases and 2 (you can say 3) suitcases with a total weight of 43,8 kilogram according to our suitcase scale.

Only 20 minutes later we parked our car in the parking garage we’ve reserved last week en 10 minutes later we dropped off our baggage. At 5:45 we were at gate A04 where had the pleasure to meet a colleague on his way back home to Japan!

Exactly on time everyone was sitting on the right seat and we left Germany behind to visit France. In less than 10 minutes we are both feeling lucky that we need to leave this country behind fast. Nothing is clear, everything is written or announced in France (on an international airport) and most people are not polite.

It took 45 minutes from airplane 1 to airplane 2 and I guess that we walked a couple kilometer too. But with still plenty of time left we waited at the gate before the boarding would start. And too bad our stay in France took a bit longer due to a technical check but only 45 minutes later as expected the plane was on the runway!

The flight itself was one of the better ones we’ve had so far. We both had a glass of champagne and we watched some movies we didn’t see before and we both are of the opinion that White House Down is a better movie as we expected. And at the end we had an amazing look at Miami.

After arriving at Miami Airport with a delay of 30 minutes we speeded to customs but there were already some other flights before us which meant we needed to wait about 45 minutes, not to bad and our suitcases we’re already waiting for us. We looked forward to a shower but after walking 20 minutes and riding a people-mover tot the rental car facility we knew it would take some time before a would have left the airport. And indeed about 2:15 hour later we left the airport in a brand new Infinity QX70 3.7l. Too bad the drive was only 20 minutes and our hotel has valet parking only so I couldn’t try all the options yet.

Speaking about the hotel it’s in Miami South Beach in between Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive. Checking in was a pleasure with champagne, checking out the room was even better. We have a huge bed, a huge balcony and an even bigger bathroom with 4 sections. The shower is amazing…. After the shower someone knocked on our door and brought us a complimentary bottle of wine as a gift because we are platinum members. And if you remember that we stay in this hotel for points we’ve collected with other hotel stays this made it even better.

Since we still hadn’t had a proper evening meal we walked south on Ocean Drive to checkout some places to eat. In the end we went for Finnegan’s Way where we both had a tiny cocktail and something to eat before we went back to the hotel.

Back in our hotel we went to the balcony from where I post our first blog of this trip!