Sunday, July 1, 2018

A España!

I'm sitting at the gate with Laura here at the Miami International Airport. We sailed through bag check and security. We were a bit worried about the weight of our checked bags and they did come in a kilo high (both), but the person checking us in let it slide. He even checked our carry-on rollers through to Madrid for free.

We've had a great time these past three weeks or so, seeing the country, visiting friends and relatives and finally hanging with Emily and Rachel down at the beach for a few days. They just dropped us off about an hour ago and we already miss them a bunch. Somehow it's a bit harder this time than when they leave Walla Walla or when we go back to Walla Walla, but I know that we're never more than a day away from them.
Rachel now has the car for the year. (I keep freaking out thinking I've left my keys somewhere, but then remember, I don't have any keys now.)

We closed out the airbnb condo this morning and drove to Rachel's new neighborhood. She has recently moved to one of the ubiquitous duplexes on the south side of the University of Miami campus.
We met her new roommate briefly. She seems like a good fit.

We went to Taste Buds of India for lunch. They had a buffet that was good, but not nearly as extensive as Walla Walla's Indian Cuisine restaurant on Main St. In particular, I was seriously missing the mango lassi.

After a bit of suitcase reorganization that involved annexing most of Rachel's living room,
We went to the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science. I actually showed my Whitman ID and got in free! It's definitely geared to kids, but they had a lot of interesting stuff for adults too. I particularly liked the aquariums. Also, the view of downtown Miami was beautiful.
The Schueller women, in particular Emily, got fixated on this puzzle in the "Design Lab".
They eventually solved it, but needed a hint. I saw first hand the persistence that Emily has developed working at MRL these past couple of years, haha. There was a fun touch sensitive dance floor upon which Emily and Rachel demonstrated their prodigious dance skills.

Our visit to the museum closed with a wonderful, immersive, planetarium show. If you're ever in the area, this museum is worth the price of admission (even if it ended up being free for me, haha).

On a tight schedule, we hit La Sandwicherie for dinner. I had the "exotic salad" which was  mix of greens, avacado, mango and diced turkey. With the vinaigrette dressing, it was a nice mix of flavors. Laura and I tried to keep it light since we're on an overnight flight to Madrid and are hoping to sleep for most of it.

As I write this final post from the US for a while, there are some sad football fans in the gate area in the wake of Spain's upset loss to Russia in the round of 16 of the 2018 World Cup. This is a bit rushed, so pardon the errors. I'm going to pull the trigger on this and then change the timezone on the blog to central European summer time (+6 hrs from the east coast, +9 hrs from the west coast). See you on the other side!