Key Largo and Everglades

On our way to the Everglades Nationalpark and Fort Myers we took a stop at Key Largo (largest of the keys), because the whole way north would have been too long.

I'm sure Key Largo is a lovely place with lots of great sights ... but we only had half a day left, we were going to leave the next day and our guide didn't say anything about good sights, except one, which was actually right next to our hotel! (Holiday Inn)

It's the boat African Queen from the movie Key Largo (1948) with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. I guess it's not the very same boat, but a rebuilt, but no one cares. Actually the island had a different name first, but then Hollywood came, shot this great movie, which had worldwide success and the people thought: "Why don't we name our island like the movie, so many tourists will come?" AND BAM! Key Largo it was.
Great story, isn't it?

But other to that, we had nothing to do in Key Largo, so we spend rest of the day here:

Sadly, pools aren't big refreshment, because water temperature = outside temperature. It's like walking into a tube. But you can arrange better with the heat inside water.

The next day, we got up early to drive to Fort Myers and make a stop at Everglades to see some alligators.
My mum and I wanted to take a guided tour instead of just walking and because we're very convincing (and annoying) my dad finally agreed. Lucky him - the tour was for free and started just at our arrival, so we didn't even had to wait.
Sun was really cooking that day, there was no shade at all and we forgot suncream, so we kinda rushed it. But we did see alligators!
A lot.

Just to make sure. It's not the same one!
They also have lots of other animals like turtles and birds and frogs ... and mosquitos! Damn it, I hate them!!

But something I've learned! I've you're afraid of mosquito bites, just hang in the sun! Mosqitos dry out in the sun and that's why they only "live" in the shades.

We bought the anti mosquito spray 'Off', which must be the most deadly chemical cosh ... it really keeps them away.
German sprays DON'T HELP HERE!

Welcome to Miami

2nd part of my Florida vacation diary. Maybe I should have actually written one, because I'm having some hard times to remember...


Miami was our first "real" hotel - It had 10 floors with lots of rooms and a crazy expensive parking spot. All the other place we stayed were more like motels ... so several houses with 3 floors max and a space to park for everyone ... and everyone else. But hey, I liked it everywhere!


SO.
First day.
OH MY GOD, what did I do?
I don't remember.



Oh right! I was at the beach! South Beach. I only got to bath in the sea twice. That was really odd, because I'm used to getting into the ocean every day at least once when I'm on vacation.

I can't say I'm sad about it, because the water is so warm, it's not refreshing or anything.

Because we didn't have much time that day, we decided to just go out for dinner, sleep and have very exciting day the next morning. Yes. We WENT for dinner. My dad had the awesome idea to WALK 35 blocks.
The concierge also told us, it wouldn't take longer than 20 minutes.
He lied.

So we walked.
Had Sushi.

Came back and I was in pain. Me feet, my back, my head ... everything just hurt. And then he started to explain to me, I have to work out if that little walk was exhausting for me. In that moment I hated him really bad. -_-

But oh well, the next day came and we had to do something. So we decided to go see Villa Vizcaya!
It's an awesome (like really AWESOME) Italian Renaissance like estate close to Miami, that was build by James Deering (millionaire thanks to harves machines) in the 1910s (of course) and got a musuem during the 50s.

It's really big and beautful with lots of gardens and woods surrounding it. (btw, that's me under the star fishs, but I looks sorta ugly here...)
It also has lots of fountains like this one:

And check out the pool!

 I would totally live in a place like that, wouldn't you?? Well of course it's way to expensive for me (like multimillions to expensive) but maybe one day ...)

I'm sorry, it's not allowed to take pictures inside, so I tried to find some on google, but they're a little small. Here you go.

After that, we went for lunch at a mall and I found the Christmas in Miami store. I'll make an extra post for this later.

The least expensive (What's wrong in this city?? Everything costs way to much!) was pizza:

How can I say this? I think American pizza is good ... but it's like they try to drown it in oil and if it's not dead then, bury it in cheese.

We then decided to do something for my dad (altough he made me walk my feet off, I'm just too nice) and used the metro mover.

It's small train, that goes in circles (similar to Ringbahn in Berlin) but the drive doesn't take 20 minutes. It's ridiculous! BUT it's for free, so what the heck.
You can see an interesting side of downtown Miami. Btw, did you know Miami and Miami Beach are actually two different cities? I didn't know.

That nigh, we decided to go out for dinner. Again. And go to the Art Deco district. Again. But at least we took the car this time!
The art deco distric is a really cute and colorful district with lots of bars and restaurant. It's just not my cup of tea and I don't know why! I usually like everything between 1880s ~ 1950s ...

We had Mexican food. I LOVE Mexican food, but somehow I don't know anyone else, who likes it.

I had this:

It's like a steak tortilla and it was SO GOOD.  I don't know what they did with the onions (little cup at the left) but they were the best I've ever had.

My mum let my chose for her (she doesn't like Mexian food very much) and I picked chicken enchilada in a green sauce (don't remember what it was):

It was all very interesting, but still Miami wasn't the most interesting city during that trip.