We made it to ORLANDO.

Hey there, mice!

We have arrived in Florida and everything is going so well. Even though breakfast at the hotel this morning wasn't ready at 7 o'clock and we had to scarf down our jam sandwiches and then watched the subway train leave right in front of our eyes. But we still made it to Ronald Reagan Airport. On the way there, we also drove past the Pentagon. But honestly, it looks totally unspectacular. Not even worth taking a photo. But at the airport, the Americans were once again really advanced. We checked ourselves in completely and even put the luggage sticker on the suitcase ourselves. You see - our highlights are getting more and more modest. 😅 But today, there's not much to show because not much happened. We just relaxed at the airport until we boarded the plane. Benny took some shots:

One cool thing was that American Airlines offers free WiFi onboard for WhatsApp. So we messaged each other 😅. And you can use your own phone for the airline's entertainment program. The only downside is if you leave your headphones at home because you usually get them on planes. But there were relatively few German movies. But Benny didn't care. He watched Avatar without headphones and blasted it through the plane. 😅

Hopefully we won't see any more of the other travelers. The whole system at Orlando Airport was a bit tricky. You got off where the next passengers get on. Arrivals and departures are all in one place and you have to take a driverless train to the baggage carousel. Crazy! The nice guys from the car rental company offered to pick us up from the airport and we quickly got our new car. It's a Nissan Versa and we named it Versace.

By the way, since this is the first picture with the weather: it is incredibly hot here. The air conditioning in the car is running at full speed. It's about 35°C, approximately. We don't always know exactly... now is the best time to explain the Fahrenheit problem. The entire metric system is different here. Celsius = Fahrenheit, kilometers = miles, and meters = feet. And they also have inches for sizing, gallons for the tank, and pounds for weighing. And today it said 100°F in the car and every time we have to do the following calculation, here's an example with 100°F:

(100°F - 32) / 9 * 5

And sometimes we sit there for a good 2 or 3 minutes instead of just taking out a calculator. That's the story about conversion in the USA. It's always fun, though.

Back to the car: this time we felt like we had to pay hundreds of dollars extra. It starts with - Benny doesn't have a credit card +$50. Oh, there are tolls in Florida +$110. Don't want any deductible? +$250! Hey, just to be safe, we'll charge an additional $300 to your credit card. We couldn't avoid the credit card issue, but we managed to turn down everything else. So no accidents and no toll booths 😋! Later, the guy sent us pictures of Versace, showing the damages, and he simply forgot two sides. Luckily, we also took some pictures of the scratches.

Our first stop was just a few minutes' drive away. Benny really wanted to drive one of those carts for overweight people at Walmart when he is in the USA. Here's the result:

You wouldn't believe how many people looked at us. Marie pretended to have a limp when she got up. Benny didn't really care 😅 We only bought water, cookies (Marie has wanted cookies for at least 2 days!), gummy bears (we ate the last ones at the Capitol), Pringles, and two apples - for the conscience!

The hotel was only 10 minutes away with Versace and everything went smoothly again. The room is functional. We were a little worried because it's only a 2-star hotel. But it's clean, big enough, and completely sufficient for 3 nights. By the way, the bed is 1.20m high. Marie has trouble getting onto it. Maybe we'll practice high jump now. It was never Marie's favorite sport during school days.

But the real highlight was that the hotel has an outdoor pool and we chilled in the sun from 4 to 6 p.m. Of course, with sunscreen! We can't sunburn ourselves before going to the amusement parks, that would be hell. But it was definitely a great refreshment. Here's the infamous guessing game: sausages or legs? Small tip: We didn't buy sausages at Walmart *wink.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day in the USA - a national holiday. We hope we can catch a fireworks display somewhere and cruise along the west coast of Florida before we get into the roller coaster feeling.

Then we had dinner at some fast food restaurant (what else) and we met a German family who immigrated here. They have an annual pass for the amusement parks and gave us some valuable tips. Tomorrow we'll see how we plan our next days! 🤗

Before we go to bed, here's a beautiful cloud (with legs, that's the resolution of the previous riddle). Those who guessed right get a virtual kiss.

In this spirit - have a nice day and take care!

We love you!

B ❤️ M