Welcome to Miami.

Welcome to the Sunshine State of Florida, in the Miami-Dade District on Miami Beach with the two crazy East Coasters!

The drive to Miami was fantastic. The journey was relaxed, stopping for a cheeseburger at McDonald's and then we arrived in the afternoon!

However, since we arrived, it has been raining. Sometimes just drizzling, then heavy rain, but definitely no sun. That's why we scrapped our whole plan and rescheduled our booked activities for Sunday and Monday. So, we had to figure out: What do you do when it's raining in Miami Beach? Beach? Well, we certainly didn't go for a swim. Instead, on Thursday, we took a short rest and luckily had something else planned. We had tickets for a baseball game between the Miami Marlins and the San Francisco Giants. In hindsight, it wasn't a major game, more like a second-division SV Sandhausen vs. Jahn Regensburg match, with the stadium not fully booked and more of a family atmosphere with hot dogs. We even watched YouTube videos beforehand to understand the rules of the game. We only truly understood it when we were there. It's a very long game, so the atmosphere is not filled with excitement and action, but more like, "How was your weekend?" - "Oh, cool, he hit the ball." Clapping once and then continuing the conversation 😅. Nevertheless, it was a cool feeling to be there, and we enjoyed it. Thankfully, the stadium has a retractable roof (in Washington, the games are postponed). Each team plays about 160 games per season. What a workload, which is why not every game is fully attended. Unfortunately, we didn't participate in the Kiss Cam or catch a baseball, but we can now say: We were there! It was pretty cool that every player had a song when it was their turn to bat, so there was always a relaxed atmosphere with some singing and dancing in between.

It was funny that afterwards we were speaking like pros: "Oh wow, only 2 innings left and they already have 2 outs with 0 points." At the end of the day, we left the game after about 2.5 hours because it was quite long. But we didn't miss anything, as the score remained the same and the Miami Marlins won 3-1! 😃 Actually, they play against each other again on Friday and Saturday, but we'll just stick with one stadium visit!

On the way to the stadium, we had a little mishap. We could have added the toll for $15 per day to the rental car, which we declined (that would have been an extra $150). Well, we got lost for 50 meters. And what was in those 50 meters? Yes, a toll booth! But not like the ones we have, where you drive up to a booth and pay in cash. No, now we have to pay the rental car company a $30 service fee + the $0.95 for the measly toll. You wouldn't believe how much Marie was annoyed. It took Benny a while to make her smile again. Donations are accepted, by the way 😅

The next day, we finally got to sleep in and took our time getting out of the room at 11:00 a.m. Speaking of the room, there's also a funny story. When we checked in, they couldn't find our name. The explanation: we only booked a room from Friday, so we were homeless for one night. But we were able to add another night, and everything turned out fine. However, that day was the one that worked the least well so far 🙈

Since we had rescheduled our activities for Friday, we were sitting there wondering - what exactly do you do when it's raining and storming? By now, it was a tropical storm warning, so we decided to go to a shopping mall for some window shopping. Well, it turned out to be a department store for the affluent, with all kinds of brands favored by the richest 10% of the world. We didn't do more than look around, except for some international underwear, so Marie could feel like a top model for a moment 😃

On the way back, there was another torrential downpour. We also wonder how all the water can drain without drains. But as soon as the sun shines again, it all evaporates. That's why the humidity here is so unbelievably unpleasant.

That's all that happened on that day. Now, we're looking for something to eat and then we hope that the storm will be over by tomorrow afternoon - we want to explore Downtown Miami on foot.

Kisses to everyone! We wish you a happy Pentecost and we saw that the weather is really nice where you are! Enjoy the days off.

B ❤️ M