Water below us, water above us.

Sweaty greetings from Florida!

And Happy Memorial Day. Today is a national holiday here, so a lot of places are closed to actually have a day off (except Walmart, they're always open 😅). And because it's a holiday today, it doesn't make sense to go to an amusement park. You know how amusement parks in Germany look like on weekends and holidays. So we drove to Tampa, which is 1 1/2 hours away. What a beautiful little town. It almost feels like Miami. Last night, we thought about what we can do and our plan included: a walk on the Riverwalk, a dolphin tour on the water, and watching the sunset in St. Petersburg at St. Pete Beach (no, not in Russia). Fort Myers was initially on the list, that's where Michael Wendler lives. But because of the long distance, we decided to skip it and give ourselves an extra hour of sleep this morning. Wendler was a little disappointed, but oh well. 😃

And so we start at the Hillsborough River, which flows out of Tampa Bay, which in turn comes from the Gulf of Mexico. We don't know who came up with the idea to go for a walk in 95°F (you all learned how much Celsius that is now 😋) heat. Every spot of shade was a blessing and after 5 km it was enough. Our pace wasn't the best either. But that way we could watch people, get to know Tampa, and chat. Thank goodness the water at the drinking fountains adjusted to the outdoor temperature and tasted nice and warm.

Stop at the car to have a drink and a snack (FINALLY COOKIES). The dolphin tour boat ride was waiting for us. Benny spontaneously found it on the internet at 10 pm last night and we booked it on a whim. The other tours cost around 60 euros per person, but here it was only 30 euros. So we said: even if we don't see dolphins, the main thing is to get out on the sea. And we can tell you: it was so beautiful. The whole tour was just great. The 'captain' casually told us about dolphins and their characteristics, then we saw houses of wealthy people, yachts that were incredibly huge. And of course, the vast sea. The cherry on top was that we really saw dolphins in their natural habitat. Some of them even very close to us. It was truly unique and Marie had tears in her eyes again. It wasn't just one, but every now and then 2 or 3 peeping out of the water together. So amazing. We were in love!

It was additionally refreshing on the boat because of the wind. Back at the harbor, we thought that we would melt again. It was really really incredibly hot. Sometimes the air was completely still and our energy only lasted until we got back in the air-conditioned car. Now we had to cross a really long bridge: the Howard Frankland Bridge, almost 5 km long with a beautiful view of the sea. And there we were in St. Petersburg, wanting to watch the sunset at St. Pete Beach (the internet said it's beautiful here). We went to the beach, which already convinced us with its white powdery sand. The water was almost too warm, but we couldn't resist taking a walk in the water.

Then the hunger kicked in. We actually thought that there would be celebrations on Memorial Day. But quite the opposite - most restaurants were closed. Subway apparently couldn't, because that's where we had our dinner. And when we returned to the beach, the sun was already on the verge of setting. Such a beautiful ending to an amazing day. It was enchanting.

On the other side of the horizon, something was brewing that worried us a little. It looked beautiful, but it didn't necessarily turn out to be fun at the end of the day 😃

That was the problem, we wanted to quickly buy sunscreen and ham because breakfast always only has sweet stuff. So we drove directly into the direction of the storm and you can't imagine it. We have never seen such a thunderstorm. When we walked from the car to the supermarket, we were completely soaked. On the way back, we put plastic bags over our heads. Marie was still wearing flip-flops, Benny walked on tiptoes. Luckily, Versace has heating (We never thought we'd say that 😅)

The streets were flooded in no time. The lightning was striking next to us. The windshield wipers couldn't keep up, let alone see a lane marking. Especially on unfamiliar terrain.

Benny did a great job though and we arrived safely, but also tired. Marie would have driven at a constant speed of 20 km/h - even on the highway - because she was so scared. That way, we would have arrived back in Orlando just in time for the entrance to Universal Studio Park tomorrow 😅

And because we have to get up early: Good night, dear ones, we're sending kisses! 

B ❤️ M