Was ist anders? Was hat unsere Sichtweise geändert? Warum demonstrieren wir hier in Deutschland für eine solare Energiewende? Bei der vergleichsweise geringen Sonneneinstrahlung!
Haben wir wirklich eine andere Sichtweise?
Die folgenden Videoschnipsel von der Energiewende-Demo für die Weiterführung der solaren Energiewende sind zwar verwackelt – es war 20° kälter als in Florida – aber authentisch:
Zurück in Deutschland denke ich wieder in Deutsch… 😉
Der Wille war da, allerdings ist der Blog ein bisschen Stückwerk geworden. Das ist auch eine Erfahrung: Wenn man nicht wirklich jeden Tag schreibt, verliert man den Anschluss.
Die Rückreise war natürlich wie erwartet anstrengend.
Abflug um 22:50 Ortszeit in Miama. Ankunft in Berlin: Ortszeit 20:00h (leicht verspätet da ein bisschen holprig zwischen Madrid und Berlin).
Wir hatten im Urlaub einen Nissan Quest 7-Sitzer. Geräumig und amerikanisch, also passend, wenn es um den reinen Transport von A nach B auf amerikanischen Straßen ging. Ich war letztlich froh, als ich ihn dass wieder los war und freue mich auf straffer gefederte Fahrzeuge mit logischeren Bedienelementen. Die Rückgabe des Mietwagens war Formsache. Die Mitarbeiterin von Advantage machte eine kurze Runde ums Fahrzeug, prüfte den Tankinhalt und das war’s! Jetzt muss ich nur noch meine Abrechnung prüfen.
Tipp für das nächste Mal: Am einfachsten am Flughafen aus der Liste der Anbieter sich einen aussuchen, Vollkasko und das war’s! Nicht vergessen: Eine “Toll-free-Plakette” für die kostenpflichtigen Highways, die dann automatisch abgerechnet wird, z.B. SunPass. Mich hat das etwas nervös gemacht, weil der Vermieter nichts davon gesagt hat und ich bei der ersten Sperre verunsichert war.
Auf dem Rückweg hatte ich Glück! Im ersten Schritt ist der Online Check-In bei Iberia halb misslungen, denn ich konnte keinen Sitzplatz auswählen. Dann am Flughafen drei Stunden vor dem Abflug am Check-In Schalter aber freundliche Unterstützung. Zuerst die Auskunft, dass Iberia seit kurzem für jede Reservierung Geld verlangt aber dann doch Reihe 26 wie auf der Hinreise bekommen. Im A330 ist das die Reihe hinter der zweiten Trennwand. Vorteil: Mehr Beinfreiheit. Nachteil: Direkt vor der Toilette. Da ist so wenig Platz zum Anstehen, dass die Mitflieger wenig Rücksicht nehmen (können) auf die dort Sitzenden. Da aber in dieser Reihe auch XXL-Sitze am Notausgang platziert sind und diesmal rechts keiner sitzen wollte, hatte ich das große Glück, meine Beine ganz ausstrecken zu können – wohltuend!
Im Flughafen hatte ich mir noch kurzfristig einen preiswerten In-Ear-Kopfhörer gekauft, der mit Noise Cancellation ausgestattet ist und kann sagen: Die tiefen Frequenzen und damit das Brummen der Triebwerke waren so gut wie weg – sehr wohltuend!
Iberia hinterlässt einen etwas zwiespältigen Eindruck. Da ich im direkten Vergleich mit AirBerlin geflogen bin, drängte sich auch der direkte Vergleich auf. Die AirBerlin-Mitarbeiter waren bei diesen Flügen professioneller und auch freundlicher. Ein subjectives Urteil von einem Hin- und Rückflug.
“Im Prinzip ja!” Schön, Verwandte in Florida zu haben, die machen einem die Entscheidung leichter. Städte und “Land und Leute” nochmal besuchen? Eher nein! Dazu ähneln sich die gesehenen Städte zu sehr und Florida ist zu sehr auf Tourismus ausgerichtet. Meine Sache ist es einfach nicht, mit anderen Touristen das immer Gleiche angeboten zu bekommen. Die Everglades genauer erkunden? Sicher! Das nächste Mal werden wir uns mehr darum kümmern. Das Ökosystem ist so einmalig, dass man das in ein bis zwei Tagen nicht erfassen kann. Insbesondere geführte Touren würde ich mir wünschen. Keine Touristenattraktion sondern umweltverträgliche und kluge Führungen durch das Ökosystem, bei denen man versteht, was einmalig ist an dieser Landschaft. Strand und Sonne? Klar, die Sandstrände sind schön und Florida bietet reichlich Sonnentage für alle, die primär danach streben. Da kann Deutschland nicht mithalten. Außer man mag den Unterschied zwischen Sommer und Winter, man mag die Abwechslung in Flora und Fauna und kann manchmal sogar einem nebligen und kalten Novembertag etwas abgewinnen. 😉
The reason for our travel was a wedding ceremony of my niece Helen. I never thought about the english word but I am her “Godfather”. The word makes me laugh because I will always have in mind Al Pacino and Marlon Brando.
I did not know this but Marlon Brando in 1973 refused to accept his Oscar for his role in The Godfather. I think it makes sense to remember why he did so. Here a youtube video of Sacheen Littlefeathers who later said that her appearence in the Oscar ceremony ended her film career. Here in addtition a link to Wikipedia articel Wounded Knee that explain some details on what happended at the same time.
The following wedding pics (Friday preparation until afterparty on Sunday) say more than words.
Photographs were shot by my nephew (but not the one of him and his girlfriend 😉 ), my sister (mother of the bride), the sister of the bridegroom, my daughter and myself.
Where are they?
This is not the bridal couple
Shall I?
Let’s go!
Henry is part of it all.
Say “YES”
Let’s party!
Silence
But now we will go to catch Moby Dick
I thought I would meet Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo but…
It’s quite a long way down to Key West. Without the bridge (the first one that can be seen as a skeleton besides was a railway bridge) it would be jumping from one island to the next one. The Keys are the upper parts of huge coral riffs. So diving should in any case be interesting. But as we are no divers we stayed on the road and I wondered why the keys are called “keys”. A good explanation I found here: “The Spanish took the word “cayo’ from the Taino Indians of Hispanola and Cuba referring to small islands. The Spanish normally used “isla” for island and “islet” for small island. In the New World, they used “cayo” and “cayuelo” for a very small island. (The English used “Cay’ as in Hawks Cay) It ultimately was pronounce ‘key’. Key West was once Cayo Hueso (Kie-O Hwae-So)”
The more we drove to south-west the more all became sub tropical and the places became touristic and recreation places. Diving, sailing, fishing and so on. Palms, water, sun and the rich part of the States.
And what do all the other Americans? They visit “Southernmost Point” 
to make a photograph of themselves in front of it:
In reality this place being 90 miles away from Cuba is not at all most southern place of Key West because the US Navy Base on Key West is more to the south and it is not the most southern place on the continent because this point is in Flamingo in the south west of Florida. Who cares?
While walking around hundreds of most southern places appear…
This came in today in the morning (German time):
“Das ist Rom’s Untergang!” 😉
Thursday morning started with some strange looking guests on our parking place, directly in front of our terrace:
These prehistorical animals look really strange and beautiful. But at the same time we have to realize that this creature does not belong here. It is the Iguana iguana, a reptile that invaded from Central America. This is not the only invasive species that is a real danger for the fascinating eco system of the Everglades, another example is the tiger python.
Check-out, driving downtown and to the factory outlet “Dolphins”. Then way down to KeyLargo, check-in again and “dinner”. Not much to tell about. Well but this food stories of today:
Good life means: Take long time running trough the mall, eat fast! Dish shown above was called Japanese food…
Last meal that we had today was Italian. Well the only italian with this food was the color because I had tomato with basil.
Ok, the good thing is that I am looking forward to some real good food at my nieces place. 🙂 I hope that meanwhile we will not die from a sugar shot or because of too much “Pure Live”. Conclusion: Never travel to places like that as a vegetarian!
--------- Sorry, Kampf mit dem Blog... Da musste ich etwas wieder herstellen. Ich hoffe, die Kommentare sind nicht auch verschwunden!) ---------
This long way led us to the beach itself.
We had a bit walking around on the beach and in Beach.
Resumé = To see and to be seen.
Ja, eigentlich sollte man es ja umgekehrt machen aber schon gestern habe ich beim Parkautomaten die Kreditkarte gezückt, weil ich kein Geld gewechselt hatte. Kommt davon, wenn man in Deutschland praktisch nur noch Online-Banking betreibt. Überhaupt das Parken! Das Hotel mit dem Namen Pestana Art Deco ist zwar von außen betrachtet nett und auch der Pool lädt ein:
Hotel Pestana Miami Beach, Pool
Doch die Kosten sind nicht ganz ohne, denn man muss das Parken und Frühstück hinzurechnen, also für uns zwei plus Auto nochmal pro Nacht 54€ zum Hotelpreis dazu. Da ist man dann letztlich bei 200 pro Nacht angekommen und das ist nicht billig. Vielleicht denke ich auch nur so, weil ich beim ersten Besuch in den Staaten im Jahr 1991 das alles wesentlich günstiger in Erinnerung hatte.
(Himmel, ich bin bei Deutsch gelandet – doch ein bisschen müde?)
Breakfast was ok but for sure a bit sweet and not really “sustainable”. After that we realised how warm it really is in Miami Beach. We walked down Lincoln Rd, a real shopping area including a lot of cafes and restaurants. Made for tourism. Maybe I am too old for that but 90% commercial stuff does not give me as much pleasure as I would like to have in vacation. You leave your job that in reality is about commercial stuff and end up in an area were commercial thinking overwhelms almost everything. Well, the positive thing is the “service thinking” of the americans. While at Madrid airport at Information I almost got no help when asking for when Simeon’s flight will arrive here in the States you can ask everyone and mostly will receive a nice answer. This has not changed since 1991. Maybe this has improved in Germany since that time but the States in this area still are reference. But for sure you realize that almost everyone working in service area either is black or latino. Ok we are near to Mexico and Havanna so it is not surprising that in Miami it seems that more people are speaking spanish than english.
On way back, very near to our hotel we fond this front:
James Hotel, James Street, Miami Beach
This looks a bit more like Art Deco. There is a complete area around 10th Steet called Art Deco District. Tomorrow we should go there. Now it is time to look for a place where we might get some (vegetarian) food. 🙂
Juice & Java, Miami Beach
The day ended with a walk and some organic food at Juice&Java, including a “vital shoot”. A small place where we got “organic food”. So I asked the waitress (For our slovak follower: She looked and talked more like coming from Slovensko than as usual “latino”) about how to find out what food is “natural”. She explained that it should be labeled on packages: “100% organic”. So are more labels german view on it? At least I found some more to read about that: Organic Food at FNIC. My shot was quite hot. I took the Ginger Cayenne Lemon and now I am healed from everything! 😉
Next time all-inclusive? There is a lot to do before you can calm down.
So what happened since we have landed?
Oh, I see we haven’t landed yet. 😉 So flight was divided into two parts. Me flying Airberlin Berlin to Madrid and my son Iberia Munich to Madrid. So I was quite early, starting at 8:50h and landing shortly before 12. What did I find out? Well I was surprised but service from AirBerlin was better. Maybe it is because of language as speaking English seemed to be much more difficult for stewards on Iberia flight. Maybe it was because stewardess at AirBerlin offered me to move to an XXL seat so I really had a lot of room during this flight.
But what is true: food was better from AirBerlin. As our friend from travel agency booked “vegan” during this long flight we received extra food almost without any carbohydrates. But as well taste was well “awf…”. You would never expect that in a Spanish airline food is worse than in a German one but it really was – sorry for that!
In Madrid I found out that airport is really huge. At first the airplane seems to need same time from landing area to parking area as from Berlin to Madrid. then I had to walk and drive from parking area to starting area. As Simeon’s airplane had a delay this means that we really had to hurry up to reach airplane in time together.
It seems that they used some wood when constructing the ceiling. I am not sure but it looks as if and I likes that because it makes the room transparent and gives it a warmer ambience. Is this because the Expo in Spain some years ago? I have something in remind about buildings made out of wood but maybe I am wrong. Or was this Shanghai? (Norwegian Pavillion)
Flight itself was a typical transatlantic flight. Long, never-ending but that was to be expected. Landing in Miami International was some kind of surprise because this airport is really quite old. It took us about an hour to get to rental car area and another 30 minutes until we left the garage. But then it took us more than one hour for a fifteen minutes drive to hotel Pestana because we had no good map and no SIM card / navigation system. A short night followed and this for sure had some influence on our energy at the next day.
Travelling to the States is different. It starts with ESTA (before or after buying tickets?). This declaration tells the honesty of US government that the person who wants to travel has a clean record, Yes, this is it. So here they tell us that they do not know everything about us so we should tell them if we are sick, drink coffee or consume even worse drugs. So first feeling is “Uff, in spite of NSA they need to call us some important things before they let us in!”
Reiseblog Florida 2013 