Professor Sharon

With 84 degrees outside in Del Ray Beach, we were ready to get organized and get to the Miami Courtyard Marriott where our Cuba adventure would be beginning at a 5 o’clock orientation.

Cereal and coffee with our Aunt – what a lovely woman!  Pack up our stuff, fold up the couch and rearrange the lovely little room we were guests in.  Hopefully she didn’t mind too much our inhabiting her TV and casual space for the couple of days.

After our goodbyes, we made our way down the A1A road again to visit the “oldest” building in America — I wonder how many of my readers could guess what it is!  Ancient Spanish Monastery….every hear of it?  Built in the 1100s near Segovia, Spain!  Very lovely.  I’ll leave you to read up more about it on their lovely website.    This is a photo of the lovely courtyard arches.  It was like stepping into one of the many lovely places we visited in Spain several years ago!  We never found an explanation, but the wonderful tree in the courtyard was dripping with small chandeliers – an art piece perhaps.

Back on the road, switched to Rt 1 and stopped in the Surfside area.  We parked the car and had lunch in a sweet place called the Bistro.  Excellent food.  We managed to find a way to the “public” beach ocean side – although it must be awful during high season to actually get there as we didn’t see any decent parking.  We managed to take a great picture of ourselves by hanging our camera on a lifesaver post/pole!   Don’t we look ready for a warm winter vacation!

Well, time to get to the airport hotel.  Now, remember, we had no map or GPS!  We figured it out, driving local streets, and enjoyed some interesting street scenes along the way.  We were trying to avoid the expressway to the airport, but probably should have taken it in the end.  We went pretty far out of our way; figured it out, turned around, and realized that the left we should have taken wasn’t accessible from where we had been!

We found, checked in, had a cup of tea and went down to the lobby to meet  and start out Cuba adventure!  We were ready.  First a meeting of filling out more paperwork for visas, and more.  A history lesson about Cuba and Cuban Americans from a Cuban American woman who had been in the FL House of Representatives.  Dinner seemed so late but finally arrived.

Best thing we did last minute was stuff our winter coats, gloves, scarves, and hats into a spare duffel and check it at the front desk until we came back (we were going to spend a night back at that hotel before heading back to MA.).

Off to bed!  Tomorrow, off to Cuba!