Day 3-Relaxing....Or that was the plan anyway.

Today was a lot different than the past several days. Instead of waking up at 8AM, I decided to sleep in until 11AM. I got up and made breakfast, and made it out the door by about 12:30PM. I had grand plans to go to a Flea Market and see what deals I could find. Of course, the flea market I wanted to go to (that I had remembered going to when I was younger with my grandparents), closed last year! Thus, I asked the woman at the front desk of the hotel where she would recommend. She gave me the name and address of one and I set out to find it! I arrived at the address and there was nothing there :/

Plan B was to drive into Miami Beach and see what was going on over there. I crossed the MacArthur Causeway into South Beach and drove North all the way to Sunny Isles. This is a long drive consisting of resort after resort and intermittent views of the ocean and beaches. I wanted to take this trip to remember my last trip down here over 10 years ago. I accomplished this goal! I purposely did not park anywhere along my travels because I wanted to gain an understanding of the Miami Beach area. I will definitely head back there in the future to explore some more! I think the Beach is calling my name tomorrow!

On my drive back to my hotel, the beautiful sunny day turned into a rainstorm of epic proportions. I have never seen so much water drop so quickly before in my life (I felt like I was in a hurricane). The thunder actually made my car shake and the lightning looked and felt like it was landing very close to my location. Within 20 minutes, the storm had ended. Now I look outside several hours later, and all of the precipitation has dried up!

Now I am sitting in my hotel room trying to do some reading on Cuban Musicians, compile notes I've taken over the past several days from talking with different contacts, and trying to study some spanish for the upcoming week. Nothing like a little downtime after doing so much over the past several days.

More to come tomorrow...