Saturday, April 9, 2016

Austin to Miami

Tony picked us up at 9:00 AM in Georgetown and drove us to the Austin airport where we had a leisurely walk through the TSA Pre-check line, had a coffee, read our books, bought our Salt Lick lunch and boarded our flight to Atlanta.  Arriving in Atlanta we had to change terminals in order to get our flight to Miami and we only had 50 minutes to make the change but it all went off without a hitch.  Upon arrival in Miami we called the Element Hotel and the shuttle appeared to transfer us to the hotel in air-conditioned comfort.  Check in was pretty slow but finally we had our room key and up to the room we went.  After a little rest we decided to have a glass of wine and a snack in the hotel as the location in an industrial area prompted us to not want to leave the hotel.  It is probably four miles to the airport, the closest place to get a bite.  We noticed the couple next to us and what they had ordered and they recommended the chicken wings and curly fries so we ordered that too with a caprese salad.  They couple turned out to be Germans living in Orange County, CA that were naturalized American citizens.  They were leaving for a cruise out of Miami port on Sunday morning.

After our nice supper we were ready for bed and it was a decent hour as we had set our clocks to eastern time.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Miami

Slept until the alarm, unusual for us.  Breakfast in the hotel, nice buffet, back to the room, measured the size of the room and Iris went to the front desk to complain about the size of the room that was far smaller than the advertisement for the room at the time of booking so they moved us to another room that was about double in size, very nice with sectional sofa, king bed, kitchen.  Element Hotels are “green” so much emphasis is placed on saving water and recycling.  We felt it was not good value for money though.

At 11:30 AM we got a driver to take us to Little Havana where we had booked a walking tour of the area focused on cuisine of Cuba.  Cubans have settled in this area of Miami beginning in the late 1950’s and today it is a thriving section of Miami.  Lots of art galleries, restaurants and parks.  Our tour met at an art gallery where the owner was a Cuban that bailed out of Cuba shortly after the Castros came to power.  Ralph (Rafael) met us there and gave us a short orientation talk of what the tour would be and from there our first stop was a sandwich cafeteria where the sandwich station is in the center of a diner counter and there were booths along with tables in a separate room.  We enjoyed empanadas plus a little pastry made with plantains stuffed with chicken and cumin.  All tasty!  Along the street we stopped at Cuba Tobacco Cigar Company to see hand rolling of cigars and packaging for shipment.  This family led by Don Bello legally purchased Cuban tobacco seeds from a third country and planted them in Dominica, Guatemala and Nicaragua and this is the source of the “Cuban” tobacco used in the manufacture of the cigars that are shipped all over the world.  From here we walked to a “ ventanita”, a little window where you could order Cuban sandwiches and coffee.  The sandwich was very good and the coffee was strong even with the cane sugar and cream but tasty.  Iris only gets her caffeine from chocolate so she declined the coffee.  Directly across 8th street from here was the “Ball and Chain”, a night club recreated as a jazz club 60 years after the original closed.  In the 1940’s and 1950’s this was a hot spot for all the big names in jazz like Cab Callaway, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, who were not allowed to stay in local hotels but had to cross the causeway to get to the area that would allow blacks to stay.  Here we had a mojito made with cane sugar, lime juice, club soda and Bacardi Silver rum.  Tasty!  Next stop was to see the Domino park where every table (and there were many) was filled with domino players using double nines instead of the normal double sixes that were thicker than the normal domino probably so it would make the greatest noise when slapped down on the table.  A short walk away we entered an open air fruit market where we learned about plantains and sugar cane while enjoying a glass of sugar cane juice.  This fruit market has been in business for over 100 years.  Current family that owns it had four generations present at the market today.  Ralph retrieved a box of pastries he had bought earlier before the bakery closed and we enjoyed one stuffed with guava jam while standing in front of the Tower Theater.  Our final stop was the Azucar ice cream shop where we had samples of several flavors and then a full cup of our choice.  Very good!  This was the conclusion of our tour so we took a cab back to the hotel and we were ready for a rest after all the walking and standing (3 hours).  A bottle of wine from the bar downstairs was our dinner as we had had so much food on the tour we were certainly not hungry.  To bed fairly early.