2015 Miami
4th January 2015
We left Seattle on January 1st after spending a very pleasant three weeks in Seattle with our son and his wife over Christmas. The temperature on the day we left was hovering around zero, so it was good to see that our destination in Miami would be 27 degrees, which would do me nicely. Geography was never my strongest point, so I was surprised to see that Seattle to Miami involved around eight hours of flying, including a change in Dallas.
I always like to arrive at airports at least three hours before my flight to avoid any stress, so I was a little concerned that our stopover in Dallas was only 45 minutes. It seemed impossibly short, but it was a connection with the same airline, so I assumed they would wait or at least sort it out if there was a problem. The good news was that we landed early, but the bad news was that the captain announced that our parking place was still being used, so we had to hang around for 25 minutes before we could leave the plane. Fortunately, the plane to Miami was 20 minutes late, so we managed to get to the departure gate with ten minutes to spare despite being given the wrong gate number. I was wondering whether the delay was to wait for people like us who had to transfer, but the counter staff informed me that a late take-off costs the airline a lot of money, so there was no question of waiting for anyone. The fact that missing a flight might cost their passengers money didn’t seem to come into the equation.
With a three-hour time difference, we arrived at our hotel around 1.30 am. I was exhausted and starving as I had only eaten a sandwich all day. I don’t like eating late, but I prefer it to the ultimate nightmare of waking up at 4 am ravenous. I ordered a cheeseburger on room service, which hit the spot even though I had to drink it with water as I had managed to book the only Sheraton in the USA without a minibar. I finished off the cheeseburger in no time and was left with a few fries and some onions that were so smelly that, with a few modifications, they could have been weaponised. I turned off the light and tried to go to sleep, but the onions wafted through the air and lay on top of me like a blanket. I rarely used room service, but I remembered that people used to leave dirty plates outside their rooms. I had no idea if that was still the custom, but either way, it was so late I doubted if anyone would come and pick it up. Unable to stand the smell any longer, I put the plate outside and went back to bed. I woke up an hour later and was having trouble getting back to sleep, as often happens when you have lots of stupid stuff on your mind. Top of the stupid list was the plate I had left out outside, as we were in a country that led the world in ridiculous insurance claims. What if someone tripped over my plate in the middle of the night and pretended to hurt themselves? There would be a lawsuit, and as the hotel would blame me for the accident, I would have to pay 20 million dollars in compensation for the emotional distress of the aspiring actress who had broken a fingernail. When I finally dropped off to sleep, I dreamt that Judge Judy was presiding over the case in one of her most vicious moods, telling me I cut the poor girl’s career and she would make an example of me.
I woke up in a sweat, and there was nothing for it but to get up and retrieve the plate. I was concerned about opening the door in my naked state, but I was sure no one would be walking around at that time. I only had to open the door a little, put my hand around and grab the plate. What could possibly go wrong? I opened the door, checked that the coast was clear and then leaned out and put my fingers under the plate with my thumb on top of the metal cover that kept the food warm. When I applied pressure, the cover did a somersault and the plate spilt the leftovers all over the carpet. I got down on my hands and knees and had to lean out of the room stark naked and collect all the crap, which was smelling worse than ever. While I was doing all that, it occurred to me that those hotels had closed-circuit TV in the corridors, so either I would be arrested for indecent exposure or, at the very least, the security guard would upload the video onto YouTube. It was too late to back out, and I couldn’t be bothered to hunt around in the dark for my clothes, so I remained au natural and collected all the crap together as quickly as I could, whilst trying not to throw up at the smell of the onions. Back in the room, I deposited the whole thing in a drawer, and it wasn’t the considerable noise I had made that woke Federika, but the smell of the onions. Fortunately, we were both good sleepers and went straight back to sleep. At breakfast the next morning, I was sure everyone was looking at me, but maybe it was my imagination. Either way, I was not going to look at YouTube for at least a year.
Next day we took a bus to Miami town and made for the nearest sushi bar, which was fantastic although surprisingly expensive. I remembered restaurants in the USA being much cheaper than in England, but not anymore. After lunch, it was a quick snooze on the beach and then the usual strolling around the shops. We were in Miami a couple of years earlier, so we had already done most of the tourist stuff.
2015 Caribbean Cruise
