Sunny side up

It has been a while that I’ve given any updates of my life in the blog. In fact, I’ve been on holiday and quite totally restricted myself from using the Internet.

The itch grows every day and I’ve emptied my inbox a couple of times during the past week — mainly due to explosion of my holiday notification that looped over 14 000 messages to my inbox in less than 50 hours.

There is another reason for not writing anything here: the family. Travelling with a toddler and an infant takes its toll, and frankly I haven’t got any free time to write down something. Now, the whole family except me is sleeping and I’ve got my first time alone during the trip. I just finished an excellent book by Stieg Larsson, and the moment just feels right to write notes.

We left Helsinki to Miami via London last week’s Wednesday, so we’ve been on the road for eight days already. Time just flies. The flights were surprisingly easy, Niilo slept a lot and Aapo was somehow content with everything. We transferred through Heathrow’s Terminal 5 — quite impressive building and just okay airport.

On the other hand, arrival to Miami was anything but pleasant. It seems that most, if not all, US airports are really daunting places. Low ceilings, ugly carpets, complex set of corridors without proper signs, and so forth. The passport control was relaxed and for once I somehow felt being welcomed to the country.

The baggage claim was a total circus. The hall itself is really depressing, and the bags were arriving to the belt really slowly. BA asked us, among others, to meet a clerk. She told us that our bags might have not arrived. Might not? The flight took more than seven hours, BA should know exactly whether our bags were in the plane or not. Apparently they didn’t, or had indications of both having and not having the bags in the plane. Anyhow, our bags had arrived to Miami and fortunately we had enough patience to wait them.

The experience got better when we went to the taxi queue. We were told that children under five years of age cannot ride taxi without a proper child seat. We didn’t know it and our travel agency seemed not to know that either. We ended taking a Super Shuttle to Mandarin Oriental — the driver probably had never visited upscale hotels, he was so baffled with the experience at the door.

We got our room with a large bed, and the requested baby cot arrived after visiting reception. After doing the most urgent things, we crashed to the bed.

Next morning saw me and Aapo visiting hotel’s swanky infinite pool and hot tub before we embarked to Dadeland Mall. The train ride was the best part of the journey for Aapo that is not a shopping fan. We raided the basic US chains, such as GAP, Banana Republic, Wolf Camera, etc. Our final stop was Toys’r'Us that we bought a few Lego sets. The selection was quite poor, and I’m still a bit disappointed that there were no Technics models worth of buying.

Mandarin Oriental is located on a small island next to downtown Miami and there is not that many services nearby. I walked to the nearest proper grocery store — twenty minutes walk in blazing heat. After buying almost too much stuff to carry — including four sushi sets packed inside ice — I managed to hail a taxi back to the hotel after I’ve walked a couple of blocks from the store. My arms were already hurting, so I seriously doubt that I’d managed to get back to hotel.

I had booked a car for the second day in Florida. Our aim was to visit Florida Keys and maybe also Everglades. I took a taxi to the airport that had the only rental outlet with long hours in the city. Fortunately, Miami’s airport is quite close by the downtown.

For some irrational reason, I’m quite fond of Infiniti G35. If I can book it, I will. I’ve driven it once in California and I must say that it is not the best sports kind of car that I’ve tried. This time the car was not available. It was not available back in California either, but somehow they dug up one car. This time I finally got a Mercedes-Benz E350 that is a better car by any measurements. With the price of Infiniti, of course.

I picked up the family from the hotel and then headed to south. We didn’t get that far when Aapo started asking whether we have already arrived. He also wanted to get out of the car. He was bored, and we used all our tricks to entertain him while driving towards the Keys.

The drive was an un-experience. We drove to Long Key and then decided to get back, as children needed lunch and they were not enjoying the ride that much. We saw the ocean for a few times and a couple of the vistas were spectacular, but not maybe worth the drive — one extra day would have helped a lot, as we could have spent a night in Key West. At the end, we visited a natural park, had excellent sushi in Key Largo and then drove to Miami Beaches for shopping.

The first stop was Bal Harbour shopping center that is full of luxury shops. The major attraction was a fish and turtle pool that kept Aapo entertained while I and Sanna visited a few shops. Then we drove down to Ocean Drive and finally to Apple shop. My plan was to buy some software, as they are cheaper in the US than in Finland. New iPhone was launched on that day, and there were three hour queue to the store.

The whole day felt like wasted, and we had burn several hundreds dollars on it. At least we saw a lot of places and the Merc was fun to drive.

Next day, Saturday, was the last full day in Miami. We took a taxi to Miami Beach — the driver didn’t care about the regulations, and spent the day lazily in a small shopping area and then on the beach area. Not on the beach itself, but in the park between the beach and Ocean Drive. Small children need constant stimulation and after spending a couple of hours there, we decided to take a taxi back to hotel. The rest of the day was spent in the pool and taking care of packing. I and Aapo visited a nearby mall, founding only a couple of things worth buying.

We had booked a Super Shuttle to take us back to the airport. The driver tried to take $25 extra, but fortunately I knew the real price and after he played his part by calling to someone and so forth, he lowered the price to the correct level. I just hate this kind of entrepreneurship.

We flew American Airlines to Turks & Caicos. Checking-in was a nightmare comparable to the earlier baggage claim. First, we had to find the right queue. No signs whatsoever anywhere. Our flight left on gate E4 on terminal E, so it was just natural to have the check-in on terminal C.

The queueing time was 45 minutes. There were a lot of agents, but for some odd reason, everything just took time. I’ve experienced such slow check-ins only in the US — maybe it is some federal regulation… And the icing of the cake: we had to transfer our luggage to another location for pickup. These things never happen in Europe or Asia.

The security control looked strict. We had to show our boarding passes three times in the same queue — I don’t understand how checking the same thing again and again would improve security — and remove our shoes. Then we passed through with 200ml baby milk in a bottle without any questions asked.

The gate area was a run-down place. Fortunately, there was a Pizza Hut joint that could satisfy our hunger and thirst, but the rest of the services were really low-key.

The flight took about 90 minutes, and we landed safely to Providenciales international airport. The passport control was almost a replica from the States; the immigration form missed tick questions, such as being an ally for Nazi Germany or having a mental illness.

We got our baggages immediately and were greeted by a person from our resort at the airport door. We waited a bit for our transportation and then we were on our way to Beaches resort.

We had selected the resort because it is children friendly, and offers luxury accommodation with all-inclusive package. This place is really a good place to travel with children, there is abundance of program for them, the food is good and there is plenty of pools.

But the luxury; Our room is supposed to be a luxury room, but the hotel has done a fantastic job to subdue the feeling. The bed is big, but has a thin cheap feeling blanket instead a duvet. The room is big, but the furniture quality is mediocre and the cleaning lady uses detergents with pungent caramellic chemical smell. There is no view to speak of. Maybe this is luxury to someone, but it is a disappointment compared to Mandarin Oriental or even to most of the Asian resorts.

The whole place is a bit kitschy, as it tries hard to be something else than a Caribbean resort. There is a French café that misses the atmosphere of a real French café, and an Italian restaurant that does not have any soul and no owner greeting people and walking from table to table. Everything is bit disneyfic and plastic, too American to my taste.

On the other hand, the food is better than we thought and the service attitude is excellent. The Sesame Street characters are interesting to Aapo, if a bit scary, too.

During these few days here, we have spent most of our time in nearby swimming pool, visited the beach once and tried almost every restaurant in the resort. Yesterday I ventured out to nearby supermarket by foot to buy chips and drinks — yes, the luxury resort does not use brand sodas, but something just a bit cheaper; once again a way to save a penny or two and stamp the whole free drinks experience really cheap.

Today, we visited the local shopping malls by taxi. There seems to be a huge resort / condo boom in the island, and a lot of new developments have been sprouted in the nearby area. The shopping malls were small, spotlessly clean and vacant of shoppers and stuff worth buying. There was an exception, though, a Japanese restaurant full of people in the lunchtime. The sushi was good and the price was still decent.

We’ll continue grilling us on the sunshine for a few more days and then fly back to Helsinki, once again through London. I’d be surprised, if there is much more to report from the rest of our holiday. And that is the way that I like it to be, at least for this trip.