Florida yet again..!!

This year we were not planning on any vacations, but then American Airlines announced it's bankruptcy in November. Over the past year, I took the pain to accumulate miles on AA and here I am wondering if I can use the 100K miles ever ( 95K miles to be precise :P ). After a lot of discussions with Mansi, we zeroed on Orlando and Miami as our vacation getaway. Florida is our favorite destination so far, considering that we have been there 3 times in the past 6 years. Devotees go to Kashi or Haridwar on their annual pilgrimage and we end up visiting Florida :P I used all my miles to get a one-way to MCO and first class return tickets from MIA. 

Day 1: We decided to visit Daytona beach shores on our first day. Unfortunately due to traffic and accidents on the way, we managed to reach our hotel well after sunset. Not getting to walk along the beach during sunset did not dampen our spirits and we set out scouting for dinner. One of the recommendations we received for seafood was Aunt Catfish's On The River We had a mixed platter of catfish, tilapia, salmon and sweet potato fries with pineapple relish. The food was very delicious and is incomparable to the seafood we have at restaurant chains in cities. 

Day 2: I managed to click a few pictures the next day morning.

Daytona beach is by far the cleanest beach I have visited so far. We strolled along the beach after breakfast, took a couple of snaps and hit the road again. We drove back to Orlando airport, picked Mandar, Shirin and Meher and set off to Disney's Magic Kingdom. 

Disney's Magic Kingdom is a very large and extremely well managed theme park. We spent the rest of the day at Disney meeting Meher's favorite cartoon characters mostly princesses and fairies. The Disney castle is lit up in the evening and looks magnificent. There are a couple of shows featuring cartoon projections on the castle, followed by an electric parade and fireworks. One thing to note is that it's more convenient to take the fast pass so that kids can meet their cartoon characters faster. The food at Disney's is plain ok and very expensive. I recommend making reservations at restaurants early enough. 

Day 3: We drove from Orlando to Miami along I-95 and we decided to take a pit-stop at West Palm beach. We had lunch at an Indian restaurant Indus, which ironically was the only place open on Christmas day. The food was delicious and they had a $15 buffet with unlimited beverages and alcohol. Mandar's friends caught up with us at Indus and all of us left for West Palm Beach. West Palm beach is a very affluent neighborhood and is lined with colonial style villas. The beach itself was very nice and clean. After spending an hour or so at the beach, we headed to Fort Lauderdale. We made reservations for dinner at Las Vegas Cuban cuisine. Cuban cuisine is very similar to Mexican cuisine and the food was excellent.

Day 4: We stayed in Miami and and headed to South Miami beach by noon. South Miami beach has metered parking spaces, but finding a parking space is a bit difficult. We rented bicycles for $5/hr and cycled along the beach. Miami boasts of it's interesting Art Deco architecture. Most of the buildings from 7th to 14th street display their loud and colorful architecture. We had lunch at Pelican Cafe. This place was very pricey and was very deceiving in terms of the offers mentioned by the hostess. On a second note, we should have read the Tripadvisor reviews regarding this place. After lunch, we whiled away our time at the beach and then after sunset we headed to the airport. 

Overall, I loved this quick getaway to Florida. I wish we had more time to travel to Key West, but then that's for another trip ;) Looking forward to my next visit to Sunshine state !!!

Trip to London - Part I

In Feb, I was asked to send my abstract to the AO workshop being held in Durham UK. I fervently started googling to find out the visa process in case the abstract was accepted. The UK visa application process (when applying from USA) is submitted online. It's very detailed and at the end of the application, you have to go for a biometric scanning. After the biometric scanning is done, send the documents by courier to the UK embassy. Two grouses: (1) the visa application website does not say the charges for the visa until you finish everything. Perhaps, it would be easy if we know the charges for a 6 month multiple entry vs 1 year multiple entry upfront. (2) the application instructions mention that you should send a confirmation of your travel plans including air ticket. Another paragraph says that tickets should not be bought unless the visa is issued. This is misleading. 


So I sent all my documents without booking an air-ticket. The UK visa was approved and I received my passport in 5 days :)


One thing that I forgot was getting an US to UK adapter plug. I suggest getting that adapter in US before travelling. My itinerary involved trip to London-Durham-London and back. But then the trip turned out to be longer than planned.


To be continued ....