DAY 6 - FOURTH FULL DAY IN MIAMI

A LOOK AT WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY:

VISIT TO VILLAGE OF MERRICK PARK ✔ LUNCH AT PERRICONE'S✔ANOTHER WALK AROUND DOWNTOWN MIAMI ✔ MIAMI HEAT BASKETBALL GAME✔ 

Last evening we did FaceTime with Jennifer, Gui and Andre and then later in the evening,  Anne Marie (Keith had already fallen asleep) spoke with our son Eric by phone, who as we mentioned, is skiing with Kara and her family.  

We've mentioned FaceTime a few times and we realize that some of you might not be familiar with its use.  Similar to Skype but is Apple's Application.  It allows users to do voice and video over the internet using a range of devices including an iPhone, iPad or a Mac Computer.  

All of that walking also makes for good sleeping.  It seems from the moment our heads touched the pillow we almost instantaneously fell asleep.  It also helps that the room has been so very quiet that it is easy to forget that the hotel occupancy rate is almost at 100%.

The staff at the hotel has continued to be terrific and as we mentioned the other day, the staff is quite seasoned with many of them having worked at this Hotel for many years.   For example, the woman who performs the turn-down service in the evening, Ana, has been working at this property for a little over six years.  She works part-time, five hours a day, preforming the turn down service and has gone out of her way to make our stay very nice and we really appreciate it.

Once again, this morning we enjoyed breakfast in our room and had cereal with fruit.  As part of our room package, we can eat in our room, or in the restaurant, including the buffet breakfast, but we find a simple breakfast of either cereal or oatmeal and fruit works well for us.  

After breakfast we got ready for another fun day in Miami.  

This morning we went over to the Village Of Merrick Park, in Coral Gables.  This is a shopping mall, rather than a park.  We would have loved to have walked there,  however, it would be too long a walk.

The facility includes a beautiful park:

It also has stores in an unclosed setting, restaurants, offices, residences and also is anchored by a Neiman Marcus on one end and a Nordstrom on the other end.

We arrived early so that we could walk inside before the stores opened and then we went into some selected stores.  There were three levels of shops and this was just a very small area.

We did make on purchase at Neiman Marcus so Anne Marie was very happy as she found a dress and it was on sale too.

When we finished we took a taxi back to the downtown area and ironically we had the same driver who took us there in the first place.  Obviously, business was slow in the morning.

A short while later we walked over to Perricone's to have lunch.  We each had the same item which was a thinly sliced breast of chicken over salad greens accompanied with tomatoes and we substituted a nice raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing which we remembered from our visit there last year.  It was a very tasty salad entree and was just what we wee looking for.

In the afternoon, we walked again. We walked over to the island that is home to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.  As we crossed the bridge we saw some fellas.

As we were circling the island we could see two cruise ships at the Port Of Miami; a Disney Cruise Line not in the photo and a Carnival Cruise Line Ship.

We then walked back to the hotel.  Overall, the weather was a delight for most of the day.  It actually was on the warmer side as we were making our way back to the Hotel but given the cold weather in various parts of the country including the Northeast Region we are just happy to be enjoying warm weather.

We walked just under 8 miles but we have another long walk planned for this evening.  More in a moment.

Back at the Hotel we did some reading and writing and then we got ready for this evening when we will be attending a Miami Heat versus Golden State Warrior NBA Basketball Game.  We will post all about this tomorrow.  


TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY............

“In order to succeed your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.” – Bill Cosby

Keith and Anne Marie