WEEK 16 - MIAMI, FLORIDA - tuesday 10 and wednesday 11 august 2010

today we awoke to pouring rain so we decided to head to the mall to do some shopping! woohoo! now that we have a car to drive, we can carry more things with us, and we arent lugging extra bags to buses and things. we went to the main mall in south miami, and i bought a new leather fossil bag with a matching wallet, its so cute! i also got some new shampoo and conditioner, SO cheap! i got sebastian shampoo and conditioner for US$15 a bottle [NZ$20], swartzschopf silver shampoo for US$14, and a tub of morrocan oil hair treatment mask for US$31! so very excited to get some new shampoo, ive been stuck with cheap shampoo and it feels like im using dishwashing liquid on my hair [im a shampoo snob, what can i say?!]
it was amazing, joseph didnt even seem to mind wandering the mall with me, while i acted like a 5 year old, squealing excitedly and running into shops :)
in the evening we hung out with Juan, we cooked dinner [it was average, needed more tomato paste oops!] and then hung out having drinks by the pool and swimming, soooo nice! :) then Juan took us for a night drive around miami to take photos ;)

on wednesday it was the only sunny day forecast for the week, so we decided to head to Everglades, which we apparently HAVE to see. our silly tom tom sent us to the wrong side of the park and we got completely lost! the only bonus was i found neat trees for doing a photoshoot in!

so we tried to get to the right place, but the internet listed 5 completely different addresses, so we gave up and decided to head to Key Biscuay instead, which was actually REALLY nice!
we stopped at the beach beside the bridge on the way to take some photos of the sun and sail boats

we then drove to the end of the key. you could take really neat portrait or wedding photos out here. theres a wharf for fishing, and neat paths to walk and an old lighthouse to visit, very peaceful and quiet :)

we stopped in the city to do some shopping and look around the shops
[actually this may have been a different day, but ive written my blog a week after this has happened and all my days are blending, so i cant remember exactly, but nevertheless, we went here...]

when we got home i took some photos of the little dog Juanita, shes so cute!

in the evening we took Juan out for Thai to thank him for his amazing hospitality, and it was SO yum! i love tom kha ga soup! the lady that served us was really funny! she was like “where are you from?” and i said new zealand, and she replies “oh, you have alot of sheep there dont you?”. i had previously mentioned to Juan, that the three things people always say when you say you are from NZ are:
oh, you have alot of sheep. 4 for every person?
lord of the rings
its very green and beautiful
so it was hilarious that my theory was proven correct once again! :)
i even managed to have a few guys on in titusville, and had them convinced for about 1 minute, that we use messenger sheep in our office buildings to transfer messages via post-it note [like the big dogs with the barrels round their necks], because we are not technologically advanced enough for electronic message transfer. man it was so funny! i love how people think nz is so untouched, that we have zero technology! at least everywhere accepts credit cards! [unlike europe!].