Pretty much a nothing of a day. We woke leisurely with a
3:00pm flight and a taxi pick up at 1:00. We chose Denny’s for lunch since I’m
on a get back to shape kick for the month. I did cheat at the airport in Miami
by visiting Au Bon Pain and buying a chocolate croissant, but I so seldom get
to have those that it went really well. Orlando airport is a nice place to
stand around a wait for an airplane to arrive. The tough part is getting
through security that fits into a little area where people funnel through long
winding routes, pretty much passing on any nasty bug they might have. One
gentleman talking on a headphone let me in front of him and talked loudly about
the President being excited about a project getting kicked off. I started
noticing shoes people wore and eventually down the road wrote a poem in honor.
It still needs polish.
Once through security at Orlando Airport, you take a train
to your gate. The airport is set up to have trains take people out to separate
small cross shaped facilities complete with stores, bathrooms, free WiFi, that
I didn’t try, and enough room to pace down each of three ends of the cross, the
fourth being the connection to the train. We bought drinks and I worked on the
answers to my questions about Atonement.
The flight to Miami was on Boeing 757, which was wonderful.
Lots of room in the overhead compartments although the seats were pretty
cramped together. We had an exit row so had a bit more foot room. They have two
exits side by side on the Boeing 757.
Miami Airport is much larger than the Orlando Airport. We
arrived in Gate D and pretty much stayed there—the specific gates ranged from
1-60, while in Orlando there were only 20 at most. So we walked the length as
exercise and to keep the blood flowing to my legs. We stopped at Starbucks for
coffee for Bob and Venti Passion Unsweetened Ice Tea for me and later for my
sweet.
We met up with the National Geographic folks in Miami, but
they didn’t have us on their list since we came down a day early. Bob wanted
time to recover from the late arrival. On the flight we watched “Fast Break”, a
fairly plot simple movie about a courier who picks up a secured delivery
package and finds that a crazy police crook is after him. A bicycle police
officer also chases him. Eventually he wonders whether he should carry the item
or not or pass it to the police. He finds it’s a ticket so returns it to the
office. Meanwhile, the its revealed that the chick who wanted the ticket
delivered wants it sent so she can have her child back (she’s Chinese). Meanwhile,
the ticket is passed to another delivery person and sent to a new location and
so the race through traffic is on. All’s well that ends well. Afterward, they
showed a premiere of a show called Smash, about a Broadway Theatre purchased by
a woman who plans a new show and has lots of squabbles between the changing
priority of the cast.
We arrived at Guayaquil and disembarked quickly and the line
through immigration and customs went smoothly. When we came through, the
National Geographic people waved us over—we were on their list. We took their
bus to the Hotel Colon Hilton Guayaquil. Check in for us differed from the rest
since we had a coupon for an extra day. The offered us free drink coupons and
free breakfast coupons for the morning. We dumped our bags and went for drinks
in the lounge. The lounge had a band that played progressive jazz—Dave Brubeck
style (according to Bob). The bar waiter was kind and explained our free drink
options were local beer or pina coladas (I don’t like sweet coconut pineapple
drinks). I tried two of the local beers—Club amber and Club pilsner. I liked
the amber much better—its sweeter slightly and has a better kick. The pilsner
tasted like water afterwards. Bob had his usual gin, water and lime juice. We
tipped the waiter well since he brought lots of drinks and answered all our
questions about what the drink of Ecuador was—he said local beer, cerveza.
Meanwhile, the hotel was sponsor to a wedding (we think) and
a graduation party (for sure). There were lots of young women in formal gowns,
many quite tipsy wandering the halls and looking stunning. One elderly couple
were also dressed to the nines.
The bed felt really good when we finally crashed at 2 a.m.
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