South Florida - estado bilingue/bilingual state

After 9 long LONG hours on the plane we finally got to Miami. Father-in-law travelled Business class which he thoroughly enjoyed, we went economy which was fine - although when we landed Osh ran around the airport, arms outstretched crying "space, space" much to the amusement of all around us!

We hired a car and drove up to Sunrise which is about 40 mins north of Miami, and about 20 mins west of Fort Lauderdale. It is hot and tropical here and it is not beautiful or interesting - huge wide highways, endless sprawling malls with little imbetween but pleasant enough. We are here to do some essential shopping before we head to the islands but also to get over the jet lag before Osh starts school on Thursday.

We did shopping yesterday in Sawgrass Mall which is massive followed by a spot of swimming in the hotel pool which was great. Where Osh (awake at 3.30 am) found the energy to race around and around the pool is beyond me but we both had fun. We are within spitting distance of a brand new IKEA, so at about 4.30 we went there for cake and coffee. It was a surreal experience. As an aficionado of IKEA in Croydon, it was all very familiar, but the two charming, friendly 'greeters' on the door (did we want the map of the store in English or Spanish? Did we want a wheelchair for father in law?) are quite unlike the monosyllabic cheerless people at the store in Croydon! What is more, the predominance of Spanish in south Florida was in evidence.

I've been through Miami airport many times and am used to the fact that Spanish is the language I'm most likely to hear, but, airports being airports, it never strikes me as odd that it is populated with non-English speaking migrant workers. It is outside the rarified atmostphere of the airport that you begin to realise that this end of Florida really is nearly 50% Spanish speaking. All the signage in IKEA is in English and Spanish, the announcements are in both languages and in shopping malls too Spanish is the other language on all the signs. What I find most unnerving is that people will carry on a conversation in Spanish right in front of you without any concern for the fact that maybe you understand. When we arrived Father in Law had a wheelchair from the plane right to the taxi rank outside (a great way of getting through the queues for customs and immigration faster!) and, waiting for the baggage, she had a loud and animated conversation with a friend about how these dreadful Americans always have too much baggage which is too heavy.....I wonder what she'd've done if I'd pointed out that I could understand every word she said?! It is not hard to see how your average English speaking Florida resident is getting increasingly cheesed off that Spanish is becoming the lingua franca in the state.

Today for amusement we went to Flamingo Gardens which was lovely. A tropical garden with an avery, flamingos, alligators, terapins, turtles, bobcats, panther (hiding) and so on. It was very hot and humid, but a lovely morning.

Feeding the flamingos (which were more a vibrant orange than pink) was definitely the highlight of the visit and Osh and I did a passingly good impression of them. Although not as good as Osh's impression of an alligator snapping turtle!

up up and away

Well, that sure was an exhausting couple of weeks! The shippers came on Wednesday and removed all my goods and chattles - the house looked remarkably clean and tidy after they had gone! Getting to that point, however, was very hard work. Each box needed sealing, labelling and the contents of each box listed on an inventory - not easy when you have to clamber over endless boxes and pieces of furniture to get to the box at the bottom of the pile in the far corner of the room! We ended up with the inevitable 'random' box with all the 'stuff' that we'd forgotten: a pile of 45s, a pair of wellies, 2 flower pots, a tin of beeswax, 2 bed sheets....all stuffed into the last box. In the end, we had 105 pieces that went into the van. Once that was done, we had to sort out the clothes and toys and books etc that needed to come with us on the plane. I was horrified that in the end nearly a dozen bin liners of clothes and 'stuff' ended up in the loft for sorting out in the summer when I'm back for a brief visit. How any one manages to accumulate so many possessions is beyond me!
So here we are, in a sparse house, suitcases packed and awaiting the taxi at 2pm to take us to the airport hotel in preparation for an early morning flight to Miami tomorrow. Finally, I'm excited rather than just terrified...photos and more news either if I get to a wifi thingum in Miami or when we get to Provo on Wednesday night next week.

The great unwashed

So that's it....I'm now unemployed....or rather not employed. This is only the second time in my life I've been in this situation, and the second where I've ended up here after leaving a wonderful job. The first was when the contract with the Council ran out and I was sad to leave, but then had a fruitful 18 months as a self-employed consultant. It was very very sad leaving work: saying goodbye to good friends and colleagues. I'm going to miss them, and the students (I have a lovely snuggly Uni of P sweatshirt from one of them - good job I gave them a top mark BEFORE they gave me the gift to avoid any accusations of impropriety!) I'm very grateful right now that I have lots of packing to do so that I don't dwell on the sadness and on the enormity of what lies before me. Most of the upstairs is packed - and huge quantities of stuff have been thrown out: endless cables that belong to lord knows what, birthday cards from people I can't remember, old clothes that were kept for sentimental reasons but can't remember what the sentiment was, and so on. Feels great to have a good clear out. And I found $10 and $22 Canadian in the process so I both cleaned up and cleaned out!

Nicky arrives Wednesday to help with the rest of the packing and we're off to Cornwall to collect some of his things from Falmouth in time for the shippers on the 20th.