In Miami, Florida

Upon arrival in Ft. Lauderdale, our cruise ship was met by at least two ambulances picking up passengers. Wonder if they had to go through immigration before being wheeled into the ambulances?

While on the cruise Jim discovered that it wasn’t Laura that hit the side of the garage shortly after we moved into our condo in 2001. One day Laura came into the condo and told Jim that she had hit the side of the garage. When Jim went to look, he saw the molding around the door had been hit, and assumed that this was what Laura had hit. So, he repaired and repainted the damage. It wasn’t until this cruise that Laura told him that she had only hit something in the garage, not the actual side of the garage.

When we wheeled our luggage off the cruise ship, Jim did so proudly, with his new Canadian baggage tag proudly displayed on his suitcase. At our dining table there was another American, us, and two Canadian couples. On the last night, the Canadian couples gave Jim the Canadian baggage tag, making us honorary Canadians. They probably did this because one night Jim mentioned that Canadians were better thought of in other parts of the world than Americans.

We took a shuttle from Fort Lauderdale to our hotel in Miami. We booked the shuttle after we got off the ship. Jim knew there had to be a way to get from the cruise terminal to Miami, and there was.

While in Miami we discovered that the Miami Book Fair International began on Sunday. So, on Sunday we went to two events. The first was “Marriage Equality: Managing the Dream”, which featured one of the lead attorneys, Theodore B. Olson, his wife, Lady Booth Olson (a former tax attorney) and two of the plaintiffs, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier. There was a wonderful discussion of their U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned California’s Proposition 8, and reinstated the freedom to marry for gays and lesbians in California. The two lead attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case were the lead attorneys on opposing sides in Bush v. Gore, which decided the presidential election. Theodore Olson quoted the need for an independent judiciary to protect the rights of minorities by saying “The majority rules against the minority”. What we didn’t know was that Florida had not yet recognized gay marriage. So, Kansas is ahead of Florida in gay rights, much to the chagrin of conservative Kansas politicians. In the audience were two of the Florida plaintiffs who have been together for 54 years. From right to left, this is a photo of Lady Booth Olson, two of the California plaintiffs, and Theodore Olson.

The second event we attended was “An Evening With Alexander McCall Smith”. He is the author of more than one hundred books, including the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which takes place in Botswana. He was a hilarious speaker, and gave us one of the best author lectures we have ever attended. Although Scottish, he delivered the lecture in understandable English, while wearing a full dress kilt.

The Cuban food in Miami was wonderful, and is something we do not get in Topeka. Maybe we will try ordering fried plantains sometime in Topeka.

Laura took an architectural tour of Miami. This city has amazing buildings, this is just one of them, the Dade County Courthouse.

This is the Gesu Catholic Church in downtown Miami. It was built in 1896 and is the oldest Catholic Church in Miami.

And, here's an artsy picture of one of the building reflected on the back window of a car, with an Ilam bumper sticker.

And, here is the downtown Olympic theater.

And,finally, the Miami Tower designed by I. M. Pei, which was featured in the opening sequence of the television show Miami Vice.

 

Miami has a downtown program of using old parking meters to collect money for the homeless.The meters were designed by Romero Britto, a Miami artist, who work is often sold on cruise ships by Park West Galleries.

We bought a painting from this street artist. When we saw him, he was painting. We bought a painting, then went into a store, and when we came out he was gone.

Naturally, we went to an art museum. This time it was the Perez Art Museum. We took a free people mover shuttle to the art museum. The museum had 20^th century art almost exclusively. The building was new, light and airy. The art stood out well against the concrete walls. They have modern masters such as Cindy Sherman, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol, as well as some of the Vogel collection from New York that had been donated.

Here's Laura in front of one of the artworks, Western Sun, by Mark Handforth.

Monday morning we were not ready to leave to Miami, but we did so anyway. From our hotel the shuttle was $6 per person and a taxi was $9, plus tip. So, we ignored the throng of people in the lobby and walked out to the big hotel next door where we caught a taxi to the port. From there we got on the Norwegian Star and sailed off for Los Angeles, via the Panama Canal.