Spacy Miami

Wow, Times flies! It's already saturday. Things are becoming more fun, after knowing more and more people.. On the second night, which was the last thing I posted in the previous blog I told you I met an Austrian guy Peter. I spent a lot of time the last couple of days with him.

He told me that he was willing to go to Miami Downtown, so I said I was willing to join him. In Miami Downtown you have a 'monorail' or as it is called 'metromoover' which is above the ground and it's for free. It's very nice transportation, while you can just drive arround and see a lot of architecture. It's non-staffed, so you have a view on the sides, the back and the front. That's really nice. We decided to walk somewhat arround as well. There were a lot of 'protests' going on arround the council government building. We talked with some girls who were standing for continueing funding for their youth program, because the government is cutting the funding. It was an interested talk, like a lot of talks with locals. Miami beach is just tourist, while Miami itself is more the financial heart of South Florida. The girls told us to go to nice restaurants on the Bayside Front, so we headed to there.

at Bayside front you have some restaurants, but also a lot of shops. We entered from the shopping site and one of the 'restaurants' I first recognized, haha, was Hooters. I convinced Peter to have an Hooters-experience, so their you go guys, now with a photo ;).

Thursday night the Hostel (Jelly, the receptionist girl) organized to go to a pub where they have Ladies night. That is free drinks for girls, but for us guys it were very reasonable prizes as well. I was curious about the 100oz-tower, so I ordered one of them. You recognized it on the photo ;). As well you see a photo with all of us, except the Irish guy, who took the photo.

Friday was a long intensive day. Kennedy Space Center. Alarm setted at 7.30, breakfast, go to rental car and start driving North. It was going to be an expensive day. I have never been ashamed of my driving style.. I know the pedal and I will do fine with overtaking cars with controllable speed. At one point, there were a lot of trucks and a few cars.. Were in Europe cars have to drive on the right lanes on the road when they driving slowly, here in America they don't really care about and overtaking on the right side is (I think) allowed. So I was kinda zig-zagging left-right overtaking cars and trucks which I did great. However one of the cars was actually a FHP (Florida Highway Patrol) who didn't like my speed. So I got stopped over. He told me He was shocked and I said I was sorry and wasnt really experiencing the high speed. It was allowed to drive 70 miles per hour (112kmph), while he said I was actually driving 95 (152kmph). Probably I count myself lucky to just have a fine. Speeding over 30 miles is mandatory Court. So now I have this fine of 266 dollars (190 euro)... that arent childish fines!! I still have the choice to not pay it and never come back to USA... So I have 30-days to think about that, haha. I hoped they were more lenient towards tourists, but seems the police dont have empathy.

So with an expensive piece of paper as souvenir, me and Peter continued driving (slower) to Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Just before KSC you have an well-known beach called cocoa beach. We have driven on the island and took a few pictures on one point of the beach. It was very nice and it looked like more people, especially americans, going to cocoa beach compared to miami beach. We didnt had that much time while KSC has limited opening hours. Around 2pm we arrived and its really impressive. Too bad that we just missed the last island tour, along all launch sites, but its really impressive that such huge island is just for NASA. We spent some time around the Welcome center and continued for the direct bus to the Apollo Program Center. On the bus-ride we passed the NASA building. It's huge.. It fits 3 times the Empire state building! NASA put a lot of efford in making movies which are just feeling as the good-feel 'we are the great americans'. Russia did better then USA, so John F Kennedy said 'we go to the moon', lot of money being spent, lots of skill required and in the end USA won!.. Their were a lot of introduction movies which might be a bit too long.. I want to see things, not to hear too much about how great you were ;). Apollo 8 was the first succesive space shuttle going to the moon and they made a launch control center with computers, data and all just to let us see from 2 minutes before the launch till 3 minutes after... off course the launch itself was most impressive with a lot of sound and even move effects.. Really awesome :). Inside the hall they have this huge space shuttle in the air... You just cant take a picture of all of it, while its too huge :). It's seperated in 5 parts, which are all so big.

After that we went to the international space programm. It's actual just a workplace which you can look in to. They were preparing parts for an satellite center. Really nice to see it all. The best thing was probalby the launch-experience. When we had back to the welcome center with 1 hour left, we went to the Spaceshuttle Launch Experience. It's like an module were you sit in the seat on were normally the astronauts are. Then this module is being moved (being rotated) to put it on the launch rockets. You have like 7 differents phases during the launch and they made those phases as reallistic as possible. Like the launch itselves, when dropping the launch rockets, when changing the pressures.. Really cool ride!

We went back to Miami arround 6, to arrive their arround 11pm. I dropped Peter off and went back to Bay Harbor Islands. I am a fan of the TV Series Dexter, so my colleague found out the exact location of Dexter's Appartment. It was night, so the picture isnt that good. As well, the appartments are actually lived by people and there was this 'no trespassing' sign which I ignored :P. So I made the most of it... I am satisfied :D.

Today I haven't done a lot of things. I am writing this blog now, Uploaded my Miami photos for you.. It take some time to sort out all 800 photos from the North part of my trip, so they come on later. Just relaxing right now. The rain is still winning these days, so there is not a lot to do outside.. That will change on Labor Day Night for sure! Better prepare myself a dinner and get ready for it.

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Part of trip: USA East Coast - 2009

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