- Nicky and Jake went to the bank to open a new bank account for Jake - he is old enough to have an account with his own debit card now.
- I went to meet a new client (taking over from Neil) in Maidstone. They gave us a tour of where they were flooded over Christmas.
- Nicky hasn't been feeling very well and has retired to bed with a poorly tummy, aches and pains.
- Jake and I went and hit a few balls at the driving range.
This evening I've been sorting out some of the filing on my computer (I know, what a riveting life I lead!) prompted by the fact that Dropbox has been complaining at me for quite some time about being nearly full.
Sorting through files on my computer, I found some notes from June 2012 that had been made in a word document on the computer for later uploading to the blog. Well, as far as I can tell, I don't think I actually ever got around to it, so before I delete the document, here it is:
It’s 9.55am on Sunday 3rd June
2012 and I’m sat on my bed in the Miami International Airport Hotel. Meet the
Press is on the TV in the background, and outside (according to my rather dirty
hotel window overlooking concrete airport roofs) the sun is shining, and if the
TV reports are to be believed, it is in the 80s already.
I’ve just got off the phone with Nicky, and
all of a sudden it seems like a long time since I left home, and an absolute
age until I’ll get back in ten days’ time. I’m keeping an eye on channel 33 on
the TV for the international departures, but there’s no mention of my flight
just yet – hardly surprising as it doesn’t leave until after 2pm, and so I am
killing time by jotting down some thoughts. I’m not connected to the wireless
here (separate charge) so will probably copy and paste this into a blog at some
later point. Nicky has already told me what gate my flight will be departing
from, thanks to her AA app that she’s downloaded to her phone.
I am wondering about the timing difference
between here and Costa Rica. I thought that it was 3 more hours, bringing a
total of 8 difference to the UK, but looking at flight times I’m not so sure
now. The local time to local time flights there and back show a one hour
difference (roughly leaving 2pm arriving 3pm) on the way there, and a five hour
difference on the way back (leaving 4pm arriving 9pm). Sounds like it must be a three hour flight with two more hours of time difference.
Impressions of MIA are mixed. The airport
terminal building is arranged in a U shape, with airside being on the outside
of the U. The enclosed space in the middle of the U is taken up with some huge
multi-storey car parks. The hotel I’m staying in is built on top of the bottom
of the U. The corridor on the way to my room has some old framed photos of the
airport on the wall, from which it is possible to see how the airport has grown
over the years (no doubt with the American luxury of space to grow into unlike the
London nightmare of wedging new things into Heathrow, arguing over second
runways knocking down local villages at Gatwick, or coming up with far-fetched
estuary plans), and the photos show that the hotel has been here for quite some
time.
And, looking around me, I probably could
have guessed that! The hotel is fine, but it does feel a little tired in
places. Breakfast wasn’t the most impressive meal I’ve had. I arrived at the 7th
floor “Top of the World” restaurant - a bit of an exaggeration perhaps – Top of
a low-rise building yes, but hardly top of the world! It boasts about its
amazing views of the airport, but again this is a bit of a stretch – as I’d
already discovered from my room, views across concrete roofs don’t really do it
for me. The restaurant was almost deserted, and I wasn’t greeted on the way in.
One of the waiters eventually showed me to a table, and in their laziness, they
had arranged all of the occupied tables close to their waiters’ station so that
they didn’t have too far to go. Let’s just say that the waiters could probably
benefit from a customer service course: sniffing as they walked past me,
dumping a pen on the table without a word when I asked for one to sign the
check, and generally non communicative. It looked like it wasn’t just the
waiters who were rather less than customer-focused, given the way one of the
kitchen staff wandered out to have a chat with them, wearing his grubby Batman
baseball cap!
Oh well, I don’t suppose I will be using
the restaurant for breakfast again, as my flight out on the way back is rather
earlier.
I went for a look around the airport
yesterday evening to work out where I will be checking in for my Costa Rica
flight, and looks pretty straightforward. Each airline has their own check in
areas around the U shape, and AA are clearly the largest carrier from the
airport, as they have all of the left hand side of the U for their desks, with
separate areas for domestic (next Saturday) and international flights.
So, time now to put things back into my
bags, swap over books in my carry on luggage (started and finished one on the
way over yesterday) and head off to find a check in desk.