new sport - urban extreme walking

Please forgive me for my extreme laziness upon returning from vacation. I think I've managed about 2 posts in my post-vacation haze. Somehow the saying, "need a vacation from my vacation" keeps ringing through my ears. Which is strange because our vacation was extremely restful and not too over-packed with activity. I guess my main issue was readjusting to the fact that I actually had to do stuff for myself again. No waiters, no steward, no love. Hahah. Truly though, it is an adjustment to be launched from vacation mode to work mode with no happy medium :)

So, in our adventures in Miami prior to boarding the boat, we invented a new extreme sport. Urban walking.
We were told we could each bring one bottle of wine or champagne on board and we certainly weren't going to pass up the opportunity to pick out some bubbles or vino. Trusty smartphone in hand, Carl searched for grocery stores and found that there were several not too far from the hotel. Armed with a strong sense of adventure and a thirst for some bubbles, off we set.

Came across some cool graffiti

We were enjoying our little stroll around the self-proclaimed historic district, although not finding anything but hole in the wall liquor stores where the "groceries" were supposed to be.

After a particularly sketchy little store (along with some neighbors very interested in our happenings there) we decided we better high-tail it out of there. Pronto. Sure enough, that's always when you turn the corner and its a dark walkway under a freeway. Nice. And that's when a very nice individual on a bicycle rode by and tried to sell us a snazzy gold necklace. Our walking pace increased. Ten-fold.

We did manage to finally find an awesome little store with a guy who suggested a great bottle of wine. And we got some pretty awesome exercise.

After completing our new sporting event (we placed first!!), it was time to hustle over to the Port and board the behemoth that was our home on water for the next 4 days. 

I'd never been on a cruise ship before and the whole thing was just surreal to me. The lobby for checking in to the boat, getting your picture taken as you board, and then entering the actual ship was pretty overwhelming. In a good way.

Our little window to the world. Being on the first floor of staterooms turned out to be a good thing when the seas got rough and the boat got to rocking. Some friends up on the 7th floor looked pretty green once that business started.

Our extreme sport from earlier in the day and the shuffle of getting on-board had us pretty wiped out. While everyone else was hitting the deck, giant margaritas in hand. We took a nap. Awesomeness achieved.