Floridian Vibe - Fort Lauderdale

 

 

 

Left photo: approaching Fort Lauderdale - far in the smoggy background: the highrises of Miami! We are here for IPW, the premier U.S. trade show with thousands of buyers, suppliers and media. We are part of the German media delegation, and, taking part for the 14th time! 

We took the public bus from the airport to the hotel, which was a bit of an adventure, but only cost $ 2 per person and didn't took thaaat long. 

 

Our delegation's hotel: TheFort Lauderdale Marriott Harbor Beach Resort & Spa. Pretty fancy, and, first-row location on the beach!

After arrival - we got our room on the 10th floor at 1:30 pm already! - we checked out the surroundings and offerings before we took the public bus again into town to have dinner at Tarpon Brewery in downtown.

Nightview from our balcony towards the city

Above: a morning view. We woke up early, as usually, and went for a walk along the beach. Though, I have to admit that I am not a big fan of Florida, it was quite pleasant, though plastic garbage along the beach was sort of disturbing ,,,  Interesting: along the beach the Florida sea turtles are nesting. At night they lumber onto the coast to lay their eggs and in the morning we noticed some "fresh" nests, tracks of big turtles coming from the water to dig them in the sand.

After having registered at the Convention Center in downtown for IPW and met a couple of friends and colleagues there, we took the bus again, passing downtown Lauderdale (below), with all its canals and fancy yachts. It took us a good hour - FL is really spread out, a huge conglomeration of different cities and suburbs -  to get to Sawgrass Outlet Mall. This Simon designer luxury outlet mall is one of the largest in the U.S. A little "overwhelming" for us, especially since it was crowded on this Sunday afternoon, mostly with South American people, some Germans inbetween,,, But, we got what we wanted (Sketcher shoes) and after 1.5 hours we were on the public bus again.

Again, we were almost 1 1/2 hours on the bus (many, many stops on the way, and, the majority of riders were black), to get back to the beach and our next destination: The Bonnet House Museum & Gardens. A little culture won't hurt we thought,,, This is three things in one: a private home, an art collection and an arboretum. Bonnet House’s history began in 1911 when Hugh Taylor Birch purchased the land. His daughter Helen married Chicago artist Frederic Bartlett in 1919, and Frederic designed and started building Bonnet House soon thereafter. Beautiful property!

Beautifully blooming Cordia Sebestena below and an almost hand-large Banana spider on the right:

From Bonnet House we walked back "home" in the evening, around 5 km, along the beach, passing many beach hotels. Had sandwiches on the balcony, feet tired, but sort of inspired,,, work will start tomorrow,,,