Coral Gables, Florida

Yesterday we stayed in Hollywood again and went to visit our host, Dave, at Barry University where he works. It looks like a great place with about 6,000 students, I think. It made me laugh because my brother’s name is Barry and I kept seeing his name everywhere!

We had a great lunch in the cafeteria. All you can eat for $6.50. We had grilled cheese sandwiches and salad bar and then self-serve frozen yogurt for dessert.

Then we drove to Coral Gables, also a suburb of Miami. The story, as I have it, is an eccentric man in the 20’s noticed the sprawl that was growing around Miami and designed to take a mango plantation and make it into a nice community that people from the northern states would come visit. He built it with lots of spanish architecture and mediterranean touches like fountains and parks. But then the first hurricane hit and people were scared off. The great depression came and the place remained empty until the 40’s.

Today, it’s a beautiful neighbourhood with character homes from the 20’s. Our first stop was the Venetian Pool, a beautiful and functional historic site that dates from the 20’s as well. We would have loved to swim there, but it was closed for renovations. We went to the library instead.

For dinner, we’d been invited to one of my classmates’ house. Binh is in my online creative writing program. Binh and Geoff have a beautiful house full of gorgeous art and they made us feel right at home. She even gave Morgane a beautiful present – a vintage rhinestone necklace!

We also got to reminisce about other places since they both grew up in Nova Scotia and all four of us are (or soon will be) University of British Columbia alumni.

Binh and I both LOVE children’s books and she is currently editing her 400-page thesis – a children’s novel. Go, Binh! I hope we’ll get to see them again before we leave.

We won’t be leaving before tomorrow afternoon when we are picking up our brand-new cards. These are cards that we give away to people interested in the blog.