Miami sojourn ongoing

Day 8 - 06/06
Bit more for breakfast this morning due to our shopping expedition yesterday. Big excitement after breakfast when Nana Rosa arrived to look after the children. Jean and her greeted each other like the long lost friends they had become during Jean's last visit here last year. Rosa speaks very little English and our Spanish is similarly woeful, although if we have any thoughts of settling anywhere in South or Central America that will have to change. So, it was a case of "Hola Rosa, comesta?" And that was about it!
Then Rosa took the children off to a local park and we decided to borrow Perry and Tracie's pushbikes and we rode down the road to get some money out of an ATM and buy some more oranges. The neighbourhood is upmarket but the houses are mainly single story and about 40 years old. Nothing really very outstanding architecturally but by all accounts very expensive with rents up to $US9,000 per month. Seems totally incomprehensible to us that housing costs should be so high and indeed Auckland is heading in a similar direction. By comparison with all this the boat is cheap! Only NZD700 per month to berth at the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club in Langkawi!!
Day 9 - 07/06
The days are tending to blur together somewhat just now. Maybe it's got something to do with getting over the jetlag - or something!! More bike riding and getting used more or less to being on the right. We'll be dangerous when we get back to Langkawi. This morning went with Perry, Carter and Nssh to swimming lessons. It was amazing to watch very young children being taught to swim. Nash is just over one for instance. The instructors take them one on one and each one has 10-15 minutes. They push them underwater and they swim back up and they are taught to lie on their backs and float. All good stuff if ever they fell into water by accident. It reminded Jim of when he was at Penrhyn Island in the Cook Islands in 1968 and there saw very little children swimming unsupervised with reef sharks underneath them. They were so young they couldn't even walk and were crawling out of the water.
Later we biked to a pharmacy where there was a 20% discount for "seniors"!! Jim got a hairbrush and Jean some haircutting scissors for Jim's hair! And a Wall Street Journal which originally exposed the corruption of very senior people in the Malaysian Government, including Najib, the Malaysian P.M. USD700 million worth! Pity about hair cutting because he is trying to become a Trump look-a-like! Probably not a good idea though down here in the south where there is a very sizeable population of Hispanics - something over 50% in fact. Trump is not exactly their favourite person, especially after his comments about a Federal Court Judge of Mexican descent the other day. We also found an Italian icecream parlour and had some delicious chocolate icecream - great for the Diabetes, but you have to break out sometime.
It is now 0700 the next morning as this is being written and feeling better all the time - especially since we slept for at least 7 hours last night. More to come in due course.........
Lotsaluv as always,
Jim and Jean

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