Back home from Miami we knew we wanted MORE Florida asap, and immediately started planning our next vacation. As much as we loved South Beach, we decided to go to a less crowded, less fancy, more relaxed area and chose Fort Lauderdale. In order to save money and be more flexible we booked a motel suite with a small kitchen instead of a hotel room ( yay and hooray for low rates during hurricane season), an inexpensive rental car with my flight attendant discount, and thanks to our Continental Airlines vouchers we paid $23 or so per ticket, which significantly contributed to making this vacation one of the cheapest ever.
I had just returned from a week in Gambia, and basically stepped from one plane into the other.
Our Motel was so cute and only a block from the beach. A bit outdated and rundown admittedly, but really, what do you need when on vacation? The sweet owners made up for any lack of modernism, and little did we know upon arrival that it should become our home away from home for years to come, let alone the place where we would get married.
Monkeys in our backyard
Day 1. Rain. Hilarious.
Just a short T-storm though, We walked south along the boardwalk, and back north through the invisible gate that seemed to separate the crowded tacky tourist area from our quaint little street and almost always nearly empty beach.
Yes, of course we went outlet shopping, because isn't that the main reason most german tourists visit Florida? :))
We drank gallons of cherry coke and Dr.Pepper, and ate too much ice cream and terrible junk, which caused giant pimples and a painfully bloated belly.
But we had some excellent food as well.
All in all, this was probably the laziest vacation of all. We just wanted to relax, and spent most days either at the beach, strolling around and exploring the area on our bicylces ( How did I still manage to take 2300 photos??)
Although Miami will always be special for us, we fell utterly in love with FLL the moment we left the plane, and started planning the next trip while we were still on the plane back home.
