Day 2 - Fin Joins the Team

There were two things I was worrying about before this trip:

1) Would we be let in for 6 months
2) Would we be lucky and get a decent hire car

Once we had landed, as soon as the doors of the plane opened, we were out of them! Being in business class is definitely an advantage if you want to get to the front of the immigration queue. We also spotted a VIP host who seemed to know the quickest route through the airport, so we followed her and ended up even further ahead of our fellow travelers. Even though we were quick, the short queue at immigration felt like ages. We were both really worried that we wouldn’t be granted the full 6 months and all the planning and money we had already spent, would have gone to waste. There was no back up plan! To our surprise, it was actually easier than when we have been through before on ESTA, the visas worked!

After our easier than expected immigration experience, I was expecting car hire to be a problem. I had images of a rust bucket, constant breakdowns and a mini sized car running through my mind as we queued at MIA Rental Car Center. When we reached the front of the desk, we were told that the car we’d hired (a stand SUV) was small and we could have a better car for $2000 extra! My worry started to become a reality but another $2k on car hire would be $2k less elsewhere on the trip, and we couldn't afford that. So both of us stood firm and turned down the offer, and lucky that we did as when we got to the garage, we could choose our car from a row of SUV's, one of which was the upgraded car that we just turned down the hard sell on!

We named our car Fin, only because each time we lose him in the car park (or parking lot), I usually shout out "there's the fin (referring to the GPS fin on his roof). Fin only has 2945 miles so I feel we're going to be breaking him in on this trip. He also comes with a number of cool gadgets including rear cameras and Lee's favourite, a drivers seat which helps you in and out of the car (for when Lee has had a little too much to eat!). He is a Ford Edge for those into cars, for everyone else, he is Silver.

Once we had the car, the shopping began! We spent the whole day shopping, mainly in Walmart for camping equipment but we also went to AT&T for a SIM and to Best Buy for a new gadget for Lee. He’s going to blog a review on this over the next few days.

We also had an unexpected food find. After sharing a breakfast in IHOP this morning, we were hungry after so much shopping so headed to the first place we could find. It turned out to be Pincho Factory which did awesome tasty kebabs (not your dirty ones after a heavy night out!) and craft beer.