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Karen's Travels
Hello all - just returned from Key West to Miami after very long and tedious bus journey. Will keep this brief as I have to be up VERY early tomorrow to fly to Boston. Key West is a very expensive holiday resort but a charming place - palm trees, a marina with luxurious yachts and quait wooden houses with wide porches, balustrades and balconies, just like you see on the TV! Highlights: last night we went on a sunset cruise which involved two locations for snorkelling - it was quite choppy out at sea, so we didn't see much beneath the waves, which was disappointing, but it was great to be out on the water when the sun went down! Also visited the former home of the writer Ernest Hemingway (have lots of details on that for those of you who are interested). The man who gave a guided tour was very informative, with lots of anecdotes about Hemingway's life in Key West, his four wives and fifty cats! The descendants of the cats are still here - all 46 of them - and they are named after the stars. I met Charlie Chaplin among others. I'll save all the other cat details for my cat lover friends when I get home! Our motel (Seashell Hostel) is situated on South Street which contains the southern most point of the USA, only 90 miles from Cuba. It's a landmark where EVERYONE has their photo taken! The main street, running down to the marina, is Duvel Street, which is full of clothes shops, bars and restaurants, art galleries etc. In the evenings, we sat in a bar called Sunset Pier and, over our drinks, watched the sun go down and listened to great live music - very chilled out! Key West is an island surrounded by the Atlantic on one side and the Gult of Mexico on the other. It was the richest city in the US during its shipwrecking days in the 1850s. Since 1920 it has attracted lots of literary figures - Robert Frost, Tennessee Williams and Hemingway, to name but a few. President Truman spend 175 days of his presidency here in a building known as the Little White House - visited by other presidents including Clinton. North America's only living coral reef is a few miles off shore. We found it much less impressive than the reefs in Thailand. Oh, and we ate Key Lime Pie, the local speciality - known to you and I commonly as lemon meringue pie! The weather in these parts is extreme - extreme heat and extreme storms. We've had at least two storms, with impressive thunder, lightning and torrential rain. Well, that's all for now. I need to get to bed. Up at 5.30am for 8.10am flight to Boston. Looking forward to seeing you all very soon!
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