Love can be an amazing inspiration...

Well, still in Miami, after I decided to stay in Miami for a bit longer since Orlando is so expensive and generally not a lot to do if you're on a budget!

I visited the Miami Sea Aquarium which was amazing! We did choose a very hot day to do it, over 104F (40 Celcius) and 100% humidity! nice! (If you can't sense the sarcasticness in that, then feel free to think I've gone mad...). I saw a lot of dolphin shows - including the famous dolphin Flipper - and got drenched plenty of times! Also saw a lovely seal show and then had a very interesting presentation on Manatees. Apparently they are very closely realted to the elephant! I think the highleght was ofcourse the show with the Orka (Killer Whale), which had a lot of fun maiking everyone in the first 5 rows in the stadium drenched! I chickened out of that shower! Sat on the 8th row...tut tut, I know, but hey, I was still drenched from the dolphins!

A photo of a Manatee taken from the Sea Aquarium website. Isn't it just cute? They are now heavily endangered, even though they have no natural predators...mainly suffering due to humans...especially being injured by boats.

I saw Love at work at Coral Castle. A quaint little place, full of sculptures from coral rock, all sculpted by a 5ft Latvian man, who was jilted by his 16 yr old fiancee the day before the wedding. I found this article online about it which describes it well:

Did a Latvian immigrant rediscover the secrets to the building of the pyramids... of levitation... of anti-gravity? His amazing "castle" may hold clues to long-lost powers. Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida, is one of the most amazing structures ever built. In terms of accomplishment, it's been compared to Stonehenge, ancient Greek temples, and even the great pyramids of Egypt. It is amazing - some even say miraculous - because it was quarried, fashioned, transported, and constructed by one man: Edward Leedskalnin, a 5-ft. tall, 100-lb. Latvian immigrant.

Within this catle, there a a lot of structures that have have astrological symbolism. He sculpted Venus (for his love, Agnus), two half crescents slightly turned away from one another but held together by the full moon which has a six pointed star in it to represent the sun. the moon has 16 curves in it to represent Agnus, whom he called his "sweet sixteen". He carved a table the shape of Folrida, as well as his throne which weighed 6 tons and you could get rocking with just your thumb! He carved out a bedroom, a bed for him, his Agnus and a cradle he hoped would carry his child some day. The following was also described well in this article:

The Coral Castle website reports that this 18,000 pound (9 ton) gate is so perfectly balanced that it can be opened with the simple push of a finger. It closes to within a quarter inch on either side of the frame opening. It broke in 1986. Six men and a 50-ton crane were needed to remove and repair it. What they found was that Ed had centered and balanced it using an iron shaft and truck bearing. He drilled an almost perfect round eight-foot hole for the shaft using only hand tools. Today a laser-guided drill bit would be used to achieve such extreme precision. State-of-the-art adhesives were used when reinstalling the gate.

And within 3 months it didn't work anymore! Inspirational to walk through his castle! It was there that I met two people from Atlanta, and they offered me a lift back to Miami downtown (it had taken me 2 and a half hours to get there!!!!) so I greatfully accepted! They were going to this museum called Vizcaya. Vizcaya is a villa that was built in 1914 by a very wealthy man that wanted to spend the winters down in Miami and so built a Villa that was to look 400 yrs old and employed 1000 people to build it as well as getting architechts from Frnace and Italy to come and design the house. He was agricultural industrialist James Deering. This Villa was the complete opposite of what I had just seen in Coral Castle. Here a man paid thousands of people to build his villa whereas Ed built his own castle and all dedicated to his love, Agnus. I have to say, impressive as Vizcaya was, Coral Castle had more to it. Every room was decorated is a certain interior design age and the gardens outside were imaculate and they streched out for 51 acres...there's also this "boat" built from coral that is jsut about sinking in the bay which the house is built along...makes for a nice view. When he died, it was impossible to sell the property becuase it was in an area where there wasn't mcuh happening. Now, however, the property has been valued at 1 to 2 billion dollars (that's 1000 to 2000 million dollars!!!!!!!!!!!). CRAZY!

Tomorrow I'm off to Orlando...Hope you're not quite asleep after all that detail! 5 days and I'll be home and back to the real world....JOB HUNTING....