Homeless in Miami

We arrived in Miami on August 1, 2014, and for 12 days we were totally homeless!!! We had signed a lease on a condo and we thought everything was in order. But when we arrived we learned that the paperwork for our application to the condo association (like an HOA) got lost in the shuffle! Every following day was filled with hope that they would get to our paperwork and be able to give us the key to our place, but for 12 long days we were continually disappointed.

Luckily, we didn't lose out on the rent during that period. There were some other unintended benefits...

For the weekends where we knew there was no chance of getting into our place we booked a room through AirBnB. This was my first experience with this site, but it was great. The first place we stayed was just an extra room in a young couples condo. We stayed in touch with these guys, and a couple weeks later they bought a boat and took us out for a joy ride! It's good to have friends with a boat.

On another occasion we got put up by my uncle Mike in Fort Lauderdale, who had a friend with a unoccupied condo. The condo was a little warm at night, because the AC wasn't working properly, but we were right on the beach. I wish I could wake up to the sunrise over the ocean out my balcony window every morning! I'm really glad we met Mike and his wife Janice. They couldn't be nicer! On another occasion we hung out on the beach and did some paddle boarding.

Our nomadic period also helped us get better acquainted with the layout of Miami. I've never actually lived in such a large city, and my internal GPS doesn't work as well an Andrea's, so I really benefitted from all the time we spent driving around aimlessly.