The first order of business after getting my rent-a-car was visit the facility that I would be training in for the two days. I was able to plug-in the address and get to the site with very little issues. The site was located in Little Havana, which is in the area of the city known to have a large population of Cuban Americans and not so safe. It was kind of odd, seeing row after row of outdoor businesses selling clothes hanging outside their store like you would see in 3rd world countries. Once I arrived at the facility and parked on the street. I was very paranoid about getting out of my car. I was just waiting for someone to run up to me demanding my money and/or taking my car. However, once inside the facility (local community YMCA) I felt safer. I was able to recon my rooms that I was going to use for training and find out all the details to the facility. This made me more comfortable knowing that I was in the right place and they were expecting me for the 2-day training.
Once I left the facility the next order of business was to find my hotel. I reserved the hotel somewhat close to the YMCA but far enough away from the bad area that it was located in. Within 10 minutes I was at my hotel, only to find out that they would only allow Vallet parking that cost $29 a day. Oh well, I guess I had to park somewhere safe. My room was in the Double Tree Hilton in a balcony room overlooking the harbor. It was a great room and view for sure.
After unpacking, I contacted my old marine corps buddy Tony. We have only see each other once over the past 30 years since our discharge from the USMC. Me met up at local seafood restaurant and had a great conversation talking about old times, current times, and things we plan to do when we retire. The 2-hour dinner flew by and we were on our way out the door. We both stated to try and not wait so long in between seeing each other in the future. That was the highlight of my trip for sure with seeing my old buddy.
My next day started really early with an early morning run from my hotel to the Atlantic Ocean on Miami Beach. It was a muggy and raining run the entire 7 mile run, but it felt so good to run in the rain without a shirt on. What a great way to wake up to the Ocean in Miami.
I was able to get to the training site and start my session by 7:00am, only to find out that my training didn't start until 9:00am. As we say in the military, it's always better to be early than to be late. The two Bolivian participants, Carolina and Milton arrived right at 9:00 excited and ready for the day's training. Carolina was fluent in speaking English and Milton struggled at times understanding and speaking English. I was thinking, if I was only fluent in Spanish it would be a lot better, but Carolina was able to interpret for Milton throughout the two days without any issues. The first day of training covered K-12 grade level of instructional practices in physical education. Carolina teaches K-5 and Milton teaches 6-12 at an American International school in Bolivia. Their students were transient students from parents that work at the American embassy, governmental employees, and US military personnel. So all their lessons are in English. This made my job a lot easier to understand where they were coming from.
Lunch was a unique experience for the three of us. I got information from one of the YMCA workers that was originally from the Dominican Republic that he had a great place for us to eat. He gave us directions to a close Dominican Restaurant near the YMCA where he said had excellent food. When we arrived we realized that it was a bar and grill with a live band for entertainment. However, being short on time, we all three just went ahead and sat down wanting to get a quick meal and get back to the Y. Knowing that my Bolivian participants speaks Spanish, I allowed them to do all the talking to the server and realized that she was not a very nice person, almost like we were interrupting her lunch hour to order our food. How dare us! I ordered the rice and stew that was recommended, and when it finally arrived the meat was in big chunks, in a bowl, with a plate of rice beside of it. That was way to much meat for me, since I rarely eat meat these days. However, it was pretty tasty and filling for sure.
After the meal, we were able to find our way back to the Y and finish the first day of training. I think that all three of us were burned out from a long day of learning new things. Even when I train teachers I feel that I learn so much from them as well. Especially the 2 new Bolivian teachers. The more we talked, the more we realized that we faced the same physical education obstacles.
I got back to the hotel and quickly changed into my swim gear and headed to the beach by 5pm. This was another learning experience to say the least. While sitting on the beach I saw so many fake breast and thongs to last me a life time. There were so many weird people that I just wasn't use to seeing in Ohio. It seemed that everyone looked, I overheard people speaking a different language. People that I thought were American had really thick accents or couldn't speak English at all. That was the most shocking part of my entire trip. After leaving the beach by 7pm I was able to get back to my hotel and asleep by 9pm.
After a good morning indoor cycle ride and interval run on the treadmill I quickly packed up and checked out of the hotel. I got to the Y at 8:30 and was able to be ready for training by 8:45. Today's training was the certification workshop and I felt that the day just flew by. Both Carolina and Milton seemed to really enjoy the training and wrote tons of notes and asked tons of questions throughout the sessions.
This time we ordered lunch to save time and feel a little safer while in little Havana. We ordered from a Cuban restaurant that delivered our food. I ordered Chicken Fajitas, but when the food arrived it came with no tortilla shells. We asked the lady that ordered it for us and she said that you had to request the shells, because they didn't come with the fajitas. I thought that was part of what a fajita is? I guess not in little Havana. Wow!
At the end of the 2nd training day, we all took pictures exchanged gifts and agreed to stay in touch during the school year. I agreed to assist them in writing their curriculum. In addition, we all agreed to establish a learning community between our schools. We plan to share pictures and videos between our students on what our countries do for physical education and activity. This should be a great learning process for our students and for us teachers as well.
My journey was coming to an end when I returned my car only to find out that they had charged me for insurance that I had denied at the time of my pickup. They informed me that I would have to talk with the manager on the 4th floor in the airport to dispute the charge. How lucky I was to attempt to find the manager at the Miami airport on the 4th floor somewhere. However, I did and they were able to take off one of the charges from my bill. That helped reduce most of the charges on my bill. I was now a happy camper and now get me home American Airlines.
My flight was delayed until 9:45pm and I didn't arrive back in Columbus until midnight. I was just happy to be back home after a 3 day trip. I finally got to sleep around 2am and was up at 6am for a great swim, bike, and run in hot muggy Columbus, Ohio. Where am I, Columbus or Miami I thought. Oh well, it was great to be back with Barb and in my home after a long trip.
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