There's this fantastic concept called Mystery Shopping. In short, you get paid to review places by visiting locations and testing customer service, stock, and employee general knowledge. Normally they tend to be a little dry (go to this shop and ask about X, we'll reimburse you for whatever) but every now and then you're given a gem of an assignment: 'Go to Goodwood Racecourse with a plus one and using these extremely fancy badges, review the experience from the perspective of a horse owner and club member. Please visit all the fancy-pants places while you are there'... You can't really say no to that, can you?

The benefit of being asked to go to Goodwood was that we could also pop in to see an old family friend who moved to Worthing on the southern coast.

It was a great excuse for a nice day out at the seaside and some nice meals out before we were headed to the racecourse. You can just about make out Brighton on the far left hand side of the above photo. 

The next morning we were off bright and early on our way to Goodwood. We drove through Arundel on the way which gave us a fantastic view of the castle. Apparently I've been here before when I was younger but have no memory of it whatsoever. If we had had more time I would have loved to stopped and explored!

Finally arriving at Goodwood itself, we got parked up, donned our fascinators, and entered the grounds.

I should stress that although I was dressed the part, I certainly didn't feel like I belonged in the slightest. In the members area that we had been asked to review, everyone walked with an air of money and poshness that was bewildering.

The monied people obviously had the best seats in the house though. We could see all the way back to the coast.

They also got the best view of the entertainment!

As much as we were there to give an objective version of what the experience of Goodwood was like, I ended up doing an awful lot of people watching. By the end of the day I had invented a game called Old Money, New Money for categorising people...

When the races were due to begin, we went to... the paddock? The arena? I don't know what it's called but all the horses were paraded around for us!

And then they were off!

We were then forced to go to two bars and eat at the seafood restaurant. Such a chore!

The last part of our brief had us place the minimum bet on a horse, which involved me learning the difference between betting on a horse to win and betting 'each way'. Gambling is a world I'm not familiar with at all but I'm proud to say we won. Thank you, Big Orange!

Key West was the last stop on our Floridian road trip and we were just in time for Independence Day! After our questionable accommodation in Homestead, we were happy to be going literally anywhere else but our gorgeous hotel was above and beyond what we had expected. 

Getting to the end of the keys was easier said than done though. From start to finish, the Florida Keys are 113 miles long and part of that involved travelling over Seven Mile Bridge which is, you guessed it, a bridge that is seven miles long. Driving across that was perhaps the most disconcerting part of the entire road trip. You don't really expect to see tropical islands while looking out of the car window.

After the very long drive, we checked into our hotel (which was serving complimentary cocktails that I wasn't allowed to drink, I might add...) and collapsed in our pristine rooms. We couldn't have been further from a CSI crime scene than if we had tried.

As our hotel was extremely close the Key West's historic harbour, we spend a lot of time wandering up and down the boardwalk that weekend. The area might well be the only place in the US outside of large cities where walking to and from places is the norm. 

I was pretty hyped to be spending the 4th July in America. I completely lost count of how many American flags we saw but everyone seemed to be in such a good mood. We had a few jokes cracked at our expense at lunch (mahi-mahi sandwiches!) which I can say I was sort of expecting but I was not prepared for the amount of flag-styled shorts, t-shirts, vest tops and dresses we saw. Even the houses and hotels were decked out!

While we definitely could have done more exploring of Key West, after all the driving we truly felt like we deserved a break. Besides, it was so incredibly hot at this point - Key West is just 60 miles from Cuba! - that we really didn't have the energy. We spent a large portion of our time relaxing by the pool. It was actually the first time I had purposefully sat down to read my book during the entire trip.

On the evening of the fourth, we treated ourselves to a fancy meal out on the waterfront at the Hyatt's restaurant SHOR. We were welcomed by these adorable guys. 

Although slightly grumpy, they were very photogenic.  

We settled at our table, we ordered our delicious food and prepared for an amazing tropical sunset. Unfortunately, we encountered the same issue I had in Bali - the wet season! Although it wasn't raining, clouds rolled in on the horizon to obstruct our view.

But that's not to say we weren't treated to a spectacular light show!

It made the perfect backdrop for our one and only slice of authentic Key lime pie (how could we resist?!). The restaurant we were at actually won the official last Key lime pie contest so we knew we were literally about to eat the best Key lime pie on the planet... And my god, it was incredible. No picture because we all pretty much inhaled it. So good.

As night descended (along with the mosquitoes), we actually didn't see very many fireworks! We heard one or two from a display on the other side of the island but really nothing much. For all we'd heard that the US loves Independence Day, Key West does it very low key indeed.

What we faced the following day was driving all the way back up north to Palm Beach. We stayed one night there and got some incredible takeaway pizza from a lovely, friendly independent pizzeria, Palermo Brick Oven Pizza.

Availing myself of the last waffle machine I'd be given access to, I stuffed my face at breakfast and shoved all my belongings back into my case (considerably messier than when they were originally packed). We drove the last leg of the journey to Orlando International Airport and returned the rental car.

Our flight was then, of course, delayed on the tarmac due to a severe lightning storm in the vicinity which stopped the ground crew from loading the luggage but after an hour we got up in the air and on our way back to good old Blighty.  

Florida 2015
Universal Studios Orlando	Key Biscayne
Cocoa Beach and Village	Orchids and Key Largo
Kennedy Space Center	Dolphin Research Center
Miami Beach	Key West
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If you've stuck with me for all these posts, a huge thank you! Hopefully I'll be able to share some exciting new about some of the photos soon! ;)

Seven year old Emma was obsessed with dolphins. I had a horse phase and a dog phase but dolphins were my all-time favourite. I had dolphin soft toys, posters, and figurines. I memorised dolphin facts and figures (Did you know dolphins are mammals and not fish? Did you know dolphins can swim up to 20 mph? Did you know dolphins live in groups called pods?) and wrote them all in my little dolphin notebook. I even wanted to become a marine biologist at one point.

As much as I'm still fond of dolphins and wanted very much to see them on this trip, I recently watched the controversial documentary Blackfish, after a birthday whale watching trip, and knew I wanted to go nowhere near Sea World's Discovery Cove. I'm glad to see I'm not alone in feeling this as the company's profits have plummeted by 84%.

It was a huge relief to me when I found we would be passing the Dolphin Research Center on the way to Key West. I could fulfil my childhood dream as well as ensure I was supporting an ethical organisation due to the scientific demands for animal welfare. 

While the centre survives mainly on dolphin encounters, I managed to get my hands on some information concerning their actual research. The centre has quite the spread, with studies on object permanence, blindfolded imitation, numerosity, social development in calves and more. Suffice to say I was in my element.

We attended a talk at the mother-calf area, where we got to coo over two babies. It was really interesting and sort of bemusing to see the mothers vie for our attention as well, almost as if they were saying "Hello? We're here too, you know?!"

They splashed around, waved, and even did a few jumps for us. Sometimes their calves would join in as well. Truly very playful and friendly animals.

What I loved about the centre was that all of the animals get a choice whether they want to participate in talks. If one of the mums has decided she wants to focus more on her calf than on a marine biologist, that's absolutely fine. If she decides she wants to stay in the back pen, away from visitors, she would never be forced to the front to be shown off. The staff place a lot of faith in their animals to know themselves which is really refreshing to see. The centre is really living up to their mission statement of "promoting peaceful coexistence, cooperation and communication between dolphins and humans".

Here comes the corny part. In between my frantic photographing, I crouched down to get a better look into a pen through the fencing that stopped anyone falling in. A dolphin immediately stopped by the corner I was at and looked at me.

Connecting, if only for a minute, with another highly intelligent species is a challenge to describe. It's the feeling of anticipation, like you're on the verge of a scientific discovery and are nearing the eureka moment. You don't share a language but there's still an awareness between the two of you that you want to communicate, so you keep looking at each other and wishing you could and looking and longing and then just like that, it's over. 

Losing that feeling was jarring but as a consequence, I am, of course, very excited for future research! We already know that dolphins are self-aware, use tools and have individual signature whistles that act as names. It's only a matter of time before we decode the vocalisations.

Now, I hadn't planned on getting wet on this trip but as I was sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree, I got water on my arm. Looking back on it I wish someone had been filming me because I'm sure my face was the very picture of confusion. My mind immediately decided that the tree's leaves must have collected water from the last storm and suddenly gave way... but it was far too hot for that.

Then my brother made me look up and I saw this.

A gecko peed on me. I have a wonderful memory from this day that I will treasure forever but whenever I think of it or mention it, the memory that will always follow will be of a Madagascar day gecko peeing on me.

Look at that smug face. He knows what he did!

Florida 2015
Universal Studios Orlando	Key Biscayne
Cocoa Beach and Village	Orchids and Key Largo
Kennedy Space Center	Dolphin Research Center
Miami Beach	Key West
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