Landing in Miami and exploring Downtown

This trip was sponsored by Pfizer, for a new clinical trial. Sunnybrook Odette Cancer centre was chosen as one of the Canadian sites to run this trial. They were having this meeting to present a summary of the trial and to allow all sites to ask questions directly to the Pfizer team.
We had an early flight from Toronto to Miami. I went with my supervisor! Our flight was set for 6am, so we had to be at the airport at 3am 🥲 Barely got any sleep that night, but we were pretty excited! The flight itself was pretty smooth, luckily we had no check-in luggage so we were in and out quick.
We arrived in Miami at around 9am and we were supposed to be picked up by a driver to take us to the hotel. We found our driver and we also met another couple - the wife worked at St Mike’s hospital so she was running the trial there! She came with her husband as well! Her husband couldn’t attend the meeting since he’s just traveling as a guest, but they ended up staying an extra day to explore Miami! We arrived at the hotel and it was so nice! Since our check in wasn’t until 4pm, we left our luggage at the hotel and decided to explore the area. The wife and husband who carpooled with us were allowed to check in (lucky them… 🥲) so we parted ways there. I was definitely overdressed - it was around 30C in Miami… 🥵 We were both tried and hot, so we found a cute coffee shop and got an iced matcha latte and iced vanilla latte! Very refreshing!
We walked around and there was a bit of a pathway near the waterfront and we were deciding what to do for the next few hours. We had a group dinner in the evening but had time to kill, so we decided to check out Downtown Miami. We took an uber there and it was especially humid near the water…
We were near the port and there was a small mall there, we did a bit of shopping. We made a last minute decision to join a boat tour. They took us near the Virginia Key island and we got to see a bunch of celebrity mansions, which was cool! I could definitely feel the sleep coming in, with the boat swaying, I was ready for a nap haha! 😆
After the boat tour, we were starving, so we were looking for a famous Cuban sandwich place, since Miami is known for Cuban sandwiches. We ended up going to an outdoor mall and they had a cool Cuban restaurant in the top floor! It was so yummy but definitely not cheap 😋
We left the restaurant and walked around the mall, it was so nice and very bougie 😂
The mall wasn’t too far from our hotel, so we ended up walking back and checking in. We each got our own rooms and it was really nice! My room had 2 beds! We both rested in our rooms for a bit, then changed to go to the work dinner. It was provided in the hotel, and it was buffet style. We were given roasted chicken, shrimp, polenta, asparagus and salad! We also were provided wine if you wanted. We met back up with the research coordinator from St Mike’s and ate dinner with her and a few new people.
After the dinner, we went back to our hotel rooms for the evening. Long day for sure! 😴Read more