This morning I went for a walk in some pants I hadn’t worn for a long time and they bought back this hilarious memory I have from when I was visiting Miami a few years ago.
I’d just finished a big organised tour from Washington which ended in Miami, so I stayed on a few more days to recouperate… and by recouperate, I mean drink all the strawberry coladas I could get my hands on.
Anyway I thought I’d get some exercise in as I hadn’t done any for some time. I headed into town and bought the pants in the pic above, along with the matching crop.
Being in Miami gave me some false confidence so I went for a jog with just the crop and pants on, my midriff out for all the Art Deco tourists and Muscle Beach boys to see.
Not long into my run a man stopped me. He said ‘girl watcha running for? You damn fine just the way you are! Go on home now!’ … so I did.
I took that man’s random compliment, laughed the whole way back to my hotel and ordered some more ceviche and a strawberry colada.
And that incident, is one of the many reasons why I love America. The random and empowering encounters you have there make me feel happy and bemused.
I was sad to leave but glad to get out of that bloody hostel.
I slept in, hungover and eventually got up went to breakfast at Juice ad Guava as I’d seen the scrambled eggs with goats cheese on the menu a day or tow before and had been craving it ever since! Plus a juice kick for my hangover.
Mae and I lost each other and by the time we found each other it was almost time to leave! We walked back along the beach grabbed my bags and I taxi’d to the airport.
Sooo many people trying to clear security, took an hour, it was ridiculous.
I flew via Minneapolis and had just enough time there to watch the half time show of the Super Bowl!
We had booked a tour to see some Alligators. When we booked it the guys goes to Mae, ‘you’re gonna have twins.’ I was all ‘I want twins, am I gonna have twins?’ To which he replied, ‘no, you’re not. You’re going to have your own business, be very successful, you’re very independent and don’t like being told what to do.Two kids. One girl, one boy.’ When we enquired how he knew this he explained his parents were North American Indian face readers, skills passed down from the ancient generations.
From then on, whenever Mae met a guy we assessed his suitability by first asking… ‘Sooo do you have twins in your family?’ If he said no, we knew he wasn’t the one hahaha.
Anyway we got picked up and bused out to the Everglades. It’s the second biggest national park in North America after Yosemite. Which I have also visited.
It’s actually considered a tropical Forrest but looks more like wetlands. There’s grasses and Lilly pads everywhere and alligators! Heaps of them!
We took an awesome tour on an airboat with a hilarious guide who probably has the best voice I have ever heard. About 5 gators came up to the boat and we saw a few snapping turtles too! We went way out, it was awesome scenery, nothing like I’ve seen before.
Next up was a gator show. A massive one just hung out behind the tour guide, not giving a care in the world. Gators brains are about the size of a pea and therefore if you’re not food they don’t really care what’s going on.
I learnt two cool things.
Firstly, if you scratch a gator behind its ear it will open its jaw. If you then put your finger in as don’t touch anything it won’t shut it. If however, you touch a tooth or gum, WHAMMY! Jaw shuts down hard and fast.
Secondly, if you ever want to wrestle a gator (I know you do, it’s very possible) they’re very easy to control. I was actually in awe of this. So what you do, is you put your hands over the gators eyes. He immediately relaxes. The entire body goes all floppy, it’s so cool! I want one!
It was $3 to hold a gator, I gave $5 and held a 3year old. He was lovely, I could have taken him with me.
So after we’d seen and held gators the logical thing to do was eat some! We ordered a gator tail burger as shared it. To be honest, it just tasted like the spices and deep fried batter it was in. Had a fish like texture.
Awesome tour, we did it with Half Price Tours Miami. It was about $35 I think.
Back in Miami we met up with some friends I had met there previously for some drinks. Wet Willy’s was first up for some frozen slushy goodness followed by Mango’s, by now you should all know how much I love Mango’s! Best atmosphere and so different to anywhere else.
We left there to drive to Key Biscayne to look at an awesome view of Miami. Unfortunately it started raining heavily so we want back in and had breakfast at a cute diner before sleep!
Had a great, cheap menu but when the server suggested we order drinks and plates to share also and we declined, his entire attitude towards us changed and he couldn’t have cared less about us.
I ordered an ahi tuna salad. It only had a few pieces of tuna and mango and avo but it was $10.
End of Topdeck Tour. Today was supposedly day nine on tour but we didn’t actually do anything so I wouldn’t include it.
I slept in and made it just in time to say goodbye to everyone.
After that I checked out and Brendan, Mae and I cabbed to South Beach to check into our hostels.
I stayed at SoBe or South Beach Hostel as I couldn’t get in the one Mae was in. It was only about $100 for four nights and while I’m not really used to a hostel it did the trick. I found it to be a little further away from the action than the South Beach Miami International Hotel but it was just a short cab ride away when it was dark at night.
I have two suggestions:
One, install private lights for each bed. When you come in at night and everyone is asleep it makes things very difficult and a little lamp on each bed would make things sooo much better.
Two, provide better options for holding things in the shower, like in a gym where you can keep you gear in the cubicle with you. Here you had to hang anything outside.
Three, okay so turns out I have three suggestions. Thirdly power points in locked areas would be great or beside the beds so you can charge your phone or other devices at night without the worry of having it ‘go missing.’
That arvo we all went shopping and went for lunch at Yuca.
I randomly found out that my mate, Wes from Straya was in Miami so got in contact with him and he organised the tickets to the Miami Heat game that night!
I tried my first Five Guys burger! Finally! Only been meaning to for about 8 months or so. It was delicious. I ate it in a rush in the dark back seat of the taxi on the way to the game but I was happy.
Heat Game was awesome, they lost but because it was a tight game most of the way through it was an awesome atmosphere even up in the nosebleeds!
Thoroughly recommend going to as many pro sport games as you can if you are travelling in North America, you can’t beat em.
On the way back I found this Great Wall mural for Atlantis Uni. My pics do it no justice but I love the way they utilised the light in the picture.
We taxi’d back and said out goodbyes to Brendan and Wes, then bed for an early night.
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