Miami seduced me with great looks, smell of the ocean, mix of different cultures (mostly latinos, but then, in the service sector, all Eastern Europe is represented), taste of vibrant night life, always friendly cops, smiles, sporty people. All was great, and only one thing annoyed me - it felt Miami does it all just for money... And every 10th person in Miami was wearing T-shirt "I am in Miami bitch", so there must be something...
Miami International airport is 2nd biggest airport in USA after JFK, so, it was not big surprise that we had to wait 1 hour for border control, while there were 60 desks open! Lines were impressive. But getting through the control was really easy, with only few questions asked, and one question I liked the most: "if I would be in Latvia, what sort of beer I should be choosing? " He was happy with the answer that there are lot of local breweries and all make better beer than Miller..."
Via http://www.booking.com/ we ended up choosing nice hotel on Ocean Drive, which was 100 meters from the beach front, so the first impression was great. As we learned afterwards, Ocean Drive is the main road to show off, so in the evenings, a lot of Ferrari, Pontiac, Limos appear on the streets cruising slowly but loudly... As we learned, more than half of them are rented for 1 day, just to show off... There were indeed a lot of car rentals focusing on exclusive and exotic cars rent... Life for rent...
Next thing we realized that Miami is by far not real America... You see healthy people (lot of runners, nobody is smoking, only few enjoy Cuban cigars), well trained bodies (there are open air fitness equipment on the beach), lot of tourists and atmosphere resembles party, not hard work, that americans are famous for. And the biggest fiesta and party was taking place on Spanish Road, tribute to the dominance of Spanish influence here.
"Everglades" park was most marketed object of nature there (others were only some Jungle, Monkey parks), so we went there. It was impressive, though, 4 hours trip that is organized is hardly enough to experience Everglades. It is huge safari park with great variety of animals and fish (I remember that there are 89 sorts of fish ad 28 sorts of snakes in Everglades, on top of famous American alligator coexisting with other crocodiles). So few days browsing is recommended, if you are really loving the wild life and want to go photo-hunting.
Nightlife is indeed very intense there, and parties go on through all the week, with finish for more enduring ones at 4am or so. And at your forties, you will by far not be the oldest, in fact, just an averAGE person on the party... At least I understood why people are trying to stay fit here, as otherwise you can not endure...
DO:
- Eat out in Cuban restaurant. I think any would do, but there was one popular among locals and with really tasty Cuban cusine.
- Walk or ride bicycle on South Beach.
- Eat leg of turkey. We tried it in Orlando - it was best value/taste for money you can get.
- Swim in the morning while enjoying views of the sunset.
- Spend more than 4 days in Miami - there are much more places to see and taste...
DON'T:
- Eat on Ocean Drive - it is expensive. You will pay twice us much as on next street away from ocean.
- Run or exercise before sun-rise. One morning, doing my morning run on Ocean Drive, I was challenged by group of 5 latinos (started with greeting "Hey Gringo!"), who were lazy enough not to move fast once I simply ignored them, but then other morning, on the same path I saw Police, and some tourist was just rubbed.
- Think that you will get super duper value for your dollar. Yes, on average it could be some 10% below Latvian price level on commodities, but not more than that.
And here is the sound that I associate with Miami, as it was on T-shirts and in many bars or passing by cabrios..