Thursday, March 01, 2007
I escaped winter again. I don’t think I’ve ever gone away to a warm climate during these bleak months (except when living in California), and now I’ve gone and done it twice in one season. My trip can be explained in three words:
Miami. Ummmmmmmm. Wow.
The location - South Beach at a super swanky hotel on Collins Ave, steps away from the even more uber swanky Delano hotel. The sky was overcast but the temperature was hot, most of the time in the 80’s. I hadn’t been to Florida in ten-ish years and found it hadn’t changed much when I briefly visited Tampa before setting up camp in South Beach.
Tampa- flat, palm trees, big roads, strip malls, fried foods (we went on a search for alligator meat that we had no intention of eating…just wanting to look at it), basically kind of middle America but down at the tips of the U.S. of A, and with lizards running around the streets. We were by the University of Tampa and were surprised at the extreme lack of hip shops and cute college town café’s. We ate outside at an Irish bar with a thatched roof, the menu noted salmon as a specialty. They were out of salmon. We watched the sunset over the bay(?) as stucco’d restaurants blasted top 40 hits covered by local bands. Matchbox 20 never really sounded so bad, and that’s saying a lot. Late one night my friend and I got a recommend from the hotel about a dive bar that was close, cheap, had a great jukebox, and open late. We went, were later joined by members of my friend’s band, and closed the place. The drinks were strong and cheap, the jukebox was probably good but none of our comrade’s songs got played, and we went back to our hotel bleary-eyed and smelling of cigarettes. (You can smoke in Florida bars)
We intended to go to the Dali museum, but didn’t make it. That was very bad of us. Very very bad.
We end up making it to our hotel in South Beach late/early in the night/morning. My friend tours in a band with this big-ish performance group and I was just tagging along to hang out and be warm. The hotel is ridiculous. Super modern, all white lobby, with sheer white curtains that hang down in bunches, covering nothing and signifying nothing. There are two pools and two outdoor bars, all of which are surrounded by huge beds that you can lounge on, drink, and be fabulous. Directly outside the hotel fence is the white sand beach and the pristine blue, warm ocean water. I had never stayed in a hotel this nice and probably never will again. No one that was in the band could ever afford to do this, but luckily they work for good people that were taking care of them, and I got to reap the rewards too. Yay.
South Beach and Miami are unlike any other part of the state, and I had been prepared for it. There are elements that remind me of Southern California, the nice cars, the beautiful people, the girls wearing small dresses and walking for blocks in 4 inch heels….in California they wouldn’t be walking, but you know what I mean. The weather, the outdoor cafes, the extreme air conditioning. Beyond that…. it’s like nowhere else I’ve ever been.
First off, the art deco architecture is both interesting and beautiful. I much preferred walking through the older neighborhoods and seeing the not so perfect, and not so bright buildings, but both were interesting. There is a huge vacation industry, and there are more beautiful Europeans in South Beach than any other place I’ve been to--besides Europe. It’s incredibly diverse, the vegetables and fruits—even in cheap cafes—are crisp, juicy and delicious, and the overall variety of bold flavors that are not weighed down by butters and batters is delightful.
But as I looked around at the Armani, the Gucci, the Manolo’s, the $400 haircuts, I couldn’t help but be incredibly exhausted. It must be pure torture caring that much about what other people think, constantly needing to look so put together to attract the attention of that hot guy and that gorgeous woman. It really makes you only feel more insecure having to go through the painstaking ordeals of primping and prodding, stuffing and applying.
At night, after we got back from one of their shows, we walked into the hotel bar that was overflowing with people at 11:30 on a Tuesday. The hotel had a Nobu, so we went for novelty sake. I put on a new dress, my 2 inch heels, and painted my eyes with lavender shadow, just to try it and play the game. I ate $29 sashimi, 7 pieces, that were delicious but not $29 worth. We went to the bar where businessmen in tailored suits goggled and awed over the girls in their dresses, their heels, their boots, their straight hair, and their perfect makeup—they all looked the same to me. Beautiful, if you like that perfect non-descript creature with a gorgeous body. I know most men do. I never understood why. Maybe it’s because I was never that girl, never wanted to be that girl, but would have liked to have a boy’s attention when I was growing up. Though, honestly, these guys were perfectly trim, expensively dressed, had lots of money, and were totally unattractive to me. If they weren’t so loud and spilling their bottles of $300 Grey Goose into each others mouths, and forcing shots of strange liquids into the hands of these ‘goddesses’, I wouldn’t have noticed except to laugh at the excess. Which I did anyway.
Bar:
5 shots, 3 Budweisers- $143
2 vodka sodas, 1 gin on the rocks- $43
2 mojitos, mint not muddled, limes squeezed- $32
Tips are included in the drinks, but still.
For breakfast:
English Muffin- $6
1 Belgium waffle with caramelized bananas- $17
Organic oatmeal- $13
A side of your favorite breakfast meat- $8
I can’t live like that. Under normal circumstances everyone we were with couldn’t live like that if it weren’t mostly free. But even if I had all the money in the world, there is no way I could ever want to live that way. Gluttonous and false, hustling for things of no importance just to get some status of having that hot ass on your arm.
It’s a vacuous existence that so many crave, and for a night can be fun. As long as someone else is paying and you are surrounded by actual people with interesting things to say that don’t involve their big cars and their big dicks. But those things never really go together anyway.
Miami. Ummmmmmmm. Wow.
The location - South Beach at a super swanky hotel on Collins Ave, steps away from the even more uber swanky Delano hotel. The sky was overcast but the temperature was hot, most of the time in the 80’s. I hadn’t been to Florida in ten-ish years and found it hadn’t changed much when I briefly visited Tampa before setting up camp in South Beach.
Tampa- flat, palm trees, big roads, strip malls, fried foods (we went on a search for alligator meat that we had no intention of eating…just wanting to look at it), basically kind of middle America but down at the tips of the U.S. of A, and with lizards running around the streets. We were by the University of Tampa and were surprised at the extreme lack of hip shops and cute college town café’s. We ate outside at an Irish bar with a thatched roof, the menu noted salmon as a specialty. They were out of salmon. We watched the sunset over the bay(?) as stucco’d restaurants blasted top 40 hits covered by local bands. Matchbox 20 never really sounded so bad, and that’s saying a lot. Late one night my friend and I got a recommend from the hotel about a dive bar that was close, cheap, had a great jukebox, and open late. We went, were later joined by members of my friend’s band, and closed the place. The drinks were strong and cheap, the jukebox was probably good but none of our comrade’s songs got played, and we went back to our hotel bleary-eyed and smelling of cigarettes. (You can smoke in Florida bars)
We intended to go to the Dali museum, but didn’t make it. That was very bad of us. Very very bad.
We end up making it to our hotel in South Beach late/early in the night/morning. My friend tours in a band with this big-ish performance group and I was just tagging along to hang out and be warm. The hotel is ridiculous. Super modern, all white lobby, with sheer white curtains that hang down in bunches, covering nothing and signifying nothing. There are two pools and two outdoor bars, all of which are surrounded by huge beds that you can lounge on, drink, and be fabulous. Directly outside the hotel fence is the white sand beach and the pristine blue, warm ocean water. I had never stayed in a hotel this nice and probably never will again. No one that was in the band could ever afford to do this, but luckily they work for good people that were taking care of them, and I got to reap the rewards too. Yay.
South Beach and Miami are unlike any other part of the state, and I had been prepared for it. There are elements that remind me of Southern California, the nice cars, the beautiful people, the girls wearing small dresses and walking for blocks in 4 inch heels….in California they wouldn’t be walking, but you know what I mean. The weather, the outdoor cafes, the extreme air conditioning. Beyond that…. it’s like nowhere else I’ve ever been.
First off, the art deco architecture is both interesting and beautiful. I much preferred walking through the older neighborhoods and seeing the not so perfect, and not so bright buildings, but both were interesting. There is a huge vacation industry, and there are more beautiful Europeans in South Beach than any other place I’ve been to--besides Europe. It’s incredibly diverse, the vegetables and fruits—even in cheap cafes—are crisp, juicy and delicious, and the overall variety of bold flavors that are not weighed down by butters and batters is delightful.
But as I looked around at the Armani, the Gucci, the Manolo’s, the $400 haircuts, I couldn’t help but be incredibly exhausted. It must be pure torture caring that much about what other people think, constantly needing to look so put together to attract the attention of that hot guy and that gorgeous woman. It really makes you only feel more insecure having to go through the painstaking ordeals of primping and prodding, stuffing and applying.
At night, after we got back from one of their shows, we walked into the hotel bar that was overflowing with people at 11:30 on a Tuesday. The hotel had a Nobu, so we went for novelty sake. I put on a new dress, my 2 inch heels, and painted my eyes with lavender shadow, just to try it and play the game. I ate $29 sashimi, 7 pieces, that were delicious but not $29 worth. We went to the bar where businessmen in tailored suits goggled and awed over the girls in their dresses, their heels, their boots, their straight hair, and their perfect makeup—they all looked the same to me. Beautiful, if you like that perfect non-descript creature with a gorgeous body. I know most men do. I never understood why. Maybe it’s because I was never that girl, never wanted to be that girl, but would have liked to have a boy’s attention when I was growing up. Though, honestly, these guys were perfectly trim, expensively dressed, had lots of money, and were totally unattractive to me. If they weren’t so loud and spilling their bottles of $300 Grey Goose into each others mouths, and forcing shots of strange liquids into the hands of these ‘goddesses’, I wouldn’t have noticed except to laugh at the excess. Which I did anyway.
Bar:
5 shots, 3 Budweisers- $143
2 vodka sodas, 1 gin on the rocks- $43
2 mojitos, mint not muddled, limes squeezed- $32
Tips are included in the drinks, but still.
For breakfast:
English Muffin- $6
1 Belgium waffle with caramelized bananas- $17
Organic oatmeal- $13
A side of your favorite breakfast meat- $8
I can’t live like that. Under normal circumstances everyone we were with couldn’t live like that if it weren’t mostly free. But even if I had all the money in the world, there is no way I could ever want to live that way. Gluttonous and false, hustling for things of no importance just to get some status of having that hot ass on your arm.
It’s a vacuous existence that so many crave, and for a night can be fun. As long as someone else is paying and you are surrounded by actual people with interesting things to say that don’t involve their big cars and their big dicks. But those things never really go together anyway.
posted by Sarah RabDAU at
1:28 PM
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