[03] A two night stop-over in a surprisingly wonderful city
Sabbatical update…
I know, I know, I haven’t even started writing about South America yet. But Miami was special. Anyway, writings about Colombia are next so hold tight.
Grenada has two main short falls:
No test cricket (see entry 01);
You can only really fly to London or Miami
So Miami it was for a 2 day stopover before heading south into South America. A quick google suggested Little Havana was a good spot and I might even be able to practice my Spanish. I also recognised the name from one of my favourite films Chef, with Jon Favreau and Sofia Vergara. If you’ve seen that film, it doesn’t disappoint.
Music (oye como va), food (guava jam puff pastries), cafe cubano (espresso with 2 sugars), and cigars (from everywhere except Cuba due to a JFK trade embargo from 1962 that lives on) are spilling out onto the street. Even with Taylor Swift being in town and all reasonable hotel options booked, Miami was a revelation for me.
A weekend in Miami feels like a trip into the future. Arguably a bit dystopian but, products from Silicon Valley are visible in day-to-day life. A Tesla without a person behind the wheel stopped to let us cross the road, a cyber truck in real life and a small robot making its way across the road in downtown to deliver a parcel to an office block.
To get to South Beach, we went for old school uber and our first of many, helpful Venezuelan drivers. They describe the political situation in their home country as “complicated” which I’m sure is euphemistic for a pretty awful time there currently. In a world of rising instability, this opportunity to earn a living seems as good an argument against investment into driverless cars as I’ve heard. Particularly in the light of recent wildfires, spending billions on driverless cars seems misplaced.
In a more utopian vision of the future, South Beach is home to a vegan restaurant of “fusion cuisine” called PLANTA. Fusion cuisine gets a bad rap in UK, but having a sushi starter of unagi made from aubergine before having vegan carbonara is a combo I could never get bored of.
Goodwill deserves a mention. Where the US lacks in the CRUK, Mind, BHF and Oxfam, it makes up for with Goodwill. It’s an American sized warehouse of second-hand bargains and rightly has you rifling through their good stuff for hours.
In little Havana, Spanish is the dominant language but, I was surprised that very few people actually speak English. Despite this, I did my best to amuse the local lavanderia staff with my Ross and Rachel moment with Sophie. Make of it what you will.
Truer to my perception of Floridians, when discussing the traffic with another uber driver, he said they needed more roads. This is a city with 3 lanes going each way for the main arterial roads and reminded me of this sketch on the ROI of building roads on Australian cities.
We continued living the American Dream, hiring a (accent required) “rennal cawr” and driving to a mall. With matcha frappucino in hand, I came away with a heavily discounted Columbia puffer jacket and felt ready for Bogota.
Hasta la próxima Miami!