Miami - 10 Things I Didn't Get To Do in Miami

1. Eat at 'Tap Tap', a Haitian restaurant that I spotted on the way in a week ago. What a missed opportunity.
2. Go to Wynwood and the Design District. If I'd left earlier to visit Little Havana I could have done this area too. Damn my mood that day and the thunderstorms.
3. Visit the Bass Art Museum. Again, if that bike ride to Bal Harbour on Dexter Day had not been so exhausting. I went right past it on the way back but just couldn't face it.
4. See Armin van Burren at Space on July 4th (Oh Timmy, if only you were here!).
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk1Wp3ZPosc&feature=user.
   
   



5. Do my washing at the 'Laundry Bar'. I really needed to get my washing done and in this place you can sit and have a drink too.
   
6. Find Muscle Beach. Is it my imagination or is that in Miami? I could not find it...
7. Get a decent tan. I have brown arms and a red nose. Does that count?
8. Go to an American Football game and eat a giant hot dog. This is not actually my fault. The season doesn't start until August.
9. Drink a cocktail in a fancy Miami hotel bar. Most days I looked a wreck after cycling. Most nights I was asleep at 8. But I should have done this one really.
10. Go to 'Tapas & Tintos'. I love Tapas and though it wasn't in the TO gospel I saw this when I went to the Cinemateque. Sigh, I love too much Tintos!
    

Miami - 10 Lessons Learnt

1. Don't try to be funny. Especially my kind of dry, sarcastic funny. It does NOT work.
2. Don't speak in exactly your English accent. Though it is the epitome of enunciation no-one will understand you. Adopt a slight twang and all of a sudden you will be clear as a bell.
3. Don't stand too near to trees, bushes, or any nature. There are hardly any flying insects, but there are ants everywhere - and they love my ankles.
4. Don't buy water on the beach from a hotel outlet: it will cost you $10 (a fiver or so!). The upside is they fill a plastic bag with ice and place the bottle of water in that. What a waste of natural resources. See point 7.
5. Don't cycle on the left, it's just plain dangerous
6. Don't even attempt to call people Sir or Ma'am. Not only do you sound ridiculous but it will make you laugh out loud. Which then greatly upsets the person you're talking to. They totally don't get why that's funny.
7. Don't judge a place by home standards. Yes you can't recycle*. Yes the cars are bigger than my flat*. Yes the food is awful - burgers, pizzas, hot-dogs. But culture is out there somewhere, just not as we know it.
8. If travelling alone get spray-on suntan lotion for your back. If you don't you will get streaks of sun-burn where you couldn't quite reach.
9. Don't worry about what anyone else thinks of you. Let them worry about themselves: their hair; their cars; their shoes; their tans; their muscles. You just hang with the Latino dudes and enjoy life chica.
10. Read the Time Out gospel at all times. Just when you were feeling a bit homesick and some Dutch people gave you negative vibes TO comes to the rescue with 57 varieties of things to do. Thank you TO!

* In reality you can totally judge this country on lack of recycling, overuse of natural resources and a total lack of care about 'the rest of the planet'. But as I'm on holiday I will moan about it to all of you when I get back. 'Puta'!

Miami - 10 Things I Now Want

1. I want to live in a condominium
2. I want tinted glass on my Mums car
3. I want more tattoos all over my arms and ankles
4. I want to speak fluent Spanglish
5. I want a HUGE truck (with tinted glass, hanging my tattooed arm out of the window, blaring Latino-rap and a crazy screaming chica by my side hurling abuse at rival gangs)
6. I want to say "Puta" under my breath when someone white and skinny from England annoys me
7. I want palm trees in the back yard of my basement flat
8. I want to not get annoyed when every advert on the TV is for food, and everything costs $8.88, $18.88, $88.88. I mean, what's wrong with 9.99 eh?
9. I want to enrol in the Institute of Crime Technology, for only $288.88 and become a super-crime-busting dudette.
10. I want to wear a bandanna and call my enemies "Pendejos"