One Day in Miami

2005-08-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE TRIP!!!

Amidst the sun, the sand, and the anachronistic feel of the 1980s, I did get a lot of stories.
After a long drive from Orlando, we arrive at our Miami hotel late Friday night. We decide to take it easy tonight and just go to bed. We'll soak in the scenery and warm temperatures tomorrow. We aim for sweet dreams but it takes a minute. We're just so excited.

I could only imagine what would happen if tomorrow we decide to drive somewhere and we don't know how to get there. Things would probably start to get a little bad right about then, but for now, right thoughts. I want to eat at Little Havana if it's possible. I just love those stupid black beans. I just know that if I go, about five minutes onto the road, the plan would be doomed because I don't know where little Havana is. And so, tension would begin to rise as my crew would hastily bark orders as to where to turn. This would eventually lead the driver (me) to ask for directions in a local neighborhood we would stumble into. As I talk to an older black woman about getting to little Havana, I quickly pick up on her accent and the surrounding location. With our luck, we would find ourself in little Haiti. If you know your Gran Turismo: Vice City like I do, you’ll understand what happens next. I hide in my seat and pray to god. Of course, it's all fictional, there is no race war, and the lady’s Cuban neighbor would give us proper directions. We will still get lost anyway, and end up eating at a place that at least looks authentically Cuban, but that's usually the way a story with me as the driver would end up sounding like, so good luck to Annette and I on this journey.

Saturday, our first official carefree day at the beach. I actually make the mistake of not putting on sunscreen. This traditionally hasn’t been a problem; I occasionally forgot to use sunscreen in Puerto Rico without repercussion. I remembered just in time. I would not have been just red, I would have been red like that character in the movie “Hellboy," and as punishment for my sins, my sunburn would begin shedding and I would leave a damn dustcloud wherever I'd go. While carousing the streets, I should have bought a souvenir of the trip: a large Scarface poster. Nothing says Miami like Tony Montana. We were supposedly sitting in front of the hotel that one of the scenes was shot in. Get it: "SHOT." JAJA, I made a joke, you like?

In Miami, it's all about loud speakers and naked people. I declare war on Lil’ Jon, Usher, and J-Kwon. Ludacris misses the cut because he does not appear in the beginning of the song “Yeah.” You cannot go five minutes without hearing “Yeah” or “Tipsy” on one channel or another. And even if you shut your own radio off, you’ll end up next to some other car full of stupid white people nodding their heads and singing along. So you go to the beach, because you think that is a safe haven. Yet some beachfaring youth has brought a cooler full of beer and a boombox to blast out the same five songs all throughout the sandy shores. You are then doubleteamed by the radios from the shoreside hotels and restaurants blasting the same exact tunes in an attempt to entice beachgoers to stop on by, but all it really leads to is a giant cacophony of “YEAH ... OHHH-KAYYIE!”

Saturday also marked the first day to go to clubs. I don't want any gay clubs please. The last thing I need is a 40-year old gentleman in a Marilyn Monroe dress welcoming us to the club. I double, triple, quadruple check that I have not left my ID back in the hotel room, and then be forced to make a 26 block dash northward. Well, not a dash but a drive... Thank God the Salsa Congress came up...

YES WE DANCED, YES WE HAD FUN, BUT WHAT DID WE ACCOMPLISH, NOTHING, AND THAT'S EXACTLY THE WAY IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE... IT WAS A MINI VACATION, WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE ANY GOALS!!!

2005-08-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

DANCING AT MAMBO'S, SOUTH BEACH, MIAMI...

ANNETTE AND MARTIN DANCING BACHATA!!!

ANNETTE AND MARTIN!

I THINK HE ASKED ME TO DANCE BECAUSE I LOOKED SO BORED!

I TOLD HIM TO TAKE IT EASY ON ME!!!

WE DIDN'T GET BACK TO THE HOTEL UNTIL 6:30am,AT

WHICH POINT I FIGURED STEVEN MUST HAVE BEEN GETTING

UP TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL AND WE TALKED ALL MONING...

2005-08-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

READY TO GO OUT AND ENJOY THE NIGHT!!!

On our way back from the beach, we stopped at this boutique and Annette bought this outfit. I recommended the necklace and afterwards, was mad at myself for not buying it for me. Its just that gorgeous.

We arrived to the hotel where the Salsa Congress was to be held at. We couldn't find it at first but later asked around like morons. We walked around the lobby before walking in. The place was packed. Everyone was dressed to impress or so barely dressed that it caused an impression.One of those barely dressed examples!!!
We snapped some pictures of each other at the hotel lobby.

I asked a lady to take this picture of Annette and I by the stairs and she looked at me like I'd offended her. Later, I realized she didn't understand english which makes me realize that there are still people livingin the United States without knowing the native language. How pathetic!!!

Like I said, the place was packed...
Salsa is such an important thing to these people. They dance beautifully. According to a website on the roots of Salsa, the popular usage of the word “salsa” for danceable Latin music began in 1933 when Cuban song composer Ignacio Piñerio wrote the song Échale Salsita. He got the idea after tasting food which lacked the Cuban spices. It was a protest against tasteless food.

My father always said that Vanessa Williams was his girlfriend (His mamboya). Too bad he missed a chance to realize his dream now that she's divorced...
Joel was there. He is Annette's salsa instructor. I had the pleasure of dancing with him. She is an incredible dancer...
He was very gentle with me!!!
He spun me around like a yoyo right at the end!

We took the picture above and the picture below beside Vanessa Williams' table. He'd said he was gonna ask her to dance and I followed him because I wanted to get a photo of it. He chickened out because he saw her saying NO to another guy that asked her to dance... He was afraid she'd hurt that puertorrican ego...

We were having a good time by now!!!

Pictures of me dancing, check

Pictures of Vanessa Williams, check

Lipstick on, check

Let's continue shall we?

We had to pay $25.00 to get into the Salsa Congress. The drinks were extremely expensive aswell so we decided to improvise...

We sat at the very yuppie looking bar in the huge lobby and we bought some Long Island Iced Teas! Annette was approached by an older gentleman, and by older I mean Harrison Ford kind of old, and said he'd buy us a bottle of champaigne if she asked his friend out to the dancefloor. She shyly smiled and acted like he wasn't there to the surprise of Mr. Ford. He insisted that he did not expect that type of reaction from her. WHAT THE F#%@ did he expect?

Anyways, he later came back and was talking shit about something else at which point we figured it was time to go back into the Salsa Congress!!! One long bathroom break later and we were back in the hoochie mama room!

Alex Vila ladies and gentleman, the greatest dancer to come out of New York. He is Joel's cousin, going back to NY the next day. I guess he'll sleep on the plane!!!

2005-08-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

ONE DAY AT THE BEACH!!!

It was another sunny day in South Beach, Miami,

the sky is blue, the sand is hot and the sun is burning my skin,

Annette and I had been hoping for a beach day like this...

I whipped out my digital camera as soon as the eyes spotted the shore. The smell of sunblock engulfed my senses and I am suddenly brought back to the present...

As I walked over, closer to the shore, I was reminded of how my childhood days at the beaches in my beautiful Puerto Rico had been taken for granted...

In one swift motion, I snapped dozens of memories, both in my camera and in my mind...

I found the people responsible for renting the blue umbrellas and the beach chairs and quickly reversed my spot.
A perfect spot it was indeed. The sun was hitting my face intensely, and for a quick moment,thought my day would have to be cut short because my skin is not used to this kind of exposure anymore...
In the distance, I see a waverunner. It reminds me of Corcega. (Rincon, Puerto Rico) My parents bought me one for my 15th birthday and it was my sole form of entertainment for many a weekends.
Curiously looking around, I noticed this emanciated young lady. Is she yet another victim of the atrocious eating disorder epidemic consuming today's youth? I was once there, we were all once there...
Now we go from one extreme to the next! A couple of spot down from my comadre is this thong! How dare she wear this with dimples like THAT?
After an hour or so of tanning, I see a girl taking off her top and I realize that topless tanning is tolerated in South Breast, I mean IN SOUTH BEACH Miami.
But nobody said anything about bottomless tanning. YIKES! Put some clothes on woman!!!

Then after I noticed only one person topless tanning, suddenly its infectious. Everyone was doing it. They simply broke the ice.
Now my question is, what was Star Jones doing in South Beach Miami?
Suddenly, many more people started showing up and my camera never stopped. It had kind of taken a life of its own!
Annette and I laid on the beach chairs like pros. After being in the water and body surfing for what like seemed like an eternity, we crawled back to our beach chairs, exhausted from being in the water due to the lack of exercise, and we napped for a bit.

We asked a person sitting nearby to snap some pictures of us. It was kind of weird being at the other side of the lenses for the first time during the whole day...

In what seemed like a fictional sequence of events, the skies turned gray, filled with saturated thick black clouds that threatened to take away our beautiful memories of this gorgeous afternoon.
From far away, we'd seen the warning signs of a brewing storm, yet we stayed put and thought nothing of it. When the rain actually reached us, big surprise, and the beach emptied in record time. You'd thought a tsunami warning had been issued. People looked like they were running for their lives, and with good reasons. The rain was so thick it felt like hail when it hit the back of my ears as I sat guarding our belongings while Annette made her way back to me since she's wondered off into another area of the beach. When I saw her, we ran and ran and ran. We looked like shit afterwards, but we put ourselves together and rewarded our suffering with some Wet Willies...

The variety was inmense. Thankfully, they gave you itty bitty samples for you to try. I decided on Margarita although I'd heard from a very reliable source that Bahama Mama was the best choice. I, stubborn as I am and always will be, still chose the Margarita...
The skies turned sunny again and el Nino decided to go somewhere else to play...
People watching was definetly the funnest part of this beach day. This Lambourgini Murcielago was driving in front of Wet Willies spot. I just had to take a picture so I could stop staring...
I bet Annette must have been drooling when she seen all the motorcycles around Miami. She's just been dying for one...

Check out the two butt grabbers I caught!!! The one below was a much avid grabber, he was searching for coal...

2005-08-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

Exhausted as we were, we decided to take a couple of pictures when we arrived at the hotel at 4am on Friday...