South Beach Miami

It's that time of the week - injecting a little geographic exploration into an otherwise sedentary life.

On a lighter note than previous Wayfaring posts, I thought I'd blog about Miami this week.

For the big birthday weekend my husband wanted to take me somewhere - Paris? No, too cold, too far. What I wanted more than anything else was warm sand in my toes. Seriously, that was the exact criteria. Oh, and minimal travel time, no connections, and minimal time zone changes. Miami it was.

South Beach is a mixture of cultures - Cuban, art deco, funky - if you count those as separate cultures. Let me tell you a little about each of these.

Cuban - Miami has a large Cuban population and it was in full evidence this past weekend. As we were walking to Puerto Sagua for Cuban sandwiches (I love any sandwich with pickles) we kind of ran into Jon Secada, the Latin pop star. And his friends, one of whom invented the Macarena. They were filming something for someone (TV?) and somehow we we were asked if we wanted to meet Jon...and dance the Macarena. Here we are. I think I did pretty well.

Art Deco - At some point, someone had the good sense to preserve all the beautiful art deco buildings in the neighborhood. It's a wonderful place to walk around once you've spent enough time on the beach.

Funky - South Beach day and nightlife is a a motley collection of eccentricities. Our hotel had theme rooms - now I know you're thinking jungle or bordello - and you might be right. They also had rooms, such as ours, that was decorated based on a 50's car theme. The bathroom fixtures, the ceiling fan, everything. You can fight to get into a chi-chi club, watch scantily clad women parading down Ocean Drive, or get a temporary tattoo at midnight after too many mojitos.

Notice it's a flower - for Flower Child