Tampa to Miami

Despite the promises of the night before, we failed to get up at 8 and, as has become standard, it took us an inordinate amount of time to get out the door. Once we did finally manage to do so, it was decided that there would be minimal stops so that we could get to Miami asap. But first, in a belated attempt to apologise to our bodies for the punishment that they had received as part of the McDonald’s Day festivities we stopped at a supermarket to load up on fresh fruit, vitamins and Gatorade.

We were soon back on the road and so keen was Carl to get to Miami as quickly as possible he decided not to pay one of the tolls but instead to cruise through the “Sunpass Only” booth. It is not at all clear why he did this. However, we did make good time and arrived in Miami at around 3:30. What happened next was an absolute shambles. We arrived at the hostel keen to book in only to find perhaps the world’s most flustered man behind the reception desk and about 20 other people in the same position as us. It seems that the hostel is relatively new and the systems that they had in place were woefully insufficient for the volume of people that were arriving to spend New Year’s Eve in South Beach. After initially having been sent to a room that had people in it, we were eventually shown to the right room, by which time a good two hours had passed since our arrival and we were all pretty fed up with it.

Given that it was too late for a swim, we wandered along the beach for a while and had a stroll along Ocean Drive* and around South Beach. It was almost exactly the same as the stereotypes would suggest, with lots of tanned beach bodies, heaps of art deco architecture, drag queens busking out the front of bars, other pubs populated by people singing and dancing on the bars, and lots and lots of people rollerblading around wearing minimal clothing. Also, strangely enough, the beach itself had big sections where there was only a couple of inches of sand with concrete slabs underneath. Having gauged the lie of the land we bought beers and headed back to the hostel to play cards and start drinking.

We did this for a couple of hours and chatted to a bunch of random people in the hostel, most of whom seemed to be either Scandinavian or Australian. Whilst the rest of us were being sociable, Dr Wonderboy was working on his image. Deciding that Miami was the perfect place to show his intimidating side, he retired to our dorm room and using our recently purchased ditrcheap Vodka as an antiseptic and ice to prevent bloodflow, proceed to pierce his ear. The result was a sparkling success – he now looked much more “threatening” and somewhat less friendly. This achieved, we headed out on the town

It was an odd sort of a night. We went to a number of different bars, got offered copious amounts of drugs, Cleland managed to sneak into South Beach’s swankiest nightclub without waiting in line or paying a cent, Wonders and I played Connect 4 (literally – I’m talking about the boardgame) at about 2 in the morning at a nightclub and we all had massive slices of delicious pizza on the way home. We all eventually made it home, at some point between 3 and 5:30 and turned in for the evening – saving ourselves somewhat for New Years the next night.

Over and out

Jez