Day 2 Lee, Julian, and I drove the rental car out to Little Havana, out near the Miami airport to Versailles, a staple for everything Cuban around south Florida-the kind of place that will rush you in as soon as they push you out to set the table for the next customer in 2 seconds. Where at any point you'll find a guy with a mop or vacuum cleaning up the spot to make way for the next wave of hungry Latino's. Even though Julians Columbian and Lee's a big old Jew, other than another white group who came that were clearly just as curious, we were definitely the only 'gringo's' in the joint. And the decor is nothing short of a good Greek Diner in Astoria. kinda like the fancy cafeteria vibe of my fav Vietnamese spot Pho-Bang in Elmhurst Queens. The floor is always drying. And the food was tasty but like anything Cuban or Dominican or Puerto Rican for that matter, after the first few bites you realize what you're getting yourself into. it's just starchy as hell [and fried] and you cant stop! I never realized, even with the starter basket of bread, how good white bread and butter are especially when you're hungry. We had enough food for a boat load of fleeing Cubans! Fried yuca with garlic cilantro sauce, fried sweet plantains, fried snapper, tres leches-which had I discovered as a teenager, along with cafe con leche-my new favorite coffee, I'd have diabetes and lactose intolerance by now but so happy I found this little unassuming treat.
Day 3 we had an idea. we were on the hunt for a good hotel to crash and it came to him. "The Fountaine Blue" said Lee who'd been here once before. So we put on our 'yes, we definitely belong here' faces that we do so well and walked through the lobby to the pool and the ocean side. We're getting embarrassingly good at this crashing hotels thing. I suppose its pretty easy if you walk right in and act like you belong but we seem to have perfected the air of the out-of-town guest. the rich refined guest. Where nothings a big deal but you. Its amazing what kind of opportunity's open up for you when you just pretend like you belong. We walked in through the lobby like Oceans 11, out back to the pools, past the European family's with their white Polo's and their pushed up collars and who might as well be in Capri, the tattooed and comfortable looking hip-hop group ordering colorful drinks at the bar. I've definitely seen them before. Maybe their tattoo's look familiar. That's another thing-I've never seen so many tattoo's in one town. Its beautiful but what does this whole army of tattoo's say about South Florida? I haven't the slightest but trying to come up with a logical answer other than some underground gang. So we ordered Moet and berries and toasted to the start of another successful day. The pools are nice but why stay here when we could sneak back to the boardwalk and the cabana's and commune with the beachgoers...
"we left our key with our friend inside" Julian tells the Cabana boy who could see the promise of gratuity on on our foreheads a mile long and runs off to fetch us towels. we found our spot right behind the tattooed Asian wanna bee's. This is the life. We came back the next 2 days and did the same thing.
Miami is a lot like LA except the people here aren't as smart. They're not as savvy. And maybe they just don't care to be. Or just haven't bothered to figure it out. Either way, when you have all that room for disappointment it leaves a whole lot of people-watching for the folks like us who know better:)
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| noon |
Our apartment view reminded me of the place in 'Cocaine Cowboys' where they rented by the inlet just to have a lady sit inside and watch the harbor with binoculars and a CB radio ready to give the coast-is-clear to the smugglers coming in or coast guard alerts. White walls and marble floors, white pleather swivel lazy boys, glass coke sniffing tabletops...it was kinda perfect for a plastic week here. It must have been pretty futuristic looking in 1988. My favorite moments were in bed though. Management gave us a pullout bed in which I setup on our wraparound balcony. Nothing like huddling up underneath your covers, feeling that extra strong breeze past your face watching the stars on a clear night. 6:30am was tough though. When that sun comes up above the water, every morning I took my panorama and sleepwalked inside to fall back asleep on the pleather.
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| 6:00am time to go inside |
