Miami explorations...

Here's a link of some photos from our day....



http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=947185&l=5faa7&id=750473969





My friend Mira came to visit. Yeah for my first visitor! Who's next? Just off the successful Obama campaign here in FL-- Orlando and Tampa area -- she came to Miami for a meeting and bit of R and R. We went exploring. First stop -- the Biltmore Hotel. A Coral Gables landmark. An amazing old hotel with the biggest pool of any hotel in the country. Really.

Next up..... Mira really wanted to go to Little Havana so off we went. Armed with a map, I'm trying not to get addicted to GPS but rather to find my way and really focus... we headed off to Calle Ocho as 8th Street is called down here. Mira directing from her Lonely Planet book took us to Maximo Gomez Park. That's where the old men would sit around in the old days, smoke cigars, play dominoes and talk about the revolution. They still play -- just no smoking in the park any more. A sign of the times, I guess. There were even a few women there, which I bet didn't used to happen. Interestingly enough there was a little tourist information booth. Mira asked if there was a map. No. A brochure, no. Know of anywhere we could get one? No. Okay then. And it wasn't a language barrier. Her spanish is pretty good. We hung around the park for a bit just people watching which was excellent. At first I was a bit embarrassed to be intruding on their world, but by the time we left there were a couple of other tourist groups passing through. When we passed the park again later, a tour bus of Europeans of some sort had just unloaded. How funny.

Down the street, window shopping along the way.... we went to the street of the monuments. Four or five monuments to the martyrs of the liberation of Cuba through the ages... we met some guy who insisted we take his picture. Okay... but check out the trees. Very cool stuff.

Mira wanted a Guyabera (the traditional shirt all the Cuban men wear or wore...) for a gift. So we did a bit of shopping, visited a very stinky cigar store and generally enjoyed ourselves. Then, despite a few clouds we headed off to the beach. We ended up going to Bill Baggs State Park at the end of Key Biscayne. There's a lighthouse there and an added bonus was a beautiful sunset and a wedding provided for our enjoyment.

They were funny. It was very informal and came together in just a matter of minutes. We met the father of the groom and got the dirt on all the players. It was his son's third wedding and the bride's first. They were all from Indiana in town because the groom was running a half triathalon the next day. Before we met him, I had said to Mira.. imagine what the parents must feel like when their child announces they are getting married on the beach in Miami. When we met the father of the groom I asked him what his response was when he heard where the wedding was. He said he couldn't repeat it. It was a fun cap to a beautiful day in my new city of Miami. We stayed on the beach watching the sites until the park closed when we went around the point to come upon a divine sunset. I wonder if I'll ever get over the beauty of a sunset -- be it at the Bay Beach on Long Beach Island, NJ or at Key Biscayne?

Just to top off an already fun filled day, we went to a movie at CoCo Walk in Coconut Grove. Thank goodness for Mira's sense of direction or I would have been wandering the streets for days. My GPS refused to recognize Coconut Grove for some reason which left me only to those old fashioned methods. The mall was teeming with humanity, and the movie was more than a little violent (much time spent with my shirt over my eyes) but Coconut Grove definitely looks like a place for future exploration. Filled with tons of restaurants, little shops and more. All this in one day!


Then, yesterday, in a last minute change of plans... I headed out to the Ritz Carlton in Key Biscayne for brunch with our clinic funders. After getting a bit lost and a few open drawbridges... I found my way. What a hotel... on the beach. How the other half lives... the meeting went extraordinarily well but I have a ton of work to do. Off i go...