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This was actually the view from the plane on the way out, since I landed quite late. During my days here, I traveled to most of these areas that you see (and more!)
Below are images from the AirBnB I stayed at. This place was a one-room bungalow and unfortunately, I only took a pic of the kitchen area of the room. There were 3 different accommodations there and each had its own reserved parking space behind a gated area.
My first full day in Miami started with a Food Tour in Little Havana. I got early to Calle Ocho (8th Street) early and walked around a bit. I very much enjoyed the quote on this place.
The Food Tour took us to about 6 or 7 places to try a bite to eat. Our guide was Jennifer, who was as thin as a rail. She gathered all her food samples to go. One of the things I liked about the tour (other than the food) was that Jennifer explained the history of Calle Ocho and the Cuban community that had set its roots down in Miami after Castro took over. In addition, I loved the way she interacted with the business owners who treated her as a friend or maybe even family.
Here's a pic of Jennifer, me in my orange phase, the Tower Theater, and some old cars. Roosters are a symbol of the non-Castro rise of Cuba one day and they are all over, but I liked this one because it had Gay written on it.
After this tour, I went bowling to Big Bird Lanes, a place with 60 lanes! There was a coaching session underway ($5 for participants and 1.5 hours of coaching by the Pro Shop owner Mike Hamilton and Pro Shop staff.) Though I got there early enough, I didn't know about this until later and spent 45 minutes waiting on a lane. If you are there on most any Wednesdays at this time, I heartily recommend it. Of course, they may use this as a sales opportunity, but hey, we can NEVER have enough bowling balls!
I followed this with a visit to a recommended arcade, the Arcade Odyssey. I played a bit, then chatted with the owner for about an hour about arcades in general. Fun times.
I finished it off at a nearby BBQ place - big mistake - Miami is NOT reknowned for their BBQ. Texas. Yes, Texas is where I should have gone for that - dang it! Well, I want to go to San Antonio anyway. This place was called Hole in the Wall and maybe I just ordered the wrong thing (Baby Back Ribs, my favorite normally!) I do not have a pic.
This day did not work out as planned and it threw a wrench into my plans. The all day tour I had scheduled this day was re-scheduled for Friday. Not a big problem, because I moved open stuff from Friday to Thursday.
I first went downtown to Bayside Marketplace where the tour should have met. I worried it would take a long time, but my AirBnB was so well centrally located, it just took 15 minutes.
Here are some pics of Bayside Marketplace and downtown Miami. This is totally opposite to other parts of Miami. Very posh and influential versus the more down-to-earth other parts of Miami. And the bad selfie of me is in front of Bacon Bitch.
One thing I had planned for Friday and was a bust was the Bay of Pigs Museum. From Bayside Marketplace, I first headed back to Calle Ocho and ate at the Party Cake Bakery. It had been part of the food tour and let us sample a Guava and Cheese Pastelito, which was heavenly and I saw they had a breakfast menu. I didn't like the regular breakfast as much as the pastelito. I had one just to make sure I had not been wrong on how heavenly it was. There were a couple of mounted cops outside the bakery and they let me take their pic.
I then drove to the museum and they told me it was closed to the public for a school group. Since my Friday was already booked, I went Saturday and found it was only open from Monday to Friday - oh, well, next time.
While there though, I stopped at a shirt shop called D'Asis Guayaberas, which sold Guayaberas shirts. I bought one and also bought a shirt for Jennifer that he had tried selling her the day before. Here is me posing in my shirt.
One of the things I had planned was to head to Dezerland. This is an amazing amusement center with indoor skating, go-cart tracks, a ton of arcade machines (not so many pinball machines though), and an entire floor of VR machines. I mainly walked around, just astounded like a tourist should be.
I finished up my impromptu day and headed to Publix and LA Fitness. Both places are built upwards with parking garages due to the lack of space for huge parking lots like we have in Atlanta.
That evening, I had a single Escape Room planned. It was at The Great Escape Room Miami and the room was called Sherlock's Study (The Library.) This was a unique room in that the Game Master sat in the room the whole time. It really was more of a scavenger hunt through the room and I failed it miserably, because there was just too much to search, even with the Game Master's help. This room needs at least 3 people - 2 to search and one to put the puzzle together that is built from the scavenged items. (Not my photo - didn't take any.)
It was the day of the tour! A combination bus and boat tour. I tried very hard to find a tour without the boat, since I'm not crazy about boat rides. I can tolerate them, but I find them very boring. Unfortunately, I couldn't.
So first the Bus Tour - we met at Bayside Marketplace and headed first to South Beach where we picked up additional passengers. I had a nice Asian lady sit next to me and we chatted amicably. Her 2 daughters were across from her.
I managed to crack up the tour guide, Julian, and the driver, Rafael, with my terrible jokes and puns. Now, I can't remember them, but some of the were pretty good.
They took us through South Beach and kept on talking about Art Deco this and Art Deco that. I guess I'm not much of an architecture guide either. They drove us by Versace's former house where he was gunned down but some nutter. It's now a posh restaurant.
We ended up for our first stop across from Fisher Island, which I posed in front of. This island is very exclusive. There is no way to get to it other than ferry or helicopter and you need a pass for the ferry. Per the Wikipedia page (linked in this paragraph), Boris Becker and Oprah Winfrey are some of the residents (either former or current.) Condos start at 3 mill. Per Forbes, it has its own zip code and is the wealthiest zip code in the U.S. (as of 2018.)
I took pics of cruise ships, a duck boat, and other stuff.
We went to Calle Ocho and after pretty much the same walk I had taken the previous day on the food tour, we got a break for lunch. I went to the place that had the quote that cracked me up. It's called El Santo Taquieria and I had a Carne Asado Taco. Very, very good. Also, the place is full of jokes on the walls and outside - "Bring your wife, 20% off - bring your mistress 40% off - bring both, free!" Another is, "Beer as cold as your ex's heart."
However, when I met up with the tour later, I told the guide that I had gone to the perfect example of Cuban cuisine (the other pic!) This cracked him and his driver up again.
We next went to Wynwood Walls. It's a place that was created about 20 years ago where artists were encouraged to paint murals and graffiti on walls. I begged to stay in the bus in the A/C (it was already in the 80's and humid), but Julian told me that I might see something interesting. Sure enough, after walking around the block and stupidly looking at the graffiti'd walls and art (so, that's THREE things I don't like - boats, architecture, and art - damn, picky, picky!), I found exactly something to my taste. In fact, several tastes. The only problem was that the place was not air conditioned - the ice cream helped.
The bus tour was great (other than Wynwood Walls). I was dropped off with the others at the boat. Here's a pic of me and my bus friend. I decided to stay below decks where the bar was. Strangely enough, there were 3 folks sitting there playing Uno. I thought that was strange until later.
We drove (cruised?) by the huge cruise ships and then past the the famous people's mansions on Star, Hibiscus, and Fisher Islands.
The tour guide was very animated and excited every time some famous person's place was in sight. "Rhianna! Justin Bieber! Beyonce! Jennifer Lopez! Julio Iglesias!" This got so ridiculous, I looked it up on Wikipedia and sure enough a lot have lived there but she was claiming many had who didn't. It got very tiresome and I was glad I was away from the group or I would have rolled my eyes a lot and snorted.
At one point, folks were offered raffle tickets for a chance at 10% off a cruise. They didn't offer me any, but then later, when they winners were called, they were sent below and the 3 sales folks went to work, trying to sell Bahama Cruises to the marks. Now I knew why they were there.
I have never heard a tour guide beg for tips. I worked as a tour guide for several years and have never even contemplated it. But this tour guide told us a sob story of how little she made and tips were very much appreciated. She figured $5 per person should do it. To help us, she would stand at the exit with a big bucket.
Sure enough, they blocked the tourists from getting off without being channeled into the tip gauntlet. The bucket she had was one of those 5 gallon huge white ones with the word tip written in many different languages. No, of course I didn't.
After the boat fiasco, I was off to another Escape Room. This one was at PanIQ Room Miami and the room was called The Haunted Hospital. I was relieved when I found that 4 others had also booked this public room. Unfortunately, as the game time approached, they called and said they couldn't make it due to a car accident, so it was a solo room again.
Waylon was the Game Master and he was great, but there was just too much to do and I failed. He told me I had done about 80% of the room.
I finished off the evening at Villain Theater taking in not just one but two shows. I had booked a 10 PM show but got there at 8:15. Their first show would start at 8:30 and they let me in early. It was great and was a bargain at about $30. If you are in Miami, I would definitely take a look.
For my last day in Miami, I had nothing planned. For some reason, I had booked an 8 PM flight out. I changed it to 4 PM and then headed to Calle Ocho. It was my fourth time in 4 days, so I think I liked it.
Instead of eating on Calle Ocho, I found a place on Calle Nueve (9th Street), the Gran Paris Bakery. For $8.50, I got this huge place of food with coffee. It was really good, much better than Party Cake Bakery. I did not buy pastelitos there, but should have. (Okay, I admit, I bought one earlier that day at Party Cake.)
I do have to say that 4 nights was definitely too long in one place. Maybe it was because I hated being away, but I better get over that since my 30 day trip to Europe is coming up. I think in reality it was a lack of "new" after being there so long.
Though I think pics from planes suck, these were really good because of the clear sky and the fact we were taking off so weren't that high up yet.
| Date | Time | Event | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1/17 | 5:00 PM | AA 2286 Atlanta to Miami | Atlanta Hartsfield |
| 1/17 | 7:45 PM | AirBnB in Miami | |
| 1/18 | 11:30 AM | Little Havana Cultural Food Tour | Meet at La Taverna Calle Ocho Restaurant |
| 1/18 | Evening | Go to Bird Bowl | |
| 1/19 | Evening | Go to Odyssey Arcade | |
| 1/19 | 10:00 AM | Full Day Tour Bus and Boat | Rescheduled for Friday |
| 1/19 | 9:00 PM | Great Escape - Sherlock's Study | |
| 1/20 | 7:00 PM | Paniq Escape Room | Haunted Hospital |
| 1/20 | 10:00 PM | Villain Theater | Stand-up Comedy |
| 1/21 | 8:15 PM | AA 1045 Miami to Atlanta | Miami International Airport |
