"Bienvenidos a Miami"

I think that it's only fair to warn you up front that this is going to be a pretty long entry about our trip to Miami Beach. You might want to make yourself comfortable. It's been a busy few days and I have a lot to say (you may judge for yourself whether any of it is worth reading).

In order to prepare for our trip, we downloaded the pilot of 'Miami Vice' from iTunes. I hadn't seen the show for a very long time, and I don't think Plainbellied had ever seen it. I thought it would be fun to find some of the places where they filmed and re-enact scenes, like when Crockett told his partner's wife that he had been killed. Luckily, there was not time for that on this trip.

You may have already read Plainbellied's blog about the drive down, so I'm not going to repeat what she has already said. I will just point out that I generally prefer Mapquest directions, because they tend to send you on a shorter route than other services, and they actually get the time right. Once, I checked it against Google Maps, and Google wanted to send us about 100 miles out of our way (Google does have a better interface, though). I used Mapquest again this time, and we arrived at the door of our hotel within five minutes of the time it had predicted. Making good time is very important to me, and this made me feel pretty good.

It turns out that we made a really good decision on the hotel. Instead of a dive, we stayed in a renovated Art Deco hotel right on Ocean Drive, across the street from the beach. It was a little away from the clubs, so where we were was pretty quiet at night, thank goodness. The room was small, but it was clean, and it had a really nice shower. Normally I hate hotel showers, but I actually felt clean coming out of this one. It had nice marble tile, so it really was nice. That was the best part of the room, though. Mostly, it reminded me of almost every hotel I had stayed at in Spain, which is to say that it had tile floors, adequate beds, and nothing else. The only noticeable difference from a Spanish hotel was the price. My goodness. It should be illegal to charge that much for a tiny hotel room. I'm lucky it was for a conference and my department is footing part of the bill. Otherwise, there is no way we could have done it.

We went to the beach both mornings we were there, and Her Nibs liked it a lot. She wouldn't put her feet in the water by herself, but she would ride the waves with me if I held her. We didn't go very far in, since I'm afraid of sharks, but the water was clear and warm. It was fun. I don't usually like the beach, but since we went early, the sun still wasn't shining, and there weren't crowds. Actually, I saw a guy wake up after a night on the beach when the water started licking his feet. I thought that only happened in the movies. It actually took him a while to realize the water was at his feet. I think he had a good time the night before.

The conference itself was pretty good. The first session I had wanted to go to was cancelled, so I had a chance to catch up with some of the other people there, some of whom I hadn't seen for several years. My session, in the afternoon, was well attended, but unfortunately the other two panelists had more "interesting" topics than I did, so no one bothered to ask me any questions or make comments about my work. Luckily, a few people spoke with me later and I got a few helpful comments. If they hadn't it would have kind of ruined the conference for me, because the whole point is to get input on your work (well, and "network" with people in your discipline). The sessions on Saturday were pretty good, too.

Friday night we went out to dinner, and we found a nice Spanish restaurant just down the street from where the conference was. It is run by an actual Spanish family, and the chef, along with much of the waitstaff, is from Spain as well. Good Spanish food is tough to find in this country, and we were really lucky. When we walked in, it felt Spanish, with tile that looked as though it had come straight from Seville. When the waiters switched to Spanish, they spoke with Madrid accents, and it reminded us of our time there. It also reminded us of a time when we went to a restaurant in Seville with my parents during the Feria de Abril. Everyone was at the fair, so we were almost the only ones in the restaurant. There were like three waiters just for us. The same thing happened in Miami. Because of Her Nibs, we eat early, so we were the first ones in the restaurant. They were all so friendly, and the service was great. The food was even better. We got a sampler of appetizers, so we each got some tortilla española, jamón serrano on bruschetta, and croquetas de jamón. Then Plainbellied got a barbecue pork tenderloin and I got paella valenciana.* Her Nibs nibbled on a salad (salad is her favorite food right now). We got gelato afterward, and I'm sure Plainbellied will tell all about that.

As we walked back to the hotel (the long way), a guy came up to us with a huge snake and asked if we wanted to pet it. Her Nibs was really scared, so the guy asked me if I wanted to hold it. I resisted, but he put it around my neck anyway, and then Her Nibs touched it and laughed. Well, I'm not stupid, and I know that when something like this happens they're going to ask for money. I'm thinking he'll ask for five bucks or something like that as a "donation." But he said, "I take Polaroid pictures of you with the snake for a donation of 20 dollars." He actually said it with a straight face. I know Polaroid makes its money on film, but 20 bucks for a single photo? Not on your life. I turned him down and he move on to the next sucker. It was almost as weird as the time a girl wearing a clown nose (and no makeup) got right up in my face as I walked home one night in Madrid and said, "Oooooooooooooo" while doing some strange dance. Of course, it also reminded me of Hulk Hogan's "24-inch pythons."

The trip was really great, but I should add a couple of caveats. I'm not sure I would have liked it so much if I had just gone there to hang out. I'm not a beach person. An hour in the morning is enough for me, because there were no crowds and the sun wasn't shining. I burn easily, so the beach is not for me. I think I was lucky to have a conference to go to, so I really only had to fill short periods of time with stuff to do, mostly the mornings and dinner time. I'm not into partying either, so most of what the beach has to offer isn't really my style. Also, if I had to pay for the whole thing myself, it would have been too expensive.

Even so, it took the bad taste of my last Miami trip out of my mouth. Maybe there'll be another conference there sometime.

*Tortilla española is basically a potato omelet. Jamón serrano is a Spanish cured ham, kind of like prosciutto but better (second only to jamón ibérico, which is incredible), and Croquetas de jamón are kind of like savory hush puppies with bits of jamón serrano in them. What they called paella valenciana was really paella mixta, which has both chicken and seafood in it. Paella valenciana should have rabbit and spanish chorizo in it, and maybe chicken, but no seafood. I've never had good paella at a restaurant in the US before. It was absolutely great.