What are you wearing to the Airport - DAY 3 South Beach

[Alyson]

South Beach Miami – DAY 3 Monday 6th SEPTEMBER 2010 Labour Day

We woke up at 5am, which was a good sleep in, I told Michael all about the previous nights storm and he was totally oblivious, I have no idea how he slept through it! I had the dream that I always have at the beginning of a holiday and that is that we are going home at the end of the holiday and I can’t remember any of it!

News stories today included a small plane that had crashed into a Miami suburb, a guy that came out to rescue them was watching a TV programme about an plane crash when he heard the impact!

We unpacked and headed across the road to the famous Jerry Diner, it’s a 24 hour diner and it’s huge, beautifully themed art deco interior with big red booths and shiny chrome tables.

President Obama had recently visited and the restaurants back wall was a photographic testimony to all the famous people that had frequented Jerrys

It was a surreal morning because at the same time we were heading to breakfast people were coming in from the clubs after a night out.

Jerrys


I ordered two poached eggs on wheat Michael had an omelette with onions peppers and spinach

The atmosphere in the diner was great people were still partying it was a lot of fun.

The sun was now coming up and we took a walk along Ocean Drive looking at all the fantastic art Deco buildings, the place was so still and peaceful which was in sharp contrast to yesterday.

We walked back along the beach which had a scattering of runners and people waking up after sleeping off the previous night’s excesses.
One guy was using an underwater metal detector and we stopped and watched him for a while, very bizarre indeed.



We arrived back at the hotel and were offered an upgrade to a penthouse suite for $100 per night. These rooms were like a duplex with a private roof top terrace complete with a hot/cold tub, double sun loungers, wet bar, fridge, bose speakers, south beach view and lots more, so we accepted and promptly repacked and moved.

We were delighted with the room and the terrace was incredible, we felt so spoiled



We headed to the beach, and swam in the ocean, something I didn’t think I would do, been a child of the ‘Jaws’ films generation I never swim in the sea . Needless to say I survived and didn’t feel nervous. It was VERY hot by now 89 degrees with some cloud cover which was a welcome relief. We sat in the shade and read our books in between dipping in and out of the ocean. I had to keep pinching myself that I was really here in Miami, the place I’d seen so many times on various TV shows like Miami Vice.

Feeling peckish and lazy we went back to Jerrys for lunch, I had melon and tuna salad Michael had a Cajun chicken salad, service was a bit slow but the food was good.

We then went and bought more supplies, a bottle of ready mixed Mojito and a miniature Absolute Berry Vodka – both ended up down the sink they were awful! LOL!

We called reception to check on if it was ok for us to fill the hot tub – it turned out to be really easy it was just like a large bath with hot and cold taps, but they sent a guy up who ‘dressed’ the area fresh towels and sun mats plus Aveda bath salts, fantastic!



We sat on the terrace reading USA trash mags, we love these whilst we are there, very funny.

We dressed and headed to a really cool little Pizza place where the Pizza’s were made fresh in front of you whilst you have a beer a watch TV very New York kind of feel

We had a half and half pizza, pepperoni for Michael and margarita for me made with fresh buffalo mozzarella and basil.



We ate on the terrace and drank the champagne we had bought at Heathrow whilst dipping in and out of the tub.

We could see the weather was changing and it was fascinating to sit on the roof and watch the storm moving in

When the storm hit, it hit big! The rain was torrential and the lightening was in three different places.

We were watching the palm trees on Ocean drive bending with the wind and rain sweeping across the road. We were drenched but couldn’t tear ourselves away, we even recorded part of it. At some point one of us realised that standing on a mainly metal covered roof top terrace in the middle of a massive storm wasn’t our brightest idea, so we begrudgingly went inside the storm lasted over an hour, it was scary but utterly mesmerising

We showered and changed into our PJ’s and were just about to watch the film, when the real rain came down. What we had seen before was like a drizzle compared to the water now falling from the sky, it was biblical and we both raced back out to see it.

We had a mechanical canopy that covered the hot tub area so we pulled that over and sat underneath it, but it had little effect, there was nowhere to hide from the downpour and we were both soaked to the skin in seconds, we stayed out there for about 10 minutes before going back in, 3.5 inches of rain fell in 2 hours that night.

Standing out in the rain on such a warm night was an amazing experience we both really enjoyed it. Equally we both enjoyed the very large shower and the Aveda toiletries provided. The shower was huge and water came from four different places, there was even a place to sit down lol! We were still watching the storm through the window in the shower cubicle very surreal!

We settled down to watch the TV but couldn’t make the sound come out, there were two TV’s in the room so we put them both on and used the sound from TV No1 whilst watching TV No2, this turned out to be stupid and unworkable eventually Michael spotted that the TV worked through Bose speakers and they were switched off oops! That rectified we settled down for a bit of channel surfing before drifting off to sleep

[macdonald88]

The penthouse suite looks stunning, your certainly getting off to an amazing start.

[Guest]

suite looks fab

[Guest]

What an amazing place to stay - love it!

[Helen0705]

Really loving your penthouse suite ! You should rename your trippie - ' How to do things in style big time ! '
Fantastic !

[Guest]

Gorgeous photos

[Milner]

Your suite looks lovely - brilliant pictures.

[KarenG]

Oh wow, your duplex is amazing!

We absolutely loved the vibe of SoBe when we visited - I totally agree about the colourful characters but we really liked the atmosphere, and the fact that you never knew what was coming down the street a minute later!

[summersun]

great day fab pics

[Guest]

Ooooof, that Penthouse is a bit of alright!

Am looking forward to the next installment!