South Beach, FL, October 10, 2009

I don't get away much and it had been a long time since I went anywhere without my kids but if I had to pick a place it would still be South Beach. So many benefits and so few negatives (cost being one). The Miami airport is nearby and probably a direct flight from everywhere in the US. No passports, no vaccinations and no inhibitions. It's South Beach!



A friend from my Miami office picked us up at the airport and the first thing I noticed was the case on her blackberry. It was covered in shiny glitter stones and it simply screamed, MIAMI!!!! I thought it was awesome and I wouldn't relax until I found one for my wife's phone (for a whopping $20). I'm certain this cover is now available everywhere on Greenwich Avenue but believe me as someone who is always behind a trend as opposed to out front, when we bought it my wife was the only 40 year old woman walking around Fairfield county with a bling cell phone cover.

We lucked into our hotel which turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip. My wife and I stayed at the Mondrian on the inter coastal and I swear I'm not lying when I say I was the oldest guy there. This place was awesome! Around the pool there cabanas for rent with crystal chandeliers hanging three stories high. There were couches and pillows spread across enormous oriental rugs by the pool as well. The entire scene looked like the set of Caligula or maybe what Studio 54 would have looked like had they set it up outside. Our other friends stayed at the Ritz-Carlton on the beach which was very nice but very different. If my mother were to go to South Beach she would demand to stay at the Ritz and that, in a nutshell was the difference between the two hotels.

That isn't to say we didn't get a kick out of the crowd of at the Ritz. The one day we were there the pool was full of older guys from the Midwest who stayed in the pool drinking beers for 6 straight hours. I didn't keep track and I shudder at the thought but I could swear a few of them never left the pool despite downing beers for hours at a time. The Ritz's pool is a salt water pool and maybe salt water pools are just like the ocean but that's getting pretty comfortable. They were bombed and beyond sun burned but most of all they were high comedy.

Now the people at the Mondorian were everything I'm not. Think young, hip, and Latin. Around the pool everyone was sporting some ink and for the women there should have been a silicone contest. Hello doctor! The women at the pool wore high heels with their bikinis and so many of them smoked I thought I was in a Russ Meyer time warp. Ridiculously hot poolside waitresses would bring bottles of Krystal to people in the pool so half the people in the water were holding champagne glasses. Lots of bling and serious sunglasses. Some of the sunglasses were bedazzlers from Tiffany while others looked like they just came off the set of Logan's Run. Just wild.

On the elevator we met some of the guys from the band Better than Ezra who were staying at the hotel for 2 nights as they had an upcoming show in Miami. The hotel was rocking so hard in the evening it wasn't a surprise to see a young rock band deciding this was the place to be. Of course the irony of someone like me being anywhere close to this wasn't lost on me. We came home from dinner to find the place just jumping. Crowds behind velvet ropes waiting to get in, music pulsating loud enough to shake the walls, and we were dying to check out the scene. However, given our age, the time, the full day of sun and cocktails we never made it down from our room as we collapsed once we saw our bed. Some days this old dog just can't dance no matter how good the party sounded.

South Beach has high end hotels and restaurants to match we hit a few of them. I'm no foodie but I've always been open to trying new dishes and I'm very susceptible to the phrase, "specialty of the house." After ordering the lobster banana I think I'm going to be a little more discriminating. You might think lobster and bananas don't ever mix and you know something, you'd be right. Fortunately there was enough wine to cleanse my palette and the waiter made up for it by sending us to Mango's.

Mango's is a Crazy dance bar right along the Ocean. The line was huge, the people were a little seedy and the women were falling out of their dresses. I counted four separate areas to go wild in. Two dance clubs upstairs, a 15 piece salsa band in the back with 4 scantily clad women playing different instruments (I somehow doubt these instruments were plugged in). The locals were ready to pounce in the dance clubs and if you left your wife to get a drink it would take about twenty seconds for one of the local young studs to sidle up to your woman and start busting a move with her. But the real action was at the main bar where all kinds of dancers let it rip. We watched break dancers, roided up bodybuilders shimmying for the ladies, and a Michael Jackson impersonator. The MJ dancer was awesome and with the help of his backup dancers he reenacted the videos from Beat It and Thriller. After 3 days in South Beach I thought I was ready for anything but I certainly didn't expect the Thriller dance.

After three nights we were toast so it was time to go home but I left wondering what the local slogan should be. Expect the Unexpected or Just Let It All Hang Out? In terms of describing crazy I think either would be appropriate.