After a long, rainy, cold winter there is nothing I adore more than a sunny, tropical getaway. This trip was a good impulse buy. We had some Alaska Airline tickets we needed to use, and when we booked in January the sun sounded so good. Little did we know that Northern California would receive an additional twenty inches of rain and 30 feet of snow. Numbers may vary, according to location, but you get the drift. In fact, it's still raining at home.
This lounge chair, overlooking the ocean, feels like the perfect place to be. Miami is a fascinating blend of cultures, languages and styles. It's a bargain hunter's Hawaii. You can get an oceanfront room for half the cost. You also get to mingle with little old ladies with nose shields, loud old men from Brooklyn (complaining about the price of everything) and plenty of Russians. In the lower level of our hotel there was a gift shop, a barbershop, a pizza parlor, and, I kid you not, a synagogue. Chabad of Golden Beach.
We all know Florida, the Snowbird State, is where grandparents go to die. If you buy a home here you must assume that at least one of the prior occupants has breathed their last breath on the premises. There's nothing like a peaceful ending to a long, well-lived life. One of my grandfathers died in my sister's home. That was very special. The other died in Florida. Obviously.
As a child I took quite a few trips here to see my mother's father. We also visited my stepmother's family in Miami and the Florida keys. The last time I was here was when I brought Lucy to meet her great-grandfather. That was thirty-four years ago.
Eric was born and raised here, so for him, it's coming home. It makes him happy to remember his boyhood and the early morning paper route along the beach. The memories of your childhood places are so visceral. The light, the sound, the smells - it's all familiar. I feel the same way when I get off the plane in New York City. It's an unstoppable tumble through the tunnel of time. It's trippy and strange and wonderful.
The beach goers and hotel guests are very comfortable with their bodies. Let's just say that two-piece swimsuits are not reserved for the fit and buff. You can have a load of belly fat and still rock a bikini, or so you think. It’s kind of refreshing after the body-obsessed Bay Area. It reminds me of the beaches in Europe where the women go topless. Not surprising. It's a pretty international crowd here.
I recently had a thought about body image that I believed to be rather profound. My idea was that young women strive to look good naked. They fight cellulite with a vengeance and work hard to be toned. When women get to a certain age, many of us just want to fit in, and look good in our clothes. And by clothes, I mean a one-piece bathing suit.
Aesthetics aside, there are practical reasons for me to wear a one piece. Fewer places to apply and reapply sunscreen. We knew a kid in California who was bit by a shark when he was in high school. He went on to be an advocate for the sharks (and later an attorney) and wrote a book called, Don't Fear The Shark. I don't really fear sharks, but I do fear tropical sun. The worst burns of my life happened in Florida when I was a child. I remember painful, blistering shoulders. If we let a kid get burned like that these days it would be considered child abuse, but things were different back in the sixties. Now that I'm in my sixties I finally know better. Sunburns are no bueno.
Our ostensible reason for the trip was the Miami Open tennis tournament. In a new, upscale venue at the Hard Rock Stadium, the tourney did not disappoint. We've done Indian Wells so many times it's begun to feel routine. Palm Springs can be great this time of year, but we love the ocean. Swimming in the Atlantic in the morning is such a treat. The white sand beach is beautiful, the water is salty and the waves are small and gentle.
The best move we made was to go the ride sharing route, although I was not a fan of all the air fresheners. Renting a car would have been such a pain. It's twenty bucks a day to park at the hotel, forty at the stadium. That's not counting the cost of a rental car, gas and marital aggravation. You do the math. Über pool is über cheap here and they only let us down once. It was very congested leaving the stadium Friday night and the drivers kept canceling our rides before they arrived. Fortunately, we were able to share a cab back to the hotel with two Floridians and had an interesting conversation. One of our fellow passengers, a very pretty, fit woman asked, "How y'all doing with those taxes and politics in California?"
Her friend added, "I hear you can kill a baby before it's born up in New York (pronounced "Jork")." Mind you she had recently moved to New Jersey and is managing a high-end real estate brokerage there. This little chat followed an experience I had sitting in the stands. As I talked with a beautiful, well-dressed, well-educated woman from India, I got quite an earful from a man sitting right behind us. In his Southern drawl he kept talking about "foreigners" . He opined that if Americans broke a string while playing they should be able to stop and get a new racquet, but if foreigners broke a string they should have to keep playing with the broken one. Which foreigners? Federer, Djokovich, Kvitova? I know I don't spend much time out of my bubble, but really?
Most of the tennis-viewing crowd was knowledgeable, friendly and nicely dressed. These fans wore seersucker, pleats and a smattering of Lily Pulitzer. The grounds of the tournament were comfortable, clean and all brand new. Full sized vegetation was brought in. Palm trees and olive trees adorned the place and Stella Artois had a lounging area where you could nap on cushions after stressful, tiring matches.
Two Canadian teenagers are the next big thing. Bianca Andreescu won Indian Wells a couple weeks ago, beating Kerber in three sets in the finals. We saw Bianca's first match at the Miami Open from the front row when she played Begu. It was so exciting. Andreescu was down a set and 1-5 in the second and had match point against her. She dug deep, fought off match point, won the tiebreaker and the third set. The kid is 18 years old. Supposedly Bianca meditates and visualizes herself winning. I wonder if it's too late for me to try that?
The other rising Canadian is Felix Auger Aliassime. Eric's a huge fan and calls him FAA. Felix is also 18. He turned pro last year and is in the round of 16 at the Open. Thus far has zero titles, but he's a sensation and seems ready to break through.
The food and drink were typical tournament prices. Who doesn't love an eleven- dollar hot dog and ten dollar beer? They had food trucks so there was nice variety. The same grounds passes were offered with access to multiple courts and practice matches. The colors were brilliant and vibrant. Very Miami. I loved the display of Lacoste baseball caps, but at sixty bucks a pop, I was content with a photo of them.
All in all, I'd say the rollout was a success, although on our second day there was quite a line to purchase tickets. Tournament reps kept coming by insisting we could buy tickets online, but we were all trying it and failing to get through. The first day we bought grounds passes from a scalper in front of the stadium. They were twenty bucks and the guy took Venmo. Nothing could have been simpler.
There was inconsistency in what you could bring in to the tournament. Only clear backpacks were allowed but some people had purses. On the first morning I needed to write up an offer for a client and managed to sneak my computer in, although signage said laptops were banned. The place definitely needed more charging stations. I lost my husband one evening because his phone died. I had to sit on the ground by a drinking fountain while I charged mine.
Our last day in Miami was Saturday and we decided to swim and sun and then play tourist for the rest of the day. In the late afternoon we took a car to the trendy warehouse/art district where they host Art Base. Wynwood Walls was wonderful. It was a an inspirational feast for the eyes and I wanted to photograph everything.
After we'd seen enough art we took another car to South Beach. It was week two of three consecutive weeks of spring break. Ocean Drive was closed, all the sidewalks were cordoned off and there were thousands of college kids, milling and strutting and peacocking about. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen or imagined. Fanny flossers are in style, as are sheer pants, and more often, no pants. Just a lot of bare ass. There was so much nakedness my husband could barely keep his jaw off the sidewalk. One of his comments to me was, "I think there is a thong in there somewhere."
What surprised me more than all the young adults, many of whom looked older than college age, was the police presence. Cop cars were lined up facing the beach and on the beach facing the shore with lights flashing. There were police boats in the water facing the beach and even a huge blimp above with the letters P O L I C E. The energy was cool while we were there, but I could imagine it getting tense later on. There was a lot of testosterone and hormones floating around. You could feel it. I hope the cops were decent. I hope the kids behaved themselves. Last year they set a lifeguard station on fire.
We had an early dinner at an outside table at "A Fish Called Avalon". The meal was wonderful. The people watching was out of this world. After dinner we decided to get out of South Beach while the getting was good and headed back to our hotel. While we were gone there must have been a wedding, because right after we returned there were fireworks on the beach in front of our room. It was the perfect ending to our Miami getaway.
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