Bucko's World

Friday 14th

All this glorious weather, all these lovely beaches, all the superb places to eat and shop, can really take it out of you.  I'm so knackered already, I'll need a holiday just to get over the holiday once we're home, and we're not even a week in yet.  What is needed today then is a relaxing sit on the beach under azure skies, a light lunch at an outlet mall, followed by some relaxing retail therapy....

We find ourselves visiting Lovers' Key, a beach designated as part of the National Park and it's upkeep is covered by the $8 parking charge.  Exorbitant as this may seem, you do get a tram ride to and from the beach included, so perhaps it's easier to swallow if you think of the charge as bus fare.  It's interesting to think that back in the late 60s and early 70s there were plans to turn this area of exceptional beauty and biodiversity into "The Miami of the Gulf" a thought the beggar's belief in these more enlightened times.

The beach is very nice, and extremely warm, but due to the big storms out to sea that have been a regular occurrence most nights, the sea is a bit more murky than usual.  No problem for swimming in its bath water warmth, but no good if you like snorkelling, which is a bit of a shame.  Perhaps if it was clearer the little boy in the sea beside me could stop yelling that everything that passes by him is a stingray - so far it's been little more than seaweed...

There had been a plan to do the two mile nature walk offered up as part of the entrance fee to the park, but it is so damn hot we decide to grab the tram ride back to the car and head for the soothing climes of an air conditioned bar with plenty of Sam seasonal on tap.  We head back to the Mirrormar mall and and intriguing restaurant called Naples Flat Bread and Pizza.  The Sam is indeed cold, the flatbread with Chicken, Blue Cheese and Frank's Red Hot is delicious - and big - and we're soon set for another round of shopping.  Amazingly all we come back with are some GAP t-shirts and a pair of Levi's.  A complete shopping fail in the big scheme of things.

After a day of being broiled alive we decide the most we can manage is to stay at Chloe's where the tucker has been pretty first rate so far.  We have the Lobster Burrito to start, which is pretty orgasmic, many a chef has made their name with a lesser plate of food than this.  Lisa then has an amazing Dolphin Mahi Mahi, blackened, with all the trimmings, and I have a mahoosive steak, with jacket spud (with both soured cream and butter natch) and it is all wonderful.  Tasting the Dolphin fish, it's beyond wonderful, and my steak suddenly seems only fucking superb in comparison.  Good times!  This is definitely one of the best places I've eaten in the states, and I can only assume it's half empty due to it being the "off season", it deserves to be packed every night.  Although this is the last night we'll eat in here this trip, I'm hoping it isn't the last time we'll have the amazing food here...and so it's off to bed and looking forward to more National Parks tomorrow.

Thursday 13th

Two of my greatest pleasures in life are listening to music and driving cars. Combine the two in any way and I'm generally a happy Hare.  The joy of getting my first car (a powder blue Mini Metro) was only increased when 99 quid was spent in Dixons on a 100 Watt Sharp Cassette Radio (with 5 band graphic equaliser no less) which me and a mate then spent a weekend wiring into the car.  The parcel shelf was expertly and accurately measured and drilled for the new Goodmans three way speakers, the old radio carefully removed in an electrically safe fashion, and all connections marked and coloured coded for easy installation of the new unit.  Speaker wires run safely under the carpet and installed with high quality connectors, before finally sliding the new head into place as shown in the installation instructions.  Piece of piss.  I'm surprised my suggestion that we go into business fitting stereos for other people fell on deaf ears.

So it's very gratifying to find that the two men most responsible for aiding and abetting these twin passions were great friends who lived in adjoining villas just up the road a tick in Ft Myers.....

Frommer's guide book is once again the traveller's friend as being stuck for something to do today, we find ourselves directed by the guide to the houses of Thomas Edison, inventor of recorded sound - his Mary Has A Little Lamb being the de facto original recording - and Henry Ford, bringer of motoring to the masses.  Their two houses have been brilliantly preserved for us all to see how the other half lived back then, and a museum has been set up across the road to showcase the best of their work.

And they say you learn something new everyday, but today for me it's two.  Firstly we learn from our lovely little tour guide - a qualified historian who neither looks old enough to have a boyfriend let alone be recommending wine bars she frequents with him in Naples for when we get there, nor to have obtained a history degree -  a choice piece of info about an early design of Edison gramophone.  As there were no amplifiers at the time, the music was sent directly into a big horn to boost it to listenable volume.  The only problem was that the volume was bloody loud!  The solution to the problem?  "Put a sock in it!"  

Later on, we're being escorted (pun intended) around the around the Ford exhibition by the lovely, and considerably older, Barbara.  This well turn out GILF is sporting diamonds the size of marrowfat peas in her earrings and proper spec Dolce & Gabbana sunnies, so it's unsurprising, when we offer her a tip at the end of the tour that she tells us "Others here would accept a tip, but not me."  She is showing us a rather lovely 1917 Ford Truck and explained that these were sold F.O.B., and you had to collect them from the dock yourself.  And they came pretty much as a kit car, with the wooden crate they came in having been carefully measured and constructed so when you opened it up, it became the floor of the vehicle, and sundry other wooden parts.  You sat there on the dock yourself, built your truck, and drove it away.  Hence the common parlance "Pick Up Truck."  This, I did not know.

We then drive into Ft Myers town itself for lunch.  There are apparently 62,500 people living in the town, but today it seems they're out.  We have a nice lunch at the Deli, but really, there's nothing to do here so we head off back to the hotel and a couple of Sams in the room.

Although our last trip to the restaurant area at the end of the beach had been less than successful, we decide to take a sunset stroll along the sand to the fishing pier and take a chance on somewhere to eat.  We stop for a couple of beers at The Beach Pierside Grill and Blowfish bar, and decide the menu looks so good we'll eat there.  The bacon wrapped shrimp we start with are amazing and the Flounder stuffed with crab and lobster is the best fish I've ever eaten.  It's all being washed down with far too many glasses of white but the sunset we're witnessing is amazing, so good it gets a round of applause from all assembled on the pier when it finally slips below the horizon.  Brilliantly, nobody goes home at this point, but stay to play on the beach, or grab a table in a bar, and sing along the the brilliant live music every bar has to offer.  It is fabulous.

Before we head back however, a huge commotion breaks out on the pier.  Being British we assume the usual, that it must be on fire, but only a couple of people are running from it, and then it's only to run to the water's edge.  "What's happening?" I ask.  "One of the fisherman has snagged a dolphin by mistake and it's beached itself down there"  FUCK!  I grab my camera and run to the seashore only to see the most peculiar looking dolphin I've ever seen.  In fact so peculiar it looks exactly like a 5ft long shark.  Fortunately, and before it can do any damage to itself - or anyone else for that matter -  the guys have unwound it from the fishing line and got it back on its way into the sea - where it proceeds to swim past a group of children paddling at the water's edge......

Rather laconically the girl sitting at the next table turns to us and says, once I've appraised all of the situation, "Shit, and I've been swimming in that sea just there all day."  Only in Florida....





 

Wednesday 12th

Having been raving about Florida so much, I feel I should tell you something I don't like about it.  The water.  Not off the beach, but out of the tap.  The thing is, there is no way of getting cold water out of a faucet.  And brushing your teeth in warm water is nasty.  The other end of the scale is how hot the water is from the shower.  With no cold water per se, the hot has no competition.  Every morning I get out of the shower looking like a freshly done lobster, with my overly cheek boned face looking like a baboon's arse.  Although I'm sure most people think it looks like that most of the time anyway.

For entertainment today we decide to head off the one of Florida's many national parks, a series of offshore islands linked by amazing causeways of the type that get spectacularly blown up in Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.  Luckily he wasn't around today and we make it safely across to the unfortunately named Sanibel (I can't help but think of Saniflow...) albeit shy of $6.00 toll and head to the visitor centre to book a little boat trip across Tarpon Bay to see spectacular birds, Manatees, Porpoise, and an occasionally a shark or two!!  Big grins all round should be guaranteed.

First though, we head off to the wonderfully named Over Easy Cafe for a spot of tucker.  It's brilliant.  They do breakfast till three, and have no less than five pages of the menu dedicated to the most important meal of the day.  There's one whole page just on the variations of eggs Benedict that they do.  We, off course are very English about the whole thing and have a Chicken BLT wrap with coleslaw and a Chicken Deluxe burger with avocado, mushrooms and a ranch dressing.  And the first fries of the hols if you can believe that!  The food is huge and gorgeous.  I'm also not sure they've ever had anyone from the UK in here before, judging by the puzzled look our young waitron gives us.  It's a nice touch.

Appetite sated, we make are way over to our boat trip and have a quick half hour of "touching the marine life of Tarpon Bay".  Disappointingly, this mainly involves being handed shells from which the contents had already been removed by other more violent shell dwellers earlier in the day.  A true lesson in the laws of nature for some of our younger viewers....

The boat trip is pleasant enough, other than we see nothing resembling a Porpoise, Manatee or Giant Turtle.  Getting told "there was a big shark in here this morning" and "last week a Manatee was seen wresting a giant sea snake" doesn't raise the mood at all when all you have to amuse you is a baby pelican almost choking its mother to death having got its bill stuck in her throat whilst feeding.  Not exactly entertainment, although the crew seem pleased to have a tale to tell over their icy brews tonight..

Actually the boat ride gets cut short when a thunderstorm, which was visible miles away over land when we set out on the trip, races its way across the bay to where we are, in the middle of a saltwater lake, in a metal boat.  Joy - of all the ways to go.  Luckily other than a couple of massive claps of thunder, enough to shake the boat, and the nerves, we make it back to dry land seconds before it is no longer dry, and soon as wet as the lake.

The drive back to the beach is unbelievable.  Unless you were in a car with us back at Clearwater in 2009, the amount of rain that falls in half an hour is pretty indescribable.  As we go back across the causeway it's three or four inches deep and as we make it onto the bridge section it's like driving up a waterfall.  Luckily our holiday 4X4 was built in Korea and is obviously used to this sort of stuff.

Undeterred, we decided retail therapy is required, and head to the local outlet mall.  Although I have promised I wouldn't buy any trainers this time round, having still got three unworn pairs from last time, I am soon in possession of three more pairs and valiantly trying to justify my purchase by saying that I'll dump all the shoes I brought with me here to make room for them.  Strangely, I also find myself in possession of a watch, which is extremely odd as I never wear one.  All this water has obviously gotten into my brain.

I then find the Calvin Klein outlet, and being a big fan of Back to the Future, decide to buy myself some of his finest pants.  Little did I know that when I got back to the hotel and had a look at them, I would find I had purchased a blue and white stripy pair that make me look like a fat, gay, french onion seller once they are covering my arse - terrific.  They were, however, less than half the price they are in the UK so bring on the poofy French and be done with it.  Lisa has some success too, and looks less homosexual sporting a couple of wicked CK hand bags which put her usual Primark ones to shame.

After such a wet couple of hours we decided to eat in the hotel, and make our way to Chloe's Bar, for a pre prandial glass of vino, only to be treated to quite simply the worst Karaoke ever witnessed.  Firstly, the bar is empty other than one table of Yanks for whom this is seemingly top quality entertainment.  And then there's the woman running it.  She is quite simply dreadful.  She couldn't hit a note if it was tied to an elephant's arse and she had a cricket bat.  And three goes.  She tortures us, then Granddad from the Yanks' tortures us.  Then little apple pie cheeks Mary Lou gets up and murders a Gabrielle song to massive applause, tears and showers of flowers from her fawning family and over the top praise from the Compere.  "I think you're after my job little missy!" she simpers.  No shit Sherlock, the way you murder the next song, she's pushing you all the way in the awful stakes.  She'll no doubt audition for American Idol, get turned down, develop a drug habit and die sad and lonely having waitressed for all her life while waiting for her "big break".  If you'd been honest, she'd have got a job in a bank and become a cynical bastard like the rest of us.

One drink is all we can manage before we head off for dinner.  "Don't leave yet" says the Barman, "I'm up next, and I can't sing for shit!"  Chuckles ensue all round.

One of my favourite things about the States is how they cut a cow up slightly differently from us, giving us beef ribs and prime rib instead of Fore Rib and Wing End.  And tonight is the first time Lisa actually orders Prime.  I, of course, have ordered the full 12OZ man sized portion, whereas L sticks with the ladies sized 8OZ.  Bollocks if they don't look the same size when they came up!  And this oozing juice, boneless beef chop, served with a beef jus and horseradish cream is beyond heavenly.  Sided with a proper American jacket spud (sour cream AND butter!) I challenge anyone to show me a better meal in London for the £25 this costs.  Add in the Lobster Burrito we had to start and I think Greg Wallace would explode in an big, fatty bald lump.

Full to the gills and properly done in, we see out the day on the balcony, Pinot Grigios in hand, watching the remnants of the storm roaring on out to sea.  Lack of wildlife or not, it has been a day which has highlighted the power of nature in all its glory, and hopefully before the trip is out we'll get to see some of it that isn't falling extremely loudly out of the sky.











 

Tuesday 11th

Following the long drive yesterday we decide to have a quiet day having a looksie at what  Ft Myers Beach has to offer.  So we set off at our leisure for a stroll along the beach to the Pier, where all the main attractions of the area are located (for attractions read Bars and Restaurants).   And there are lots of them.  It really does feel a little bit like being in one of our favourite Greek resorts where everything worth seeing is a flip flops throw away, with all the best eateries, drinking holes and tat souvenir shops packed cheek by jowl.  Every bar seems to have live music all day, and the menus on offer would give any supposedly posh gaff back home a run for their money.  Factor in that you can walk in to any of them straight from the beach in cheap sunnies and budgie smugglers and they're all on to a winner with me...

So having got all the way to the pier, we are particularly selective about about where we pick to have lunch.  Pointing to the the bar practically under the pier Lisa says "There?"  I say "OK".  And so we find ourselves seated in The Beach Pierside and Blowfish Bar, drinking Sam Adams Summer Ale and perusing a menu that quite frankly belies the slightly shabby (in a good way) exterior of the building.  There is of course every sort of burger the size of your head available, but the fish, and "shrimp", selection would put most places in the UK to shame.  Thinking we we're making a "diet"choice, and both only considering the British connotation of the word Shrimp, we order the eponymous  Tacos with "chips" (American chips that is, i.e. a packet of Walkers Ready Salted comes to mind...)

What turns up beggars belief.  If you were to shell a 1lb lobster and wrap it in a 14 inch taco with lettuce, tomato, Thousand Island dressing and a touch of celery to be going on with, you'd still not quite get how big this "lite lunch" is.  As you all know I have a big gob, but honestly, there is no way I can pick this taco up and eat it, even cut in half.  It seems that to an American, a shrimp is everything from a Dublin Bay prawn via a Tiger to a langoustine.  But I'm still convinced my Taco is mainly Lobster, and it is wonderful.  And it cost $8.00.  Seriously, fuck off.  I have a feeling that we'll be back here sometime soon..

Interestingly, while we are making merry with ginormo-tacos and frosty beers mugs, we get chatting to a waitress about how the outdoor seating area isn't covered over (there is a bit of a problem with birds dive bombing guests' food..) and she tells us that because the weather can change "in the blink of an eye" they only have umbrellas so they can pull 'em down quick if the weather changes.  Sage words as we're soon witness to some amazing meteorological conditions a mere 90 minutes later...

Following our unbelievably good lunch and a quick scoot round Ft Myers eating area, we're ensconced on our balcony with a nice Robert Mondavi Pinot Grigio and a book for Lisa, and a blogging ready iPad for me.  We're gazing out to sea when, from seemingly nowhere, a huge sand storm passes down the beach, and as we look down on the pool area of our hotel, it's as if an invisible hand has borne down from on high and swept all the sun beds and umbrellas up and over the fence round the pool and on to the beach.  It's an incredible demonstration of the power of nature and unfortunately one young lady is caught by a flying sun bed and ends up hauled away in a neck brace by an incredibly efficient ambulance team, who turn up in within a couple of minutes of the whole shocking scenario unfolding.

The evening following such drama can never live up to the events earlier in the day and although we should no better we make the mistake of choosing a bar/restaurant for dinner based on how popular it seemed at lunchtime, rather than checking if it was any good...
And so we end up in the Yucatan Bar and Grill, which, on the surface looks like a great gaff to have a beer and a meal in.  And it is, except, well, I can't quite put my finger on it.  Partly it's the fact that there is no proper air conditioning, just HUGE fans blasting you in the face as you try to sit there and enjoy your evening, making normal conversation impossible and your food go cold, and partly it's the staff who for the first time in all my visits to Florida (now seven if I can count correctly) seem completely uninterested in providing a level of service we've come to expect here.  To be fair the food is superb, and the Yucatan Red beer is sublime, but, well, something just doesn't click.  Neither of us can put a finger on it but the whole experience is not quite up to scratch.  Hmmm...

So, with a long day planned for tomorrow we head off to bed hoping that dining in Ft Myers has more to offer than our first night has shown........

 

Monday 10th

I may have mentioned how large, and gut busting, our breakfast was yesterday.  So it will come as no surprise that for breakfast today the most we could manage was a bagel with cheese and ham, and a glass of orange juice.  Seriously, that's all we had, dinner having seemingly expanded in our stomachs overnight.  I'm not sure the last time I didn't have the full works when it was on offer, free, and included even....

Our plans for today are pretty straightforward.  Check out, hit the mall, cross the state to the gulf coast, eat food.  Simples.  Oh dear......

Our original plan for the day was rather straight forward.  Check out, hit the mall, spend lots of cash, and head off to the Gulf Coast and our next stop in Fort Myers beach via the brilliantly named Alligator Alley.  To be honest, things were going quite well to start with.  We found Aventura Mall, parked up and headed in for some major retail therapy.  Abercrombie & Fitch  done.  Oakley custom building sunnies for us, done.  Hollister for T-Shirts not quite big enough, for sure.

We browse around for a bit and then decide we need some tucker before our long trip across State.  And the place we end up in is the pretty badly named Cheesecake Factory.  Yes, of course it does do the best looking cheesecake I've ever seen, but it does so much more, as is evidenced by the 20 page menu they had us when we sit down.  Guess what?  It isn't all cheesecake...

There's every pasta you can imagine, every type of sandwich, salad, every entree you could conceive.  For us though, we're trying to avoid carbs and such stuff due to my reactive hypoglycemia, so for us it's a Turkey Club for me and a "lunch sized" BBQ ranch chicken salad for Lisa.  When the salad arrives, it's so big, we have to call the waiter over to check he's brought over the correct order.  Apparently he has, as he indicates that the "normal" sized salad plate is a couple of inches bigger all round.  Fuck....this is going to take some work.

Two hours later, and having done our best our best to plough through a six inch deep turkey sandwich and a salad that probably has more calories than a Maccy D's quarter pounder and large chips, we are ready to head off on our cross state journey.  We locate our Hyundia Tucson in the car park and head off out into the Miami afternoon traffic.  Which, due to roadworks is horrific.  Two slip roads onto the the road we need are closed so no matter which way we try to turn form the Mall, we are pretty much fucked.  Left or right, east or west, jammed solid.  Even with a Sat Nav and traffic announcements we are buggered.  Which, to a degree, is good, because as Lisa turns it on, it pulls a grumpy face and decides its had enough.  Yep, 5,000 miles from home and hardly ever having been used our Sat Nav decided to commit Hari Kari in the middle of rush hour traffic in Miami.  Terrific.

So, what to do?  Most of our trip is, as is the modern thing, based on us being able to navigate around Florida using electronic means as opposed to paper based options.  Which as you will be well aware, causes nothing but arguments.  So we sit there, with no Sat Nav, no map, and no AA Routemaster available wondering what our options are, which turns out to be, despite the time it will cause us on our trip across to the Gulf Coast, going back to the Mall to buy a replacement Sat Nav as otherwise we will be fucked for the rest of our holiday.  Fortunately Sears has a top notch Sat Nav selection  meaning we end up with a top-end Tom Tom with all the gadgets for the princely sum of $150, or about half the price that our 8 year old Garmin originally cost us.  Oh, how times change!

An hour behind schedule, and much more stressed than earlier, we eventually end up on the I-75, which crosses the 100 odd miles between Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Florida.  This road proves to be an amazing experience.  It is arrow straight for its whole length with the solitary exception of a 90 degree turn 60 miles in, probably for no other reason than to keep drivers on their toes and stop them from falling asleep.

It's an unbelievably unremitting journey, it's so fucking straight.  There's no turn ons or turn offs for literally 97 miles.  Luckily for me and the missus we'd found an XM Sirius radio station called Classic Rewind, whose whole programming strategy is based on "the cassette tape you found buried at the back of your drawer".   You might as well call it Van Halen, Rush and the best of Eighties English as the two hours it takes to cross the Everglades passes in a flash of massive rock choruses and completely over the top guitar solos.  It's an awesome sing along couple of hours as The Police, Foreigner, Journey, Queen, Hootie and then Blowfish, Chicago and loads of others get an airing by DJ Derek St Hubbins who is on top form this pre-recorded couple of hours.  Ok, quite a lot of those aren't English, but you get my drift.

When we eventually come to the end of the longest straight road on the world we are greeted by Fort Myers Beach, and it is beyond lovely.  The whitest sand I've ever seen and packed firm enough to cycle on, with a small pier and several great bars and restaurants accessible right from the beach, it actually feels more Greek/European than American.  Obviously the Pterodactyl sized birds gliding over the ocean may be a giveaway that this is Florida, but the feel is really European.  This has been a good choice :-)

Due to the delay earlier, we don't have much time to explore tonight, so we head straight for Chloe's, the restaurant in our hotel.  And we are the only people in there.  Oh God, it's obviously going to be awful.  Not a bit of it.  I have their 12oz rib eye with a jacket potato and it is beyond fantastic.  Lisa has some fish casserole which tbh, come up looking like a fish pie, but to be fair, even the waiter is surprised and has to check he's been given the right dish.  He has, so we all shrug and chow down.  It's so good I've no idea how we'll top it during the rest of the trip let alone in Ft M.   It's a challenge I look forward to taking....

Sunday 9th

Despite an heroic effort last night to drink the hotel out of wine, we obviously failed miserably as it is 6.20 in the morning and I find myself wide awake, and surprisingly hangover free.  There's only one thing to do then, go for a run.

And so I find myself standing on the boardwalk behind the hotel just as the sun is coming up and about to have one of the best moments of my life.  The sun has just fully breached the horizon as I hit play on the iPod and set off towards South Beach, when I'm greeted with the opening strain of Van Halen's jump.  Despite the warmth of the morning I find goosebumps breaking out all over, along with a massive grin and know this is a moment that can never be repeated.  When Jump segues into Jane's Addiction's Just Because I truly experience a bucket list moment....

Now I'm sure you're all aware that Florida at this time of year is not only rather warm, but can be extremely balmy.  This is obviously a bit of a hassle for a sweaty bugger like me, so before embarking on this trip I partook in a bit of, how shall we put it, Gentlemen's Topiary.  Being quite unorganised as usual about holiday preparations,  it until a few minutes before we left for the airport before I remembered I needed to appropriately style myself.  So instead of taking the utmost care with my plums and sharp objects I was rather gung ho about the whole procedure, and ended up with a todger that looed like it has been clawed by a rather vicious moggy.  At the time I thought no more about this.

After finishing my run I need three things.  Three litres of cold water, Paramedics with oxygen and a cold shower.  And this is where I am brutally reminded of the state of my old chap....

Having got the temperature of the shower just right I throw myself in with gay abandon and grab my special holiday only shower gel, a great handful of which gets liberally spread around my nether regions.  Almost immediately my nuts starts to sting and smart like I've fallen in a bush of nettles, and my eyes start watering like Niagara Falls.  It is now, of course, that I remember that rushed hatched job, and that Original Source Mint & Tea Tree shower gel contains 7,927 tingling real mint leaves and should never, under any circumstances be applied to shaved plums.  I'm certainly awake now.

Unusually for an American Hotel, breakfast is included in the price of our room and so we find ourselves at the buffet table with plates piled high with sausage, hash browns and crispy, crispy CRISPY bacon, and waiting for an omelette from the egg station.  This proves to be a mistake, as by the time we finish, neither of as can get up from the table, and the chances of me seeing my feet again, let alone my burning nob, seem slim to unlikely.  The only solution to this is a waddle down to South Beach and a look at all the posh houses on the way.

There are several unique features to the beach that make it stand out from any other in the States.  The first is the funkily coloured Lifeguard huts in a myriad of eye catching designs, and another is what the Yanks rather quaintly refer to as the Monokini.  Yes folks this is possibly the only American public beach where topless sunbathing is tolerated.  And it's not long before we spot a Doris with her lils out.  Let me just say, it's never the young, attractive ones who decide to display the goods is it?

Now as some of our friends have found on holiday with us before, if we say we are going somewhere, that's what we do, and this to was no exception.  No stopping to smell the roses, or for that matter, the coffee, despite the fact that an hour into our walk we are boiling hot, dehydrated and standing in a beautiful Art Deco area of the beach right opposite Gianni Versace's rather nice gaff, where several inviting cafes and restaurants reside.  So being us, instead of sitting down, grabbing a brew and watching the world go by, we have a quick piss, fill our one small water bottle up from a fountain and march on.  An hour later, we reach South Beach hot, tired and fit to drop.  When will we ever learn?   We feel fit to do nothing more than grab a cab back to our hotel, with a man who Seb Vettel would be hard pushed to keep up with, and drown our thirst with several Bud Lights at the bar.  One day soon we will go "hang on..."

We decide to finish up the day with a couple of hours by the pool, where every movie stereotype of American ethnicity is reinforced with a vigour one would have thought impossible.  There are the Hispanic Groups, where the men are short, but also wider than they are tall.  All have flat top hair cuts, tattoos of Jesus and look like they would murder you as soon as look at you.  All their women are pear-shaped and have badly bleached blond hair.  Then there are the Blacks.  Huge men in basketball gear, gold teeth and bling that would put Ratner's to shame.  They all have tattoos of indeterminate origin and look like they would murder you as soon as look at you.  Their women look like they could blot out the sun and have on swimwear that was designed for someone half the size.  They have arses you could park your bike in and look like they would murder you as soon as look at you.  Finally there are the Caucasians.  Boiling Foul baggy and as ancient as it's possible to be outside a coffin, both the men and women look like one strong cough could put them there.  None of them look like they would murder you, but then they probably nicked all your money in a banking scandal that has paid for their luxury retirement to Florida, so they might as well have.

We get a nice bonus by the pool, when they start handing out free rum punch and as the hotel had gone to all the effort of making it, we felt it was our duty as stereotypical English to form an orderly queue and assist them by drinking copious amounts of said punch.  Losing a football match and starting a fight will, of course, come later.

Due to knackering ourselves out earlier we decide to head back to Carrabba's for dinner where we revisit a favourite dish we sampled last year.  Rather splendidly they have an option on the menu for those of us who either can't decide what to have for dinner, or, much more likely, are fat bastards who simply want to eat two dinners.  So I find myself with a whole chicken breast done in sun dried tomatoes and italian herbs along with a steak in mushroom marsala sauce.  It was lovely and was washed down again with a carafe of the house cab sav bringing a first day's stay in Miami to a suitable close.  Tomorrow will involve shopping and a long drive, so an early night is a necessity.  So why am I on the balcony drinking wine and listening to Train on the stereo?  I don't think I'll ever learn.....

Florida 2013

T - day

What a difference a day makes.  I always hate, more than anything else, the morning before a flight somewhere.  I don't know what it is, but I just hate it if the cab's even a minute late, hate it if there is the slightest bit of traffic on the way, hate being in that queue at the airport with the great unwashed wearing their velour tracksuits, toting fake Louis Vuitton luggage and chastising their children Chlamydia and Uvula for being proper little shits.  But most of all I hate travelling to Heathrow, a fucking nightmare from our house anytime, any day.  And this time the journey took a torturous 2 and a half hours of crawling through central London, due to an accident on the M25, followed by one in Knightsbridge.  It would usually be enough to make me apoplectic with rage, to the full on blood vessel bursting point.  But the trick this time is we did it the night before.....

And so I'm rather relaxed, and getting up at 7.00 not 4.00.  And our cab from premier inn to airport is 5 minutes early, and only takes 5 minutes too.  But best of all is when we arrive at Heathrow.  Terminal 3 is fantastic, and Virgin have their own, separate part of it.  There's no dodgy tracksuits, no hen parties in T-Shirts proclaiming "Here Cums the Bride", and brilliantly, no queues. we're ushered straight to a check in desk and minutes later we are bag free and heading towards passport control.  This is unheard of.  There's no queue at Passport Control either.  This, too, is unheard of.  We're round duty free, loaded with swag, and out of there before you could say "Bob's now to be called Roberta".  And still to come is the Cherry sitting proudly upon the icing on the cake....

And it comes in the shape of the Virgin Business lounge.  And Oasis of luxury and calm in an otherwise uncivilised world.  You could, if you wished, get your haircut, relax in the Spa pool and steam room, have your nails done or get a facial.  (I offered to assist with the last one but they politely declined.  Perhaps I hadn't eaten enough celery the night before?)  We settle for a full english, black pudding and all, and the free champagne.  It would have been rude not to.  We then get to spend a very calming couple of hours before our flight stealing magazines and watching people who can obviously afford to do this all the time looking at us with disdain.  It's marvellous.  There's is still one more that adds an extra grin to the already wide smile - priority boarding.  We're called to board at our convenience and are able to stroll pass the nylon shirted masses and "what what what" it straight to the head of the line.  Even errmm...marvelouser.  We're still turning right once we get on the plane, but we've avoided all that nastiness until now.  Game on!  Lisa has also had the forethought to get us the seats near the back so we're only in a row of two, no one in Sergio Tacchini is climbing over me for a piss I can tell you :-)

and so we arrive relaxed and unfluttered in Miami Airport, another bane of my life in a previous existence.  But we're through immigration in a mere 20 minutes, and eventually find our bags having been told the wrong carousel number by the Virgin rep, and then even a huge line to get through customs fails to dampen the enthusiasm.  Before you know it we have a car and are at our hotel.  There's bad news though.  Only 25 minutes of happy hour remain at the Tiki Bar so we're up against it!  But like the rest of the day, it proves to be a triumph.  Two beers are rapidly consumed when, at 18.59, 1 minute before happy hour ends, I manage to sneak and order for two white wines under the door.  When they arrive half price and served by the half pint, we can only laugh, knock them back, and stagger off to Carrabba's already pissed before we've been in the hotel even an hour.  And so a day I normally dread ends very well indeed, with a carafe of red and meatballs and pasta to die for.  Let's now see what the rest of the trip brings our way!


 

T minus 1

The day before you go away is always an odd one.  There is a distinct feeling of unease in the air and nothing feels quite right for some reason.  Maybe it's because work is always odd on your last day or maybe it's sinking in that tomorrow you'll be a thirty thousand feet above the planet in an aluminium tube built by the lowest bidder.

 With most of my clothes already packed I find myself scraping the bottom of the drawers to find a solitary pair of pants lurking there with a huge hole in them.  Good thing it's a warm day as my plums will be getting lots of air wearing those I can tell you.  I'd be a right embarrassment to my Mum if I was to be in an accident.  Luckily I have choice of two T-Shirts to select from; one that smells when I get hot and one that proclaims W.A.S.P. - Animal Fucks Like a Beast.  I choose the smelly one.

And I also find myself standing at Elmstead Woods station at stupid o'clock just so I can get in early so that once I've finished (probs by 11.00 on current going) so I can fuck off home and get my brain properly into holiday mode.  what I don't get is why there are two million other people here too shattering any illusion of a quiet, comfy ride in to work for a change, and I bet all these fuckers are in the queue in front of me tomorrow as well.

Once at work, its odd too.  Instead of just getting on with my work with my headphones on to drown out the numpties, I have to spend the morning teaching an an equally busy colleague how to do my work whilst I'm away, partly because the rest of the staff are too thick to do it but mainly because he's the only one I trust to do it properly.  Fuck the fact that he's got to cover two other people's work due to the mismanagement deciding to send most of the office off to Munich for the next two weeks.  seriously, Tweedledum and Tweddledummer couldn't organise things this badly.  Fortunately for Tweedledummer, he's booked his holiday for the same two weeks as me so he won't have to deal with any fallout from his mental decision.  

And now I'm in the back of a cab listening to LBC tell us the route we're taking to Heathrow is blocked by an accident, whilst my wife and the cabbie discuss alternative routes to get stuck on instead.  I'm sure we'll do fine, bearing in mind the first thing the cabbie said to us when we told him where we were going was to ask if we have Sat Nav on our phones.  Tomorrow, I just pray the pilot has more of an idea where we are going.