Bucko's World

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.....