Today is a year since I travelled the farthest I've ever been so far, a trip that feels rather surreal now that even Sweden where I've been so many times feels like a distant, mysterious, "forbidden" land. I was lucky to do a fair bit of travelling before shit hit the fan, but rarely beyond the Nordics, and never beyond Europe. I'd always wonder when it would finally happen that I actually travel somewhere far, and where would that be, but it always seemed like a hazy concept somewhere in the distant future, unlikely to happen anytime soon. It wasn't any different on one Friday morning in early September 2019 when Sverre casually mentioned to me that he had been offered a training course for his job that would take place a week and a half later in Miami. I joked about him taking me along, not expecting anything at all. He hadn't even responded to the offer at that point, so it wasn't sure whether he would get a spot, nor whether there would be any affordable flights, especially on such a short notice. But lo and behold, next thing I know it's a week and a half later, the 17th of September, and we're catching the 2:30 bus to the airport.
We flew Lufthansa via Frankfurt; the first flight from Oslo to Frankfurt was probably the least pleasant of the four; it had been a long day (because who the heck sleeps before a 2:30 transport?) and the aircraft was by far the noisiest I ever flew. The flight from Frankfurt to Miami, however, was a totally different story. First of all, I was very excited to be flying on Airbus A380, the largest passenger jet ever, which is due to be discontinued. Secondly, the flight itself was just about as blissful as I could ever wish for a long haul flight to be; not only did I secure myself a window seat, but the two seats next to me were both unoccupied (Sverre was flying Premium Economy, I was just Economy), which meant that I could use all the extra blankets and pillows and sleep horizontally. With the addition of "open bar" and a small handful of interesting stuff on the entertainment system, the 10 hour flight felt no longer than two-three hours.
Wing of the Airbus A320 that flew us from Oslo to Frankfurt
Wing of the Airbus A380 after boarding in Hamburg
Me just having a helluva good time
And another one of me just having a helluva good time shortly before falling asleep for a few hours.
Flight data before I went to sleep
First sight of land as we flew over the Bahamas
Bahamas, somewhere near Freeport
Flying into Florida south of downtown Miami; along the coast, the R Hardy Matheson County Preserve can be seen.
The moment when it hit me that everything actually went smoothly and therefore I have now travelled out of Europe.
After landing, it took us another good while to get going; clearing the customs, waiting for luggage and finding a ride downtown to our hotel, checking in and preparing to go out again took a good while. It was already early evening in Miami when we left the hotel, walking towards the Bayside marketplace where we had a good look around, then wandering around some streets, popping into a Whole Foods for some hotel room snacks and then heading back to Bayside for a nice dinner in Hooters. It may not have been a lot, but we'd had a very long day by then, so when we returned to the hotel we were both dead tired, and one of us had a course to attend the following day.
The first "culture shock" (I do use that term rather loosely) was the huge temperature difference between air conditioned inside and outside; already during the first evening I found myself worried I'd get sick from the constant temperature changes. I often felt rather chilly inside with my minimal clothing and life experience made me feel a little reluctant to step outside, but as I did, contrary to what I'm used to, the well over 25°C heat often hit me as a bit of a surprise.
View from the hotel room balcony, featuring Miami Beach far on the horizon, and Venetian Causeway on the right.
Skyscrapers not far from our hotel; the most prominent one being my favourite, the One Thousand Museum, which is one of the final works of Zaha Hadid. It has been built to its full height here, but isn't quite finished yet; when finished, it'll contain 84 ultra luxury residences. The nice exoskeleton is composed of 5000 pieces of glass fibre reinforced concrete that were shipped from Dubai. If you want to drool over the fancy residences like I did for quite a few hours while writing this post, this is where you can read all about them.
A nice view featuring the Freedom Tower in front of the others; completed in 1925, it was the tallest building in Miami until 1928, and even in all of Florida for about a year.
Bayside marketplace, a nice outdoor mall.
A giant Banyan tree. According to a plaque next to it, "The Bayside Banyan tree measures over 75 feet (22,86 meters) tall and is about 110 years old. The tree's roots descent from the branches and once on the ground will develop into another trunk. Native to India, many Banyan tree seedlings were imported to South Florida in the late 1800s. These trees can grow up to 100 feet (30,5 meters) in height and live approximately 1000 years."
Trunk of the Banyan tree.
View of the Bayside area featuring the mall, all sorts of tour boats and all the way on the left, a stage where salsa bands perform every evening, giving the whole area a nice, exotic feel.
I slept well that night, but yet I woke up at the same time as Sverre's early morning alarm; he was starting his course, so I had most of the day for myself. We had agreed to spend the evening in Miami Beach, so I found it a good opportunity to go out there early and spend some time at Haulover nude beach, which is the largest public nude beach in the United States.
If you're not familiar with Miami and surroundings, as I wasn't until just before the trip, this screenshot should be a decent reference for getting a good idea of what I'm talking about.
Since we were staying in downtown Miami, and Haulover park and beach are quite a distance north of Miami Beach (which is about 5 kilometers away from downtown Miami, taking the straightest bridge across the bay), I had to do some research into public transportation. I had heard that public transportation in the US wasn't quite up to par with most European countries, but I wasn't willing to spend on taxies either. There was actually a possibility to take a fairly direct bus from downtown, but since I was in the mood for some walking and sightseeing, I decided to take the walk along the beautiful Venetian Causeway to Miami Beach.
A leaf falling on your head has a whole different meaning here
Tiny lizards were a very common sight on the sidewalks.
And on some patches of grass there were well-camouflaged larger lizards.
September is one of the hottest months of the year in Miami, and during daytime it was well over 30 degrees. Although I walk a lot in my daily life and 5 kilometers isn't much of a distance in itself, by the time I reached central Miami Beach, I felt like I had walked a fine distance already. I spent about an hour there walking around and looking in stores, getting myself a very much needed water bottle and a cute souvenir top.
It was around midday that I decided to catch a trolley that would take me north. The Miami trolleys are free of charge and cover a handy choice of routes both downtown and in Miami Beach. Despite the name, the only thing "trolley" about those vehicles is the cool vintage looks; if you're interested in the history of how they came to be, I found a nice bite sized article here. The trolley didn't take me any further than 85th street, still over 5 kilometers south of where I was heading.
Trolley arriving to the bus stop
"Cockpit"
Interior
Houses in the Surfside area
At one point I decided to move from the noisy street to the beach, in hopes of getting at least some wind from the ocean. It was hot in Miami, in case I haven't mentioned it yet. The most prominent building in this picture is Fendi Chateau.
MDFR Ocean Rescue Lifeguard station
It took me a considerable amount of time to get to Haulover, and since I also had to consider getting back to South Beach in time to meet Sverre, I only ended up spending about an hour and a half in total there.
I didn't keep exact count, but while I was just chilling and sunbathing there on my own, I was spoken to by more than 5 but less than 10 people, all of them men. It didn't come as a surprise; I've heard that men in most of western world tend to be somewhat intrusive. Thankfully, none of them were particularly creepy, but the sheer frequency of having to respond to something (which in a few cases was necessary to be left alone) was a bit off-putting and it would've been nicer if everyone could've just minded their own business. All in all, I'm glad I made my way up there, it was nice to sunbathe properly and skinny dip in the ocean, but I'm quite certain my experience would've been much better if I had been accompanied. And my next goal is to hit a nude beach somewhere in the Nordics to test my hypothesis that no one would care to bother an unaccompanied young woman here.
Anyway, after I was done in Haulover, I walked to a bus stop and caught a bus back to South Beach, reaching it just about exactly at the same time as Sverre who was walking from downtown.
Haulover park kitty
A Lufthansa Airbus A380 flying over South Beach. Considering the timing, it's quite likely it was the very same aircraft that took us back to Frankfurt two days later.
The rather extensive tequila menu of La Cerveceria de Barrio, a very nice Mexican restaurant on Lincoln Road.
We stopped by just to cool down with a couple of drinks and some premium guacamole.
The outdoor sitting area of the restaurant..
... and the inside.
Not long after we moved onward from Lincoln Road, the sun set. It felt quite strange for it to be pitch dark outside at a somewhat early hour, yet still as warm as a hot summer day at home up north. Over the rest of the evening, we walked down and up Ocean Drive, through the Art Deco district. We also stopped by Mango's Tropical Cafe where we had another drink and watched the performances, before eventually going for dinner in Havana 1957, a Cuban restaurant. While the architecture and the night time lighting were beautiful, I didn't get too many particularly good photos. My phone's camera had never been all that reliable in the first place, let alone at night, and my big camera that would've absolutely thrived in those conditions was safely in our hotel room. I never took it out in Miami at all, taking into account the quite real risk of suddenly no longer having my big nice camera.
The impressive Cuba Libre menu at Havana 1957.
After finishing the dinner, it was straight to a taxi and to the hotel. Towards the end of the day it was becoming increasingly difficult and painful to walk, as my feet were badly blistered and hurting in just about all the ways possible. I walked over 22 kilometers that day and my shoes weren't quite optimal for such distances.
The following day I slept considerably longer and decided to spend my day walking around mostly familiar areas around downtown. Due to the somewhat sad state of my feet, I again looked towards public transportation and ended up taking the most out of the also free of charge Metromover system.
The closest Metromover station to our hotel, with one of the automated vehicles departing.
Bayside marketplace
View at the foot of the Southeast Financial Centre as I sat there stealing their wifi.
After a while of looking around downtown, I decided to use the rest of the time I had to shop for snacks to bring home. It took me quite a bit longer and cost quite a bit more than expected to compile a nice selection of stuff they don't really have at home, but I was quite satisfied with what I got.
The Publix store where I did my shopping
The street where our hotel was as I returned to meet Sverre
I made it back to the hotel room and had just enough time to chill on the balcony and get a little more rest before returning to the Bayside area yet again, this time with Sverre. We had signed up for a Miami Thriller speedboat ride, and decided to kill the time we had enjoying a frozen cocktail at The Other Daiquiri Bar right by the pier.
The Thriller boat (that we took) on the left and the Hurricane boat on the right.
Bayside area as we departed
Downtown Miami skyline
One of the several celebrity mansions we were shown during the boat tour
Southern tip of Miami Beach. This was about the farthest we went, as the seas were a bit choppy. Usually the tours go farther out in the ocean.
The boats speed up to about 80 km/h, which enables them to take us further in a shorter time than most tour boats, as well as get us very wet.
Downtown Miami
Royal Caribbean Cruises headquarters
A very happy me after a proper ocean water spray treatment, already mostly dried off.
I would definitely recommend the tour just for the sheer thrill of it as well as the sightseeing, but the souvenir photo was a hell of a rip off. We were lead to believe that buying the already more expensive than it's worth full package would include a downloadable digital file, but were later bummed to find that it only included the possibility to purchase the digital file.
Southeast Financial Center (233 meters, tallest building in Florida 1984-2003) behind some trees.
Crossing the Miami River into Brickell district
Same place, view towards Brickell
Same place, view east
The phone camera was a tad more cooperative that night.
Panorama Tower, as of now the tallest building in Miami and all of Florida at 265 meters.
Eventually, we made it back to Bayfront park and the Hard Rock Cafe there. By that time, I was so exhausted that a slight indecisiveness over what to order almost became too much to handle, but the dinner was anyway very nice. This was my 6th Hard Rock Cafe to visit.
A nice lion sculpture inside Hard Rock Cafe.
After the nice dinner at Hard Rock Cafe it was again time to get to the hotel and hit the sack as quickly as possible. We only had the next morning left in Miami; it was indeed a rather short stay to be so far away, and at this point I was so exhausted from taking the best of it that I decided to spend the morning packing up and chilling on the hotel pool deck.
The weather was not quite as sunny as it had been on the days before. Now it was very windy and cloudy with the occasional shower of mild rain. Still, it was so warm that it didn't stop me from having a good time and the only struggle was when a strong gust of wind felt like it was about to carry me away.
Soon enough it was time to leave the hotel. Since I had familiarised myself well with the local public transportation system, I convinced Sverre to take advantage of that to get to the airport instead of taking a taxi. Since we did have some time to kill as well, we decided to head back to Brickell, taking advantage of the metromovers, and have lunch there.
Brickell City Center, an indoor mall
After walking around a little which my exhausted feet did not appreciate, we came to a lovely Italian restaurant and ordered a caesar salad for me and a pizza (The Pig) for Sverre. We had to wait for our food for over 40 minutes which did make us somewhat restless, but sitting outside with a nice view of the street and access to wifi didn't have us too bored. When the food finally arrived, we got a profound apology and were told it's on the house. My caesar salad was really good, and Sverre's pizza, although I just had a small bite, was the best I've ever tasted, and definitely in the top tier for him as well. Ultimately, despite the delay, we were so satisfied with the quality of food and the service that Sverre went inside just so he could tip them.
My caesar salad
Sverre's pizza
Once we were finished, we headed straight to the Brickell train station and took a train to the airport. The railway was elevated above ground for the entire stint between Brickell and the airport, which gave us a good view of the surroundings and it didn't take long at all for the trendy neighbourhoods of fancy tower condos to become endless suburbs of run down houses with bars on the windows as far as the eye could see.
View from the train window featuring the Miami-Dade County Courthouse, which at 110 meters was the tallest building in Miami from when it was built in 1928 until 1971, and in all of Florida until 1965.
As we got to the airport and sat down in the cafe, I managed to lose track of time and nearly ended up missing the flight, resulting in a very angry Sverre who this time was seated right next to me for the entire flight. That also meant I did not have the luxury of lying down to sleep. The flight itself was significantly shorter now, since we were now flying along with the jet stream, not against it. The sun set shortly after we took off, and rose just before we landed in Frankfurt. When we finally arrived in Oslo on the afternoon of the 21st of September, the weather was so nice and warm that it almost felt like we'd brought a little bit of Miami with us.
It was very nice in Miami, but I really haven't been anywhere where the sheer extent of the social inequality screams to your face like that. As mentioned earlier, I did browse the websites of some of the residential towers, looking at the floor plans and thinking that it sure would be nice to live there, I have to say that living there and seeing groups of homeless people under road bridges a short walk away would not feel fair. At one point I found myself walking past a building surrounded by tall walls and barbed wire - a school, as it turned out when I walked around the corner.
Generally speaking, I remain certain in my belief that I wouldn't want to live in the United States for any longer than a year or so with proper insurance, but I'm very glad I got to visit. Miami left a lasting impression. By the end of the trip I was so exhausted that I couldn't wait to get home and just sleep and it took several days for my exhausted, blistered and swollen feet to recover, and a minor ankle injury on top of that meant that I had to take it easy at the gym and wear an ankle support for several weeks. Nonetheless, when I had slept off the worst of the exhaustion, I found myself wishing I'd had more time and almost struggling to believe I'd finally been somewhere far. Miami is very culturally diverse which makes it quite special and I hope to be back one day. I'd have me some more of the sunny beaches, frozen cocktails and salsa music any day. Hopefully next time I'll think to bring my rollerskates, too.
On our way back, most of the free space in our bags was filled with various snacks.
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