We flew in Tuesday night, in theory. By the time we were heading to the airport, thunder was crackling like crazy, which delayed us right off the bat - originally we were scheduled to depart at 9pm but that didn't happen until after midnight. Thankfully Mi Cariño's parents still picked us up and we arrived at the house somewhere close to 4am. But since we had nowhere to go the next day it was all good, and we just spent Wednesday lazying about and catching up on sleep.
Highlights from the trip: a visit to Coral Castle Museum.
This guy (25) is jilted by his 16 year old fiancee. After deciding he will never love anyone else, that no one else can love him, and being told by the "Sweet Sixteen" that she was saying no to him because he didn't have any money, he made it his life mission to build himself a castle. And he did so, by using Coral. It's essentially a sculpture garden, the guy's name is Edward (you look up his last name!) The amazing thing is that he built it all himself, and he did it at night so no one could see him. He "knew the secret of pyramids" apparently, and went about making reading chairs, thrones, bedrooms, a well, a confession room, a place to stargaze, and a place for children to play. It's actually kind of impressive.
I mean, y'all, he made a heart table. Without modern tools. We're talking before 1951. Amazing.
Another Highlight - Zoo Miami. Mi Cariño, two of my nieces, and my buddy O and his youngest son Caleb and I, had us a good time looking at animals and melting in the sun. We should've gotten a bike to ride through and minimize the walking and the child whining, but it was all good. Witness, cute picture of kid turned Jaguar!
We also visited the mall and had us some fun at Dave & Buster's and went crazy at the bookstore buying the kiddies books (and ourselves) and had us a 50% dinner at some chain looking restaurant thanks to the girls and their connections. Here, a pretty decent spaghetti bolognese.
Which makes me say: let's talk about food! First there was Yucca with grilled chicken and maduros.
We ate that at Las Islas, where we ate at the last trip. The food was once again, uninspired. But the Abuela likes it, and so, we go.
Then, we had pasta bolognese at some fancy outdoor restaurant by their "Lincoln Center." The area has a name. I do not remember it. It was very nice, like a loooong strip of stores and restaurants. Does it count as an outdoor mall? We ate there after watching "Sarah's Key," a movie that's just chock full of happy, happy, joy, joy. (Smell the sarcasm.) It was a nice movie, though. So was the pasta.
A couple of days later we ate at some new trendy restaurant in the heart of Miami. Kill me because I don't have the desire to check for the name. I suck. We began with some cheese balls as appetizers
On our last night there, we ate at The Cheesecake Factory, a first time for me. The food was good, I had meatloaf with mashed potatoes. I'm pretty sure I took a picture of that, but can't find it, so just imagine it. Mi Cariño sent me a picture of our dessert though:
The Cheesecake did not disappoint. Neither did this amazing week. I will leave you with an image from Matheson Hammock, a manmade area we visited (but did not swim in) that afforded us a great view of the Miami skyline. But don't worry, I did swim in Miami Beach. I even got a tiny tan! So, yay.
