New life: Miami 1

Welcome to Miami. Bienvenidos a Miami. 

Miami is, in two words, fascinating. How could I describe it? It is pretty much like in “Miami Vice”. People from my still very young-looking generation will understand it perfectly: the art deco style of the buildings in South Beach, the luxury sport cars, the skateboarders, the sculptured girls and muscled guys, or viceversa -remember my theory of the order of factors altering the product-, the palms, the boats, the skyscrapers, the mansions of celebrities and millionaires.

Day 2 has been... exhausting, no, the next level of exhaustion. On top of that, my skin has got a darker tone of a kind of brown color. Well, since I am a little bit colorblind, maybe it is not brown and is red instead. Who knows...

Anyway, in order to finish the day properly, I have decided to have dinner at the restaurant of Gloria & Emilio Stefan: Larios on the beach. I am a big fan of Gloria Estefan. Actually, I have also seen today their houses: the family house and the recording studio. Yes, I admit it, I am one of those tourists, who pays 28$ to take a boat tour with a very self-motivated guide, just to see the houses of millionaires.

The boat was quite full and, as always, in order to go unnoticed among the audience, I decide to sit down at the stern of the boat: last row of chairs. Two Chinese girls take seat next to me and automatically they start taking pictures like ones possessed. The guide -from Puerto Rico- seems to have unlimited experience as animator and starts trying to get people involved with typical questions and jokes -exactly what I hate immensely- and suddenly he asks: 

- And who is from Europe?!
- “It can not be true”

There I was at the last row, behind my colorful sunglasses, being the only one raising the hand with a kind of yuhuu-smile on my face.

- And where in Europe? Germany?

- “Do I really look like German?” No, I am from Spain.

After shouting Spain three times from the back of the boat, and with the support of a nice American woman who had louder voice than me, the animator reacts:

- Ah! Spain! España! R.Madrid or Barcelona? 

- “Well, actually I don’t care about football”. Madrid!!! 

- And on the left side you can see the house of Al Capone before he moved to another more exclusive island in Alcatraz...
- “Was that a joke?”

My neighbours at the stern of the boat, the Chinese girls, who until then had only been taking pictures as if there would be no tomorrow, suddenly start talking to me:

- So, you are from Spain? Nice country.

- Yes, very nice. Have you been there...?

Fola and Wendy were their names or at least that is what I understood. Let us say, that the conversation between the three of us was not very fluid: and one of them, Wendy, lives in L.A!!!

Fola -initially I understood Flora- was from Beijing and did not speak much English but since I am going to be in her country next week, I wanted to get some recommendations. Basically, I was interested in getting a name of a good restaurant in Beijing: just one restaurant.

After some let-us-completely-ignore-the-guide shoutings between Fola and Wendy, with some breathing breaks to show me unintelligible Chinese symbols on their mobiles -“this is going nowhere”-, Fola finally showed me her final recommendation in perfectly translated English:

- Roasted duck

- Is that food or a restaurant?
- Food.
- Wonderful! Thank you! “Direction nowhere is confirmed”.
- Do you like duck?
- Yes, I do. At the same time, I could hear in the background the loquacious guide talking about the houses from Ricky Martin, Julio Iglesias and David Beckham...

They did finally gave me a name of a restaurant in Beijing but, honestly writing, I gave up trying to understand the spelling. I just noted down quickly what I phonetically understood. The boat was arriving back at the port of Miami and the guide was already asking for tips: money, money, money...

Both Wendy and Fola were very nice and smily -which I love it- and actually the boat tour was worth it, but it was time to say goodbye. Gloria Estefan was waiting for me... 

To be continued