A few months back my colleague, and good friend, Cassie and I chatted during a boozy lunch at a local pub about her husband’s recent ‘guys’ weekend’ in Vegas. As we talked about how much fun he’d had with his friends, the wheels starting turning and the next thing we knew we were in full planning mode for a girls’ weekend of our own…in Miami.
Luckily for us, we had zero trouble convincing our friends Cory and Emma to join us…it helped that Air Canada was having an amazing seat sale…less than $400 for our return flights to Miami. Once everyone was onboard and the flights were booked, planning for this trip began in earnest.
Where would we eat? What would we see? What would we do? Were there any hot spots we wanted to check out? We had 3 months to plan all of this out…phew!
Flight Delays and Free Alcohol
We arrived at the airport 3 hours before our flight and found out when we checked in that the flight would be delayed by at least 4 hours…so we had 7 hours at the airport to look forward to. What does one do to kill 7 hours at the airport? Duh, head to the Air Canada Lounge of course! I don’t know about you, but I think 5-6 hours of free cocktails before a flight is ALWAYS a great idea. Don’t get me wrong, we did eat some of the ‘shitty snacks’ – not my description, but surprisingly appropriate – that they had on hand, as I would never encourage drinking on an empty stomach.
Is it just me, or does free booze taste better? We drank port, pinot grigio, Riesling, scotch, ceasars, rye, gin, vodka, baileys, you name it, and if it was on the shelf, we drank it and it was glorious!
Fast forward 5 ½ hours later to this group of…ahem…’ladies’ boarding our flight to Miami…all sporting a comfortable buzz and our stomachs filled with chocolate chip cookies. We were on our way…finally!
The flight itself was fast and uneventful. We stepped off the plane, collected our luggage and hopped into a cab to make our way to the hotel.
Though our flight was uneventful, our 20 minute cab ride to the hotel however? Not so much. Our collective buzz had worn off and what was left of it quickly disappeared after a sobering road rage incident between an overly aggressive driver and our cabbie. We were driving along the highway when some A-1 douchebag rode right up our asses flashing his headlights in order to get our driver to switch lanes. Our cabbie didn’t move over right away, so the guy kept flashing his headlights as he got closer and closer to the back of our car. Finally, the cab driver pulled into the other lane only to have the dickhead in the car behind pass us, pull right in front of us and then slam on his brakes. Welcome to Miami folks! Well that was fucking terrifying…calm the fuck down people!
We made it to the hotel – safely – and checked-in, only none of our credit cards worked, with the exception of the Aussie’s…thank God we brought Emma along! Once that was sorted, we made our way up to our room.
We’d booked a double room with 2 queen beds at The Hyatt Centric South Beach…I know, pretty risky to do with 4 women sharing a room and one bathroom, but we live on the edge like that. Anyway, our room was quite nice and surprisingly spacious with an ocean view…sweet!
Given that our flight had been delayed and it was quite late, we were happy to chat for a bit, check out the room, change into our pjs and hit the hay. Which is exactly what we did.
The next morning, I’d like to say that we got up bright and early, but who am I kidding. We rolled out of bed around 8am and began the long and arduous process of having 4 women – sharing one bathroom – get ready to go grab breakfast. We’re all pretty easygoing so it wasn’t a stressful process. We took turns showering and getting dressed then made our way out onto the street.
Yeah, can I just say that it was pretty fucking hot…the heat hit us like a wall. Undeterred, we walked a short distance to a breakfast spot that Cassie had been to previously, The Social Club. Bonus, if we checked in on yelp – free mimosas! So check in we did and the mimosas were delicious! Breakfast overall was pretty fantastic. We had the usual eggs benny (some of us) while others (Cory) were a little more adventurous ordering something with a bit more Latin influence. Whatever it was, it looked delicious and I wanted it!
After breakfast, we made our way to the local Walgreens to pick up a cooler and some alcoholic bevies for our day at the beach. We walked the hundred metres or so, planted our asses in our umbrella chairs and committed ourselves to a full day of beach bumming.
Day 1 – sorted!
After a sun soaked day of drinking cold beer on a hot beach, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel to shower, change and make our way to dinner. We had made reservations at Yardbird and boy were we looking forward to it. The reviews for this place are through the roof with praise for some of the tastiest Southern comfort food you will ever have the pleasure of putting in your mouth.
We ordered the fried green tomatoes, mac & cheese, chicken and waffles, BBQ ribs and washed it all down with a bottle of white wine and infused bourbon flights. Let me just say this…we all agreed the fried chicken was the best any of us have ever had…like EVER! Mixed reviews on the bourbon flight offerings, however, the salted maple bourbon was a clear favourite. Everything we ate there was delicious…incredibly delicious. We also had an amazing server, he gave us tips on where to go for drinks and dancing later and he did not steer us wrong.
After dinner, we made our way to The Bodega, an obscure looking taco stand, on the recommendation of our server. You see, this place is an actual taco stand with a secret. If you walk through the porta potty door to the far right of the taco truck (don’t let urinals and graffiti wall deter you) you will discover one of the best nightclubs in SoBe. The drinks were relatively inexpensive, with an eclectic crowd, but the jewel in the crown here is their kick ass DJ. He played songs from the 80s to current and his mixes were wicked. He had us dancing the entire time we were there. Just when one mix was over and you thought ‘wow, that was the best song ever’…he’d follow it up with an even more amazing mix. The place was a bit empty when we got there, but filled up quickly and by the time we left, it was packed to the gills with a line up snaking down the street and for good reason.
Day 2 – The Fun Continues
We played it pretty low key on the second day, grabbing breakfast at a place up the street called Sunny’s. The service wasn’t the best, but the food was pretty delicious. I had the ‘Come Kale Away With Me’ breakfast bowl consisting of pureed frozen bananas, kale, almond milk, topped with sliced kiwi, puffed quinoa, chia seeds and flaked coconut. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be as delicious as it was, but it sorta blew my mind. Once again, our yelp check-in garnered us a free mimosa. It’s important to note that wi-fi is not available here unless you’re a registered guest of the hotel or you ask the hotel reception to provide you with the wifi password…apparently it changes everyday and the hotel does not share that information with the restaurant staff at Sunny’s.
After our leisurely breakfast, we split up…with some choosing a pool day and others deciding to go shopping for bathing suits. The bathing suit I packed was literally disintegrating – I’d had it for over 15 years and it had seen better days…the straps were actually leaching some sort of gunk akin to motor oil or the grease from a bicycle chain…disgusting. Anyway, we stopped in a SHAN on Collins and looked around there, tried on a few things, but didn’t find anything. We then decided to venture into Runway Swimwear, also on Collins…what a fucking mistake that was. The woman who helped us was super nice at first but turned into a miserable, eye-rolling troll the second I told her that I needed to think about whether or not I wanted to spend $300 on a bikini. Once I told her that, she forbade me from trying on anymore bathing suits. When Emma told her that she wasn’t going to buy anything either, the woman snatched the swimsuits from her hands and said ‘Really? You’re not buying anything?’…incredulous she went off in a huff, rolling her eyes and uttering something, which I’m pretty sure was meant to offend. Anyway, we left, who needs that shit, and found a place up the street – Surf Style – where the bikinis were 1/3 the price and service was way better. We both ended up buying really cute bikinis.
Turdpocalypse
WARNING: I’ll be talking shit for a moment…literally.
Once we were back at the hotel, we went up to our room to change into our new bikinis and meet up with Cory and Cassie at the hotel pool. We noticed that the room had been cleaned as the beds had been made and we had fresh towels…yay! Another thing we noticed was that whoever had cleaned the room had also used the toilet since it was most definitely not clean and the offending party had left us a lovely gift of a dirty toilet filled with yellow water and disintegrating toilet paper.
Now, I really had to go to the bathroom at this point and told Emma I would meet up with the rest of them at the pool in a few minutes. Fast forward to me laying a huge, stinking, double coiler in our toilet only to discover, to my abject horror, that the damn toilet would not flush! WTF did I eat? Why was this happening? OMG…OMG…OMFG! I tried everything and couldn’t get it to work! I debated leaving it there and praying for some sort of miracle where that brown monster in the bowl would magically disappear through some sort of spontaneous flushing phenomenon, but I knew that the toilet miracle I was hoping for was highly unlikely. So, I did the one thing I never wanted to do…I called the front desk and asked them to send help.
Help arrived shortly thereafter in the form of a really nice plumber. Words alone cannot express how embarrassed and humiliated I was when I explained to him what had happened. To make matters worse, the stench emanating from that cursed bathroom was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. I felt such pity for this poor man whose job it was to fix this particular problem. I wanted to leave the room, but felt such a tremendous sense of guilt…like this man was going into battle against a literal shit storm and I couldn’t leave…I had to see it through. Fuck! Why did I eat so much? What’s wrong with me?
I tried to remain upbeat and maintain a sense of humour about the whole situation…but the smell was so bad. After about 20 minutes of fiddling with the toilet, he managed to fix it, and when that toilet finally flushed, the gushing sound of the water as it washed that ginormous shit down the drain was like music to my ears.
As he left and I thanked him profusely, I couldn’t help but think to myself, ‘thank God I am never going to have to see this man again’…only to end up in the elevator with him not 10 minutes later. Jesus Christ! Really?!! I was still so embarrassed by the whole situation that I fumbled with the elevator keys and ended up prolonging my humiliation even further. Finally, thank God, the elevator doors opened up on the 3rd floor and I practically ran out of the elevator. Why?! Why!!!
As I sheepishly joined my friends poolside, the horror of what I’d just lived through was fresh in my mind…I needed a drink…pronto! I told my friends what happened and I could tell that they were really supportive, even if they were laughing their asses off, tears streaming down their faces…FML!
A couple of hours later, it was dinner time and we had reservations at one of the best ceviche restaurants in Miami…so exciting.
We arrived at OLA and were seated immediately. The ambiance of this restaurant was a complete 180 from Yardbird the night before. From the moment our server handed us our menus we knew we were in for an amazing experience. We ordered strategically from the tasting menu in order to ensure that we would have an opportunity to try EVERYTHING. The anticipation for this meal was epic. The tasting menu offered 4 different ceviches. Fire & Ice – a cobia marinated in sour orange, red onion, cilantro, and jalapeno over a pear granita, Salmon Ceviche – spicy mandarin juice, cucumbers, shallots, chives, cilantro, topped with crispy capers, Hamachi Nikkei – yuzu, thai basil, togarashi, cilantro, sweet soy glaze, crushed seaweed, and sesame seeds and then finally, Corvina Cevich – lime juice, cilantro, red onion, limo peppers and Peruvian crispy corn. Each ceviche was as exotic and succulent as the next, and the food looked incredibly sexy…can you even say that about food? Anyway, the food was sexy. The mind blowing ceviche course was followed by a beef tartare taco, grilled shrimp, and corn and then short rib empanadas. Final course was entrees and they did not disappoint either – Red snapper filet, Roast Cuban pork, Lomo Saltado, and Sugar Cane Tuna. The entire meal was absolute bliss. Each of us had our favourites, and surprisingly none of us agreed on the same dishes.
It’s pretty amazing to me that we could even manage to walk out of this restaurant after eating everything that we did, but we had plans for later that night and nothing was going to get in the way of that.
Cassie had made reservations for us on a party boat which was leaving from Biscayne Bay at 9pm. We arrived at Biscayne Bay with about 30 minutes to spare before the boat left port.
With all that time on our hands, what else was there to do but drink. We ordered a bucket of coronas and got started. After downing our beers, we walked over the line up of folks waiting to board the boat…let me just say, what a fucking shit show. One guy in the line was so drunk already that he had managed to puke all over himself and pass out in the line. His friend kept waking him up to make sure he wouldn’t miss the party. What a mess. Cory was now in full panic mode…this crowd was putting her way, and I mean WAY, out of her comfort zone. We boarded the boat and after checking out the crowd, we knew that his was not our scene…like AT ALL. However don’t they say that life begins at the edge of your comfort zone? So, we threw caution to the wind and decided to suck it up and join the party. Personally, I knew this was going to be a disaster when every single song the DJ played started with that bloody airhorn sound…not to mention that the age range on the boat was anyone between the ages of 2 and 102. YIKES!
So…as we huddled together, careful to not make eye contact with anyone on the boat we didn’t know, the boat left port and we were off. We had found refuge from the madness at the back of the boat on the lower level, right next to the heads…where Cory overheard one of our fellow passengers tell another how beautiful the washrooms were. About 5 minutes after we left port, the captain made an announcement on the loud speaker that we would be returning to port immediately because the speakers weren’t working. Hallelujah!
Boat cruise over…thankfully…now what? Our waiter the night before had mentioned something about Nikki Beach, so that’s where we headed…
We arrived at Nikki Beach and after negotiating with the hostess at the door, our cover charge was waived and we made our way in. We were immediately struck by two things, the sheer size of the place, and the beautiful setting. We settled into a set of sofas on the sand and ordered a round of champagne. After toasting our good fortune of narrowly escaping death on the party boat, we sipped our champagnes and soaked it all in.
It’s moments like this when I remind myself to take it all in and to make an effort to fully ‘be’ in that moment. Looking up at the night sky through the palm trees above and feeling the ocean breeze on my skin while sharing stories with my friends – these are the moments I live for. These are the moments we should all live for.
“Who wants to go for swim? The beach is right over there through the shrubs.” Cory had been itching to get into the water ever since we’d arrived here. I was having none of it, having witnessed a very large ‘fish’ swim along a crowded beach the day before. People were screaming and running from the water like a scene out of Jaws. “I’m good ladies…besides, someone needs to stay on shore to report your shark attack to the authorities, and of course, call your families and let them know of your untimely demise.” Our entire interaction felt like the opening credits to some cheesy horror movie. Four women on vacation in a strange city, venture off to a deserted beach after a night of drinking…cut to the next morning – coroners van parked in the sand, with four body bags being loaded into the back…
Yes, my imagination does get the best of me at times…I digress.
After downing the last of the champers we walked across the path, through the shrubs and onto the beach. What an incredible sight! Yes, it was pitch black at first, but once all the lights on our camera phones were turned off the moonlight was all we needed to navigate. The beach was pretty much abandoned, with a couple of young men hanging out near one of the hotel huts. We slowly made our way across the beach toward the water. The waves were much higher at night and, as we got closer to the water, the only sound you could hear was the crashing of the waves onto the shore. After debating whether or not to go into the water, Cory, Cassie and Emma slowly and carefully waded in while I stood onshore, my feet firmly planted in the cool beach sand, looking up at the night sky. In the distance I could still here the music from the club, and see the city lights past the line of shrubs and palm tree and all of this gave me a great sense of comfort as I stood on this desolate beach. After about 10 minutes of frolicking in the waves, my friends returned and we made our way back towards the drone of the club and the city lights. I was tempted to walk the boardwalk back to our hotel, but my friends thought it might be dangerous as the boardwalk is not always well lit in some parts and it was well past midnight at this point. Deciding to play it safe, we took a taxi back to the hotel. Yawn!
Last Day
On our final day in Miami and we once again decided to kill a few hours by the pool before grabbing lunch and heading to the airport. Morning was uneventful, but lunch, lunch was spectacular. After poring over countless reviews that morning while sunbathing (South Beach has a lot of amazing restaurants and there are so many Mexican food joints in SoBe it will make your head spin) we chose Naked Taco.
Upon arriving at the restaurant we were immediately struck by the funky and fresh décor. Their upholstered leather booths, painted tattooed lady bar backdrop, mustache and glass skull light fixtures are all so very, very cool. I loved how quirky and eclectic this place was. Now, as for the food, well…the food is delicious, fresh, and plentiful! We ordered a delicious array of tacos; the crispy baja fish, gordo pastor (pork belly), General Tso cauliflower, and Key West shrimp, and they were all spectacular, the one exception was the pork belly taco…it was way too fatty, but the bits that weren’t fatty were pretty fucking tasty! Emma ordered, hands down the best dish by far, the mariscos blanco enchilada…a culinary orgasm of lobster, shrimp and crab covered in Chihuahua cheese sauce…Jesus Christ!
We also ordered a fresh tomato and avocado salad, the quesa fundido (OMG SO DELICIOUS) as well as 2 pitchers of margaritas (Hey Lady and Cherry Popper) to wash it all down with.
Two things:
1) The food here is not your typical inexpensive Mexican fare, our lunch was expensive. I can’t remember the last time lunch cost me $100, but it was well worth it.
2) The margarita pitchers – we asked how many margaritas you would typically get from 1 pitcher and we were told 5 or 6. Given that there were four of us, we ordered 2 pitchers, thinking we’d get 3 margaritas each over a 2 hour lunch – WRONG! The pitchers are MASSIVE, we would have easily done well with 1 pitcher, but we ordered 2, so 2 pitchers we drank!
After stuffing ourselves (once again) you would think we wouldn’t have room for dessert. Did I mention that they have churros on the menu? Churros! Delicious, deep fried, sugar coated, piping fucking hot churros! Yeah, we ate those too…why? Because you have not truly lived my friends until you’re waiting in line at airport security desperately searching for a trash can to puke into.
carryonadventures 