Miami - USA

On Thursday 12th November, after a 3.5 hour flight from Guatemala City we arrived in Miami where the fun was about to begin! We stood in passport control for 40 minutes before reaching the desk, where the immigration official took great interest in our round the world travels. During our conversation he abruptly stopped while looking at his screen and gave me a concerned look. It appeared I had been previously denied my entry visa, and as such would need to be collected and taken to another area to have my records checked. We were ushered to the side and then collected by another official carrying a bright red folder (in which he placed my passport), and taken to a room full of dubious looking characters. After an hour wait I was finally taken into a room and questioned by another official about my intentions during my stay in the USA, my history, my employment, any criminal records etc etc etc. After 20 minutes of tense interrogation he finally stamped my passport and I was IN! Before I walked out of his office I asked if I would have this problem again and what the actual reason for my denial was. He informed me that on the online application I had answered “Yes” to the question of whether or not I had a criminal record. What this meant was that while V had applied for us both online, she had landed me with a criminal record and caused this entire issue – I am still collecting favours for this!

After an eventful start we rushed to catch up with the rest of the gang, who had patiently waited for us to get through. We met up at the Dollar hire car, where Lara and Leise had picked up their hire car, a beast of a vehicle which was huge even by US standards. Leise was tasked with driving it, but he did well and managed to get us all to our hotel on South Beach Miami safe and sound. We all checked in, and after a bit of relaxation met up in reception to head to the beachfront for dinner and a few drinks. It was great to be in the States and after a short walk from our hotel we hit the beachfront and found a great Irish bar. We tucked into beer and cocktails as usual, and then ordered our food. This included chicken wing starters, oysters, fish, and these amazing skirt steaks which are thinly sliced and wrapped into a circular shape – very big and very tasty! After a couple more drinks it was time to head home as everyone was pretty tired after yet another early start, and Lara and Leise had an early start the next day to head to Fort Lauderdale.

We woke up after a good lie in on Friday morning, and met up with Georgie to head out for a nice brunch. After strolling the streets we came across a funky bistro called Cafetto and tucked into some great food to start the day. After a good few minutes we began to notice the interesting decor, graphic displays of art and sculpture adorned this lovely little coffee shop..... not what any unsuspecting patron would expect to see over his omelette but pretty funny. After that the girls headed off for some shopping while I headed back to the hotel to watch the Springboks get beaten by France on a flaky Internet stream. That night Georgie, V and I went out for drinks. We found a great bar to start at, and enjoyed some people watching with the stylish and whacky of Miami cruising up and down this very busy street. After that it was time to pick a restaurant and we settled on the World Resource Cafe, which combined sushi and Asian food. We ordered a large sushi platter to start with and managed to convince Georgie that sushi isn’t sushi unless it involves fish! We then had Thai curries and V had tempura with lots of wine and every mouthful was divine! From there we took a casual stroll past all the thriving bars and restaurants, before browsing a late night store selling lots of weird and tacky clothing. Then it was bedtime.

On Saturday we woke up and hit Starbucks for a coffee and hot chocolate, and to sort out some admin on the Internet there – can you believe how tight they are, they charged us for Internet, even after buying their wares! Anyway we then hit the Swiss bakery next door for healthy rolls and made our way back to the hotel to finish packing up. At 12pm Lara and Leise rocked up in their hired car now affectionately known as “the beast” and we headed to Fort Lauderdale with real excitement to board our cruise ship Enchantment of the Seas and head off to the Caribbean

So very short and sweet in Miami but V and I had been here before and here are our highlights and lowlights:
- South Beach is awesome!
- Great shopping for the girls
- Passport control was a serious lowlight but hey at least we got in!