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| View from our room |
Miami is a place to see and be seen, a mix of colors and people. The combinations are sometimes quite interesting to watch: drop dead gorgeous young women with older and visibly well off gentlemen. Or the very well preserved older ladies with 8 pack tattooed younger men. All the women tanned and wearing high heels (even on the beach), more in shape than most and LV bags are everywhere.
We spent our Saturday night in South Beach Ocean Drive, having dinner at one of the restaurants with a sidewalk terrace .There are plenty of beautiful restaurants, like Larios, the cuban cuisine restaurant of Gloria Estefan, Ocean 10 or BLT Steak.
Ocean Drive restos are mostly concentrated between 5th and 15th street and they all serve huge cocktails the most particular being a giant margarita with 2 bottles of Corona in it. It looks exotic, but the taste might be questionable.
We continued with clubbing, as the queue was too long to get into Dream, we set off to LIV, quoted the best club in the US in 2010. Long line there as well, but we eventually got it. Here is how the system works: there are security guards who allow batches of people to go in, usually single ladies, couples and flashy dashy characters are favored to single men. We only stayed 'by the rope' for 15 min before we were 'allowed' to pay the entrance fee of $50. Posh crowd, once again a place to be seen. I overheard a bathroom conversation between 2 label wearing girls on how important the guys was with a couple of bottles on the table vs 'the birthday kid' who only had one bottle and how they were planning to move to the multiple bottle table…
We only spent $40 for a double goose and we danced a bit ( which was free), our party was over night at 3 am.
Next up was sunday brunch at the very recommended Nikki Beach, a lounge bar on 1 Ocean Drive. The food was very nice, a large buffet of sushi, salads, eggs in all varieties, waffles, pasta stations and last but noblest a giant a dessert table!
The DJ played cool music accompanied by live sax and flute players, creating a very nice ambience. Min of 1 bottle of strong booze to get a sun bed and 2 bottles for a cabana all this to do some people watching and have a relaxed afternoon in the sun. This did not include the short shower of tropical rain which threw us out of the beach mood. as all sun beds were soaked with rain.. Oops…
We chose to work on our tan by walking (much cheaper) back to our hotel via the beach and the boardwalk. Not less than 44 blocks later we where finally displaying what a miami-an would call 'the beginning' of a tan.
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| Nikki Beach |
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| Ocean Drive |
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| Ocean Drive |
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| Cruise ship terminal |
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Miami Port
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| Espanola Way |
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| Miami Beach |
I know, there is no lack of real drama in this world, but I would like to add some of my own anyway, maybe trivial to some, but marking an o such important milestone in the family life of the ‘Van’s’! 
Oh Yeah! We're visiting the observatory deck of the Burj Khalifa, downtown 
