Miami

Miami is cool, well Miami Beach that is as I was only in the city for one and a half days and so spent my whole time in Miami Beach. I stayed in South Beach but took a walk to North Beach, passing a posh looking golf course along the way. Its a nice place and you immediately get the impression that your somewhere where the rich spend their time. I saw two ferarris, another couple of Aston Martins along with a couple of Bentleys...there was numerous Jags though some had been "pimped" and just looked crap and there was a few Corvettes as well. Also a couple of Porsches that I had never seen before but wouldnt really mind if I never saw again, they werent pretty. It is all a bit pretencious though, I kind of got the feeling that I didnt quite fit in when walking past a man on the beach wearing a pair of Ralph Lauren Polo speedos...cant really imagine myself getting a pair of designer budgie smugglers. The beach, though is pretty good. I thought it would be a crappy, small piece of sand surrounded by monster buildings but its pretty long and wide as well. The front of the beach is covered with dark, washed up seaweed which takes away some of the shine and the water, being the Atlantic is cold, well in comparison to the Caribbbean where I last went swimming. Its a bit fake though, the sand isnt the greatest in the world and I did get the feeling that I was back on the Gold Coast but without the tacky nightclubs and bars behind me...I guess that Miami is probably the original though as Australia is only 25 years ol or something like that. I had also arrived at a pretty good time as there was a NASCAR fest on the beach for the next three days and it was super cool. NASCAR, for those who are in the dark, is cars that go round and round in the same circle for a long time, like 8 million laps, with no other corners than the circle that they are going round in...it all sounds kind of boring and it is really until they crash and the cars blow up, thats when the excitement happens as you can get up to 15 car pile ups with flames everywhere...The fest that they put on though was super cool. There was remote control racing, a simulator in which I crashed big time (some numpty drove into the back of me when I was overtaking), free coca cola, playstation, xbox and Wii all with NASCAR games a stage with some hot girls presenting and a beer tent which tricked me as it only served Coors and not only that, only Coors Light!! I got a tonne of free stuff as well. I managed also to get the signatures of five men that I have never seen before in my life and have no idea who they are but maybe in a few years time they will be super famous and worth a lot of money...or maybe that will be my signature which is also on the cloth. The fest also had a live concert on the beach that night. It was a country and western singer, again I have no idea who he was but a free concert on the beach in Miami, now thats pretty cool. Also whilst country and western may not be the greatest music in the world, a country and western concert may be. Hundreds of red necks drinking their Coors Light and having a great time with the majority of the girls wearing their short denim shorts and cowboy boots...not that I was looking much, the music was too good. One of the things that surprised me most about Miami was the fact that nobody spoke english as their first language. I went into two shops to buy juice or whatever and both times found myself ordering the items in Spanish. For dinner that night, my waiter was hispanic in an Italian restaurant. Walking along the beach, I heard more Spanish, French, German, Hebrew and various forms of Scandinavian but rarely did I hear any english being spoken other than in a foreign accent to say Hello. Now I have nothing against foreigners holidaying, living and working in other countries and of course speaking amongst each other in their mother tongue, why would I? I just found it odd that in an english speaking country of over 250m people, there was so little english being spoken. I have travelled a bit now and visited some seriously diverse multicultural places but none quite match this. Sydney is extremely diverse along with Melbourne and Sao Paulo in Brasil also has citizens from all corners of the world. London too can be described as a very multicultural city as Im sure can be said of New York and other large cities. But Miami is something different. Its so diverse and multicultural that it appears to have almost forgot what country it is in except of course that everything is big and bold. I suppose the thing that made me think about this the most was the hosting of a "Miss Jew" competition, that was how it was worded on the large poster. That intrigued me a little as this was not solely a Miss Miami competition but a pagent for a particular religion in the area...For me that went a long way to symbolize how the city perhaps appears neutral in its nationality which in many ways is a wonderful impression to give. I really enjoyed my two days on the beach and from the stories I heard in my hostel, there is a wicked nightlife in the downtown area. Perhaps when I return to Florida I will make time to revisit this metropolis