Bouncing in the club where the heat is on,All night on the beach till the break of dawn. I'm going to Miami!
Welcome to Miami!

Well not the most straight forward start to the day. It was 7am and we checked over our reservations only to find out that we had another two nights at the days inn booked and we didn't have a hotel for Miami until the next day...yet we had booked to pick the car up. So we had a car to take us to miami but no hotel or another night at the days in. We were in a pickle. We tried changing the dates of car but it just wasn't possible so we had to book an extra night at the hostel in Miami and leave the days inn early...not that we minded that. 7weeks Away and our first mistake of the trip. Pretty good going that. Haha!

We got the bus for the last time to go and pick up our car the nerves were starting to hit me about driving. Never driven on the other side of the road before...eeek!! We needed to get to the Swan and dolphin resort to get the car. The bus driver had told us a story about the hotels on the way there.  The swan + dolphin hotels have big statues above them: one being a dolphin and one being a swan... obviously. He'd told us that they had made a mistake when building both hotels and that they'd put the statues on the wrong way around...he then said that because it was too much hassle for them to change them back they just swapped all the memorabilia inside both hotels and named the swan hotel the dolphin and vice versa. Confusing right? Well turns out it was a complete lie anyway and we were idiots for believing him. We felt like idiots...mean man!! We found it in the end though!

So after signing some documents I was handed the keys, which I then gave to the valet outside so he could drive the car 'round for us. We didn't really know what to expect...was it going to be an old banger or something quite swish! Well believe it or not the car was quite swish...we were given a Mazda. It was a 20 minute ride back to our hotel...or so we thought. We kinda got lost on our way back and ended up going the wrong way on the freeway. We happened to pass a wallmart on our detour, so we stopped to stock up on food for Miami. We bought two packs of 5 pittas and actually debated how many we would get each...it took us about two minutes to realise what idiots we were being. Can't believe we had that discussion. Then it was back on the road. We eventually got back to the days Inn to pack up the car and begin our road trip. Woop!! I think I'd got the hang of this driving malarky by this time...I think that is! Eeek!!! Well off we went!

The tunes were playing, the sunnies were on and we began our 4 hour journey to the land of Dexter.  It went a bit wrong at the start...we took the wrong exit and ended up having to go through three tolls to get back on the right road. But we did it with no fuss and all that was left was miles and miles of freeway. The irritating voice of Bonnie on the radio made us want our own music playing.  We luckily had a built in bluetooth system which we called Marge who assisted us in connecting our phone. It took us a little while but good ol' Marge got us up and running.  Song choice? It had to be  'Miami to Ibiza'...we were almost there the excitement was too
much!!

We finally arrived after a few little detours coming off the freeway but we had made it in one piece. Phew! The parents can now rest haha.  Some great directing skills and good driving...we made a great team haha.  We unloaded the car and checked in to 'the Santa Barbara hostel,hotel, motel'. We were given the keys and took the baggage to our room...or should I say cupboard! It would be a tiny room with just a single bed in there so imagine the size of the room  when it has four bunks crammed in. You could barely move with just me and Liz in there and we hadn't met our flat mates yet. 8 people in there??  we would literally be like huddled penguins in the winter. Thank god none of them were fatties or there would have been some difficulties. The place doesn't even live up to the standards of a dogs kennel. It should be called 'the Santa Barbara s***hole'. I wouldn't even let my dog live there but we had no choice...we had to brave it and live there for the next four days. Eeeek!!

We drove our car back to the airport to then get the bus back to our beautiful accommodation where it was almost time to have a reunion with the lovely kiwi firemen. Mmmm! Haha. After getting ready we took a stroll to meet them. They took a while to find us so we pretty much looked like hookers on the corner of the street...thanks guys hehe. They eventually found us and we went for some pre jägerbomb sessions, which I failed at yet again.

Apparently they had all read my last blog post. I  was slightly embarrassed about mentioning their nice arms, (which they loved)Ah  well I'm just stating the truth. We also
watched sheenroast... Never seen it before.  It's just basically a bunch of celebs ripping into eachother mainly Charlie sheen...it was friking hilarious.  Recommend youtubing it guys. Well A few jagers later we needed to get out of there we were losing the party spirit. We got some amazing free ice cream samples before hitting one of the clubs.  

The first club was shocking, for starters it was a $20 entry fee which one of the guys kindly paid for us...and inside was a load of creepy bur very rich old men. I ordered both me and Liz a drink and the barmaid said 'that'll be $23 please.' 23 dollars!!! Pricey! Well shed made the drinks so I had no option but to pay. As I handed the cash a guy pulled my arm down and shook his head. He then passes me his credit card and said 'here you go, pay with this.' I was in a bit of shock, who just gives someone their credit card? I looked at the barmaid and she just said 'you might as well.' so that's what I did. Haha. Thanks creepy old man.

After that drink we left, it wasn't our kinda place. We walked a few blocks to try and find another bar but we failed. We got pretty tired and thought we'd call it a night. The guys were pretty gutted that the night was a let down...was awesome to catch up with them again though.

Back to the s***tip we went. I got in to bed only to see that I was sharing it with someone...well some creatures. My bed was full of little ants...great i was going to have ants in my pants the next morning. Nightmare!

Half way through the night we were
woken by a strange guy who had been smoothing liz's head and then came over to talk to me. He was paralytically drunk. The girls went and got the receptionist as we didn't even know if he was supposed to be in our room. Creepy dude man seriously!! Who does that?

Morning came it was time for a day at the beach. We got up and changed for Liz to open the door to a massive rain storm! Can't believe it! So much for going to the bloody beach to sunbathe! It soon passed so it was all good.

We hit Miami beach for a relaxing day in the sun. This put Miami back in our good books.  The sea is beautiful...really warm and you can see right through it...but we spotted some jellyfish so we weren't in there long.  We didn't want to be stung and have to pee on ourselves. Ewwww!

A couple of hours passed and we decided to take a stroll down to Lincoln street. We did some window shopping and then stopped for a drink in this place called Enso. Liz ordered a strawberry smoothie. Can you believe it cost her $15. $15 for a smoothie and a non alcoholic at that! Thats just as bad as our $15 salad. Crazy, this place is expensive especially if you are trying to be healthy!

It was time to head back to do a bit of catching up with home. We facetimed the girlies, Soph and goon first. Was awesome to see them and catch up on the latest goss. Loved it! Then we went on to Skype the lovely Daniel and Jay dawg...
awesome to have a catch up with them. Wish they were all here partying with us in Miami...along with the rest of the girls an Contiki.

Time to get ready for what hopefully was going to be a better night.  Our room mate NO...el as he introduced himself. He reminded me of a cross between the prisoner in the green mile and Lenny from of mice and men. He was going to join us out. We all had a few pre drinks in the room. We talked about dexter, keeping up with the miami theme. He has no clue who or what Dexter was.  How can you not know? He's a legend and the best serial killer in the world.

We joined some people outside for a few drinks and to  play some cards. A cool bunch of guys from England introduced themselves and they showed us some great clubs to hit.

We got to the first place to find that Liz had just brought her passport cover and left the passport in the room. So we ran all the way back to get it. When we got back to the club the guys were actually leaving to go to Cameo nightclub. It was awesome in there but again soooo expensive. Liz went to get the drinks this time...$36 for two drinks!!! What the hell??? No guy with a credit card came to the rescue this time, so we paid it. We Partied the rest of the night in there. Me and Liz had our first falling out but made up the next morning before our biggest disaster of the trip

Liz had left to go and pick up Amtrak tickets on her own, I joined her a bit later. My bus ride was entertaining to say the least. Firstly I was the only White person on the bus...3 girls got on all dressed like tarts, one practically had her gigantic boobs on show to the world.  You could just tell that they were trouble if you got on the wrong side of them. I made it my task to not make any eye contact the whole way.

The majority of the journey I was on my phone trying to get hold of STA  It was a bit if a disaster actually... there was no recollection of a reservation for us in the system. We had paid StA but STA hadn't notified amtrak of our payment or even that we had a booking. We must have been there for at least 6 hours (including bus journeys) and still didn't have our tickets. the only thing we could do was wait until the following day for StA to sort it out or pay for the Amtrak again and hope StA would refund us. We weren't going to pay AGAIN...so all we could do is wait. We had wasted a day in the stunning Miami because of STA travel! Grrrr! We were not happy!

After another long bus journey we were back to make some of our yummy pasta before going for some Internet time. We ended up looking through all our old photos...omg did I really use to look like that?? What the hell was I thinking! Some major fashion crisis's and terrible hair do's. Yuck! Haha.

It was time for us to get ready for another night out. We had 3 new flat mates, 3 hotties from Serbia. Haha this place has some advantages. They were pretty cool guys. They joined us outside for some drinking games. They couldn't seem to grasp the concept of any game. They just kept drinking on everyone's go. Ah well the aim of a drinking game is to get drunk and that's what they were doing so they got that part right I suppose. The Brits joined us again as we headed out to Mansion.

Not sure this was the best of our ideas but an absolutely minted guy we had previously met drove passed and offered us a ride in his wait for it...Bentley. It was quite a few blocks down so we accepted. On arrival he tipped the bouncer $50 for me and Liz to skip the mile long queue...score!! Haha.

In we went to one of the top clubs in Miami.  Awesome club, awesome atmosphere it was just buzzing. We definitely found Miamis party place. We met the Brits,who remind us sooo much of JLS, again and partied the night away with them.  1am, 2am...3am hit and we left to get some of the most amazing pizza I have ever tasted...oh yeah pizza yeah!!! Just for you Al. Haha. We were fatties again.

I Went for a long walk on the beach with one of the british guys we met after the night ended. Chatted for hours before we knew it it was 5am. The wind had picked up and the beach was really dark and foggy and then came the rain... A storm was brewing which meant it was a sign of bedtime.

So much for sorting out Amtrak the next morning.  We decided to ditch it  and book a car for a month....Road trip...yeah buddy! They upgraded our car for us instantly and we were given a £50,000 chevriolet! What the hell! I was scared... We were riding in luxury haha.

We went to visit Bay harbour in our new ride. The land of the bay harbour butcher, my favourite serial killer...Dexter Morgan. It was amazing....loads if cute little stores and bars. Wish we had one of our nights out here. It's was beautiful.

A chilled evening that evening. We went out for a grown up meal at a lovely Italian restaurant. I got the red snapper. It was amazing. A proper candlelit dinner haha. We had a few lovely cocktails whilst eyeing up the sexy waiter. He was perfection with a capital P. Some random guy came up to us whilst we were sat down asking us to join him and a friend for drinks, we politely declined...he was old and mingin. The bill came... $98 some expensive food right there but so gooooood!!!

We found an Irish bar where we went next...a mexican man bought us our drinks and we got offered VIP at another club by a guy we met in there. We planned for an early night so we avoided him and left.

On our way to a Shisha bar we bumped into Izzy, a boy we met at our hotel. We spent the evening with him doing some Raspberry Shisha or hookah as they call it over here. It was awesome just to chill and chat. I felt so grown up. It was a nice way to end our time at Miami. I love this city and everything about it.

Morning is upon us and its almost time for us to hit the road and begin our road trip of America. Driving in the USA woooo! With my driving skills and liz's sense of direction we will be fine. Haha.

All that's left to say about this place is.... I love Miami b****!!

Muchos love

J.L xxxx