Day 2 - Mother's Day in Miami
So, our restless day of flights and fights gave way to the best night of sleep any of us, including Alyssa, has had in a long time. Alyssa stirred around 6am, but promptly went back to sleep. So did Jule and I. I finally crawled out of bed at 8am and let the ladies sleep for at least another 30-40 minutes before Alyssa had really had enough sleep and stood up asking "Ball??"
(The kid doesn't miss a beat, I swear)
So, we grabbed a light breakfast at the store/deli at our hotel, and kinda just sorta kicked it until about 10am in our hotel room. Alyssa enjoying Mickey Mouse cartoons while I read the paper and Jule relaxed.
So, the Miami Herald is a newspaper with a bonafide sports section. WOW, what a shame the Sac Bee really is. This Sports page was like 15 pages long, had in depth articles not just of the Miami Heat series vs. NJ, but also all the other NBA series. It had tons of NFL news, including some stuff about the Dolphins. It had tons of local college coverage. Great detail about the tennis circuits, golf circuits, autoracing, Jai Alai, high school sports, baseball, and of course, two pages on soccer!! Oh how great it is to read a sports page that recognizes that other counties have sports leagues too that we might care about.
So, I see Liverpool beat West Ham in the FA Cup final, 3-1 on penalties after a 3-3 game that apparently Liverpool came back from a big deficit to tie. Too bad I missed it, but hopefully I can find a TV to catch the Champions League final on Wednesday. Who plays Jai Alai??
The only thing I know about Jai Alai is this - Tron kicked a$$ at it, and Johnny Knoxville had some Jai Alaiers throw oranges at him during one of his stunts.
Is is "Ji A-Lie" or "Hi - A-Lie" ?
SO we got dressed and headed out to the Bayside Market - a bunch of shops and restaurants and such along Miami's harbor and next to the American Airlines Arena, home of the Miami Heat - and Bongo's - Gloria Esefan's club - more on her later...
It was a neat experience, we had Cuban food for lunch, good sandwiches and other stuff, and enjoyed walking around the outdoor shopping mall. At one point I was up on a vantage point over looking the harbor when I hear this lady say something about the Dolphins. No, Dan Marino did not appear, but a pod of 5 bottle nosed Dolphins (aka Flipper) started popping up all over the place in the harbor. They were apparently feasting on pompano, a fish that is spawning right now.
Anyhow, I tried to get a good photo, but my luck was not to be.
Upon our arrival at this mall, Jule made note of the Pirate Adventure Ship, available for harbor tours at $20 a person. This p.o.s boat, twisted sheet metal to make it look pirate like, looked so sad that it gave a good chuckle. Little did we know that, like Gloria Estefan, the Pirate Ship would come back into our lives. But, that is later....
We stumbled around for a bit and eventually made our way back to the hotel because Alyssa appeared read for a nap. Of course, the minute we walked back into the room... "BALL?" meaning it was playtime. SO we took her to the pool... along with her big inflated turtle that she can ride along in, complete with turtle shell canopy for sun shade needs.
Well the turtle became quite the attention getter. See, our hotel is also part of a condo complex - so residents can also use the pool. Imagine us coming out of the elevators with Turtle in tow as all these 20 year old rocket bodies (men and women) give us the "what on earth just showed up" stare.
Anyhow, not that we have any shame, we plunk into the pool and an afternoon breeze swept up and took Mr. Turtle for a high speed jaunt across the pool. See the sun shade shell accessory became a full on sail and Mr. Turtle was headed for distant shores. Appologizing my way to rescue the turtle, I notice the pool became suddenly less crowded. Was it me or the turtle?
So we splished and splashed for a while. Some lady went topless, but sadly you couldn't really tell she was a lady other than the fact that her bikini floss string up her culo gave it away.
So, we swam and wore ourselves out and all returned for a good nap. Alyssa's went nearly 2 hours - while I got some Seinfeld viewing in on the DVD player and Jule read through magazines.
Without a clear plan, we ended up heading back to Bayside for food and ended up on a cruise the harbor ship. It was pretty fun, and they took us past all of these famous homes.
We saw the house from Scarface, and then the real Al Capone house. We saw homes from Hollywood's past greats and a bunch of Spanish TV people that we did not know, but the rest of the boat all went "OHHH! El Bobo!!" or "Ahh, Maria! Si!" (Lots of Cubans here)
But we ddid see the homes of: Shaq, complete with a mini Shaq along the waterfront, Sly Stone next door, Rosie O'Donnel, Vanilla Ice's old place, Puff Daddy's place, Al Pacino's place, some place Usher rented, Julio Iglesia's place, and finally, Shakira's place and Gloria Estefan's place - which of course caused a mini celebration amongst our latino amigos on board the boat.
We got to see a lot of the Miami area on this tour, and then there she was. J ust off the starboard, you could not mistake her for anything else.... the PIRATE BOAT approached - going like a bat out of hell. Jule and I nearly pee'd we were laughing so hard. As the Pirate boat approached, the people on board did not look very comfortable with the accomodations they had paid for. Classic scene.
After the boat, Alyssa rode the merri-go-round one last time (earlier she rode that and the mini train) before we came back here to the hotel.
So, one more night in Miami and then we board the Majesty of the Seas. So far nothing too funny. Although that broken down hunk of junk Pirate Ship going like crazy across the water with the people on board looking rather uneasy was a site.
low 90s here, and not too humid. Nice evening breeze. I hear its warm back in Sacto.
Must get back to the room. Hope to write again soon.
Happy Mother's Day mom.
So, our restless day of flights and fights gave way to the best night of sleep any of us, including Alyssa, has had in a long time. Alyssa stirred around 6am, but promptly went back to sleep. So did Jule and I. I finally crawled out of bed at 8am and let the ladies sleep for at least another 30-40 minutes before Alyssa had really had enough sleep and stood up asking "Ball??"
(The kid doesn't miss a beat, I swear)
So, we grabbed a light breakfast at the store/deli at our hotel, and kinda just sorta kicked it until about 10am in our hotel room. Alyssa enjoying Mickey Mouse cartoons while I read the paper and Jule relaxed.
So, the Miami Herald is a newspaper with a bonafide sports section. WOW, what a shame the Sac Bee really is. This Sports page was like 15 pages long, had in depth articles not just of the Miami Heat series vs. NJ, but also all the other NBA series. It had tons of NFL news, including some stuff about the Dolphins. It had tons of local college coverage. Great detail about the tennis circuits, golf circuits, autoracing, Jai Alai, high school sports, baseball, and of course, two pages on soccer!! Oh how great it is to read a sports page that recognizes that other counties have sports leagues too that we might care about.
So, I see Liverpool beat West Ham in the FA Cup final, 3-1 on penalties after a 3-3 game that apparently Liverpool came back from a big deficit to tie. Too bad I missed it, but hopefully I can find a TV to catch the Champions League final on Wednesday. Who plays Jai Alai??
The only thing I know about Jai Alai is this - Tron kicked a$$ at it, and Johnny Knoxville had some Jai Alaiers throw oranges at him during one of his stunts.
Is is "Ji A-Lie" or "Hi - A-Lie" ?
SO we got dressed and headed out to the Bayside Market - a bunch of shops and restaurants and such along Miami's harbor and next to the American Airlines Arena, home of the Miami Heat - and Bongo's - Gloria Esefan's club - more on her later...
It was a neat experience, we had Cuban food for lunch, good sandwiches and other stuff, and enjoyed walking around the outdoor shopping mall. At one point I was up on a vantage point over looking the harbor when I hear this lady say something about the Dolphins. No, Dan Marino did not appear, but a pod of 5 bottle nosed Dolphins (aka Flipper) started popping up all over the place in the harbor. They were apparently feasting on pompano, a fish that is spawning right now.
Anyhow, I tried to get a good photo, but my luck was not to be.
Upon our arrival at this mall, Jule made note of the Pirate Adventure Ship, available for harbor tours at $20 a person. This p.o.s boat, twisted sheet metal to make it look pirate like, looked so sad that it gave a good chuckle. Little did we know that, like Gloria Estefan, the Pirate Ship would come back into our lives. But, that is later....
We stumbled around for a bit and eventually made our way back to the hotel because Alyssa appeared read for a nap. Of course, the minute we walked back into the room... "BALL?" meaning it was playtime. SO we took her to the pool... along with her big inflated turtle that she can ride along in, complete with turtle shell canopy for sun shade needs.
Well the turtle became quite the attention getter. See, our hotel is also part of a condo complex - so residents can also use the pool. Imagine us coming out of the elevators with Turtle in tow as all these 20 year old rocket bodies (men and women) give us the "what on earth just showed up" stare.
Anyhow, not that we have any shame, we plunk into the pool and an afternoon breeze swept up and took Mr. Turtle for a high speed jaunt across the pool. See the sun shade shell accessory became a full on sail and Mr. Turtle was headed for distant shores. Appologizing my way to rescue the turtle, I notice the pool became suddenly less crowded. Was it me or the turtle?
So we splished and splashed for a while. Some lady went topless, but sadly you couldn't really tell she was a lady other than the fact that her bikini floss string up her culo gave it away.
So, we swam and wore ourselves out and all returned for a good nap. Alyssa's went nearly 2 hours - while I got some Seinfeld viewing in on the DVD player and Jule read through magazines.
Without a clear plan, we ended up heading back to Bayside for food and ended up on a cruise the harbor ship. It was pretty fun, and they took us past all of these famous homes.
We saw the house from Scarface, and then the real Al Capone house. We saw homes from Hollywood's past greats and a bunch of Spanish TV people that we did not know, but the rest of the boat all went "OHHH! El Bobo!!" or "Ahh, Maria! Si!" (Lots of Cubans here)
But we ddid see the homes of: Shaq, complete with a mini Shaq along the waterfront, Sly Stone next door, Rosie O'Donnel, Vanilla Ice's old place, Puff Daddy's place, Al Pacino's place, some place Usher rented, Julio Iglesia's place, and finally, Shakira's place and Gloria Estefan's place - which of course caused a mini celebration amongst our latino amigos on board the boat.
We got to see a lot of the Miami area on this tour, and then there she was. J ust off the starboard, you could not mistake her for anything else.... the PIRATE BOAT approached - going like a bat out of hell. Jule and I nearly pee'd we were laughing so hard. As the Pirate boat approached, the people on board did not look very comfortable with the accomodations they had paid for. Classic scene.
After the boat, Alyssa rode the merri-go-round one last time (earlier she rode that and the mini train) before we came back here to the hotel.
So, one more night in Miami and then we board the Majesty of the Seas. So far nothing too funny. Although that broken down hunk of junk Pirate Ship going like crazy across the water with the people on board looking rather uneasy was a site.
low 90s here, and not too humid. Nice evening breeze. I hear its warm back in Sacto.
Must get back to the room. Hope to write again soon.
Happy Mother's Day mom.
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