First Full Day in Miami

1/3/08, Miami Beach

We woke up in time to make the 9:00 a.m. deadline for free breakfast!  I love this place!  We brought the food back to our room and enjoyed a hot breakfast of sausage patties, scrambled eggs, potatoes, along with different juices.  Afterwards, we drove to Miami Beach to pick up our Go Cards from the Visitors Bureau.  We met this helpful gentleman who gave us some hints on where to go, how to go about grouping the sites, and made comments on a couple of maps that we took with us.  Go Cards are prepaid cards that allows us free admission to a number of attractions.  If we wanted to, we could go to the sites daily.

The first thing we did was to take the Duck Tour.  We rode a tour bus that was able to go into water.  The tour guide and driver entertained us with jokes and songs while telling us about the history of Miami and South Beach.  In the middle of the tour, it plunged into Biscayne Bay.  While floating on water, we learned about the homes of the rich and famous, including Gloria Estefan and Shaquille O’Neal.  The tour took us to the Art Deco district and South Beach restaurants, including the one where Versace had his last meal before getting shot and killed – we also saw the mansion where he was shot.  After the tour ended, we went on an eating binge now that our stomachs were empty.  We decided to order one item at each restaurant and share so that we could try different foods.  First we went to Groovy Pizza where the pizza was $4, but it was huge and extremely good.  Then we went to Wings, where they had chicken wings with over 25 sauces.   It was really yummy but quite expensive for wings… I can’t remember how many we got, but I think it was something like 6 wings for $7.50!  We walked along South Beach and came across another restaurant that I read about, San Loco Tacqueria.  It was a typical tacqueria, but their burritos were small and expensive, nothing like what I expected.   Because we got a pretty good feel for Miami Beach from the Duck Tour, we walked around until about 5:30 on our own.  We took some photos at the Beach with the wind blowing in our hair… we were probably the only tourist on the beach!

 

Daniel had to buy a cord in order to charge his camera (vacationing is different in 2008 with all the electronics involved!), so we used the portable GPS we borrowed from friends to find the nearest Office Depot.  They didn’t have any but suggested Radio Shack, and the GPS guided us back to Miami Beach for the nearest Radio Shack… who knew?!  Afterwards we drove back to the hotel for… what else?  Dinner.  They served a green salad, chili, and cheeseburgers!  I love this place!  We utilized their workout center afterwards for about an hour, used their free internet in the lobby just to check emails, and then called it a night.