„Bienvenido a Miami“ – who doesn’t know this song? Cuban flair meets American Way of Life.
Really looking forward to it, we started early and discovered ‘Coconut Grove Village’ first. The former shopping area is now a beautiful place with cafés, cinemas and boutiques. I particularly liked the ‘Coco Walk’.
We continued to Little Havana (Calle Ocho). My touristy expectations were quite fulfilled 😀 Old Cubans playing Domino in Maximo Gomez Park – just as I imagined 😉
Or just chillaxing. This guy didn’t take his cigar out of his mouth in 10 minutes. Doing it pro style 😀
And he wanted to take a picture with me – not vice versa. But of course I don’t say no! 😉 (And yes, I bought this T-Shirt the day before :D)
Fun fact: For a quick snack we entered McDonalds. Everyone speaks Spanish here, so I wanted to show off with my Spanish skills. Didn’t work out. I just didn’t understand them. On our trip to Cuba later I realized why: ‚Los cubanos comen el S‘ – ‘The Cubans eat the S‘ That explains a lot 😉
There’s not more to see in Calle Ocho, so we drove to Miami downtown. We parked our car and took the skytrain to Bayside.
First we were fascinated by the view from Bayside Park to the skyscrapers.
What was next? Of course Bayside Marketplace. The mall is located just at the bay.
Here you can go shopping, having dinner or just enjoy the view. We were just in two of the malls, but in both we had the feeling, that mostly rich latinos spent (or wasted) their money here. But very interesting, though.
Taking the skytrain back to our car, we continued to Miami Beach, where our hostel was located. The highway was crowded, but as noticed before, that’s not too bad in Florida, as you can always enjoy a nice view. Even a traffic jam seems more relaxed that at home (OK, we don’t have to work here, that’s maybe why 😉 )
