Miami (Ad)Vice

I just returned from Miami, which apparently is Spanish for North Cuba. When you go, you should learn Spanish and drive a really expensive car, and you’ll fit in wonderfully... I am genuinely surprised I didn’t have to clear Customs to get back into Nashville. On to the highlights…

Homeless folks in Miami don’t sell newspapers. They do carry around giant paper cups. As a gentleman walked in front of our rental car last night, the greasy rich guy in his convertible coupe next to us did something that I can’t quite come up with an appropriate adjective for. As we pulled up to the red light, he was already stopped, top down, dog riding shotgun. As the paper cup headed his way, the guy rolled up the passenger window… on his tiny convertible… with the top down. This action achieved his desired result I guess, and he followed it up by shooting a sly smile towards our car. It was just weird.

You know who wouldn’t have stood for such an act? The nun we met down there. “Sister” was chosen to give us the tour of the catholic facility we were working in. As she led us around, we caught her fiddling around on her iPhone. Someone thought aloud, “I didn’t know the sisters were so well connected.” Her response? “It’s going to take me a while to get used to it. I really miss my Blackberry.”

To emphasize the size of the room we were in, Sister exclaimed, “You have to think about how many Hispanics it takes to take someone to the hospital… It’s at least twelve.” As we moved on to the psych area, “I’ve already reserved my room here.” All jokes aside, Sister closed out our tour by lighting us up with a 20 minute sermon on the Good Samaritan. Then she offered us mints, but we had to take 3 in honor of the Trinity. Sister exclaimed that some people try to take 4 for the gospels. One of our group replied, what about the 12 apostles?

While I did not experience a hurricane in Miami this week, I did, a la LeBron, take my palette to South Beach. I ate ceviche for the second time in my life. To sum up that experience, it’s like sushi – after mama bird chews it up first. I also consumed half a shot of Cuban coffee. I don’t like American coffee. I also don’t like Cuban coffee. Good news is that Cuban coffee comes in a communion cup, so there’s less to dislike. The final of my unique eating experiences was dinner Wednesday night. We worked late and were all tired, so we decided to stop at Fresh Market to pick up some dinner. Turns out, it takes 45 minutes to get a $23 dinner at a fancy grocery store. Then you have to heat it up in your hotel microwave that was in its prime when Johnny Carson was still on TV. I turned the knob to 15 seconds, walked away, and returned a minute later to find the plastic container melted and the knob on 15 seconds.

Overall, a fairly uneventful trip. However, I did have a revelation in the airport that I will share with you next time.