New Years in Miami

Omar had some last minute jobs on Friday December 30 while I packed for our 2 week adventure. We then drove down to Miami with a stop in Daytona Beach for lunch to use a Groupon that we had. Erica and Jeff Foster were our hosts until we were to board our ship on New Year's Day.

We got there about dinner time and we went to Coconut Grove walked around and ate at Jaguar. We had a delicious meal. We went back to their town home later that evening, watched a movie and Erica and I stayed up until 2 AM talking. That was really late for me, but I guess Erica stays up usually until at least 4 AM. 

The next day we did a ton of stuff which was surprising since we didn't get started until about 11 AM. Jeff made us his family secret recipe Sausage Balls for breakfast. Erica and I got pedicures at the best place she has been able to find so far in Miami. I must say it was very disappointing service. It was like a speed pedicure, they spent maybe 20 minutes for the whole thing and the guy who did mine wouldn't even look at me no less speak to me. 

I did a New Years Eve Glitter Gold

We went to this crazy parade to celebrate New Year's called the "King Mango Strut". Occupy was part of it as well. We really didn't get a lot of what people were talking about as part of their protests shown below.

They are talking about Steve Jobs

Omar of course loved this one

We ate at Versailles for a late lunch, famous for their Cuban food and got some treats at their bakery after. 

We went over to Coral Gables and looked around at the homes and took pictures as well as went to the special Venetian pool. It was closed, but it was beautiful and I would love to go in it when it is open in the Spring. 

A police officer drove up to us and we thought we were going to get in trouble or something. He then asked if we wanted him to take a picture of us. We were like sure, thanks. He then said impatiently, "well give me the camera so I'm not late for work." This was the picture he took

I had no idea that there was a Biltmore hotel in Miami. Actually Miami was really built around the hotel itself. It was very impressive. There was a Jewish Wedding going on and there was some really cool ideas that they had. 

they used these keys for the guests to pick up to know what table they were sitting at

There were 15 floors and we wanted to see what was on it. We went to the first elevator and walked in with this other kid. He pressed floor 13 and we pressed 15. The kid, probably about 16 years old. Just looked over at us with a look like he had to go #2 really bad. Later we realized he was probably just confused with us going up to floor 15. He got out and it was a little hallway and only one door where he had to put his card key in door to open up to his room. Floor 13 was his whole floor! 

We continued up and floor 15 opened and there were pictures like in a museum on the walls opening up into a hallway but there wasn't a card key entry that we saw so we exited. Omar went first down the hallway with me following and before all of us could get out of the elevator he whispered get back in the elevator. We rush back into the elevator and he was like it was the bedroom and a lady was sitting at a table drinking tea. It was all just pure luck that we even got up to that level. There is only one elevator that goes there and you have to have a key card to open the elevator, which we happened to be there at the same time someone was accessing it. The 15th floor also has a door once you get off the elevator but the person there left it open so we were able to go straight into their room! We had to laugh at the whole thing. 

After the Biltmore we went back home to sleep for an hour before the long New Years Eve celebration. After some convincing to Erica we took the train to downtown park for NY's Eve Celebration. There was a sing-off competition between Ludacris and Mike Posner. I had never heard of Mike Posner before. There was food, and the countdown with fireworks over the water. We had a nice time

Taking the train was a good choice due to traffic. Even with going to the train during the fireworks and not waiting for it to end we didn't get back to the house until after 1:30 AM. If we had drove it would have been probably close to 3 AM.