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This whole Miami vacation should have been a four part entry, but since I was procrastinating on writing about it (I guess I was too busy talking about it), it is only going to be a two part entry. My bad. Anyway, here goes …

[BET Spring Bling '06]

As many know, the infamous BET Spring Bling was going on while I was in Miami. This was not a factor in me booking the Miami trip, but it was definitely a nice bonus, well, at least I thought. As soon as I got word that BET was hosting their event just a few miles from where I would be, I figured I would make it a point to make my appearance and attempt to win a temporary spot on BET and stalk Christina Milian for a day or two (what can I say? I have a slight crush/crazy infatuation).

The event was scheduled to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Being the type that I am, and the fact that I was busy doing other Miami related … uhh … things, I skipped the Friday event and tried to make the Saturday show. I could drag this story on, but I will just let you know now that I never made it … sort of.

We attempted to go to the show on Saturday, driving a good 20 minutes and walking a good two to three miles (there was THAT many people there) on the beach just to get to the event location, only to find out that the event was full. Full! What? How does an outside free to the public held on a beach event slash concert get full? I will tell you. Apparently BET only felt it was necessary to let roughly 2,000 people into the event (at least that is what folks outside the event who had stood in line since about 8am only to get turned away were saying). And judging from the size of the area on the beach they had blocked-off, I would say that 2,000 was a pretty accurate estimate of the amount of folks inside the event. Whack!!!

Now I cannot complain too much, as the event started at 10am (or something like that), and we did not show up until about 2pm (what can I say, we were busy), but having nationally advertised free concert/event that only holds roughly 2,000 people seems .. well .. for lack of a better word .. stupid. I have been to local concerts/events that are held inside or outside that are designed to hold 10,000 to 20,000 people. So my thought would be that a nationally advertised event should hold at minimum 100,000 people. Especially since the host of the event (a television station), has the money, resources, etc. to have the appropriate security.

In the end, after hearing the many horror stories from several folks, we opted to not even try to attend on Sunday and instead went to the oh-so-fabulous South Beach. It was definitely a better choice.

[South Beach]
One word describes South Beach. Amazing! I think the only bad thing you could say about South Beach is that living down there is incredibly expensive. I looked into getting a hotel on or near the beach, and they were all above $300/night (hence the reason why we stayed in Hialeah, FL.

Another beautiful aspect of South Beach is the women. Out of all the places I have been, I think South Beach houses some of the most amazing looking women. And they all speak Spanish, since English is a second language down there, which gives them all some serious cool-points. Foreign languages =

[Night Life]
Unfortunately I really cannot say too much about this part, as I spent the majority of my time walking around outside and jumping from restaurant to restaurant to give my poor toes a rest. We were going to try to get into some of the major clubs, but we were never in the mood to stand in-line or pay the premiums necessary to skip the line and get into the club. So in the end if a club had a line longer than 5min, we just skipped it and moved onto the next place.

So the clubs we ended up visiting were clubs that were out recruiting people to come into their club. Now, when it comes to clubs, there is generally a rule. And that rule is, if clubs are outside recruiting people to come in, then there is probably not that many people inside, making the club at best simply OK. And sure enough, the two clubs I went to while in Miami were OK at the peak moments. Ah well.

Another note about the clubs is that they all stay open until roughly 5am. For my Seattle people, who are used to clubs closing at 1:30am, I know that seems absurd, but it is fact. Clubs do stay open that late, and they do stay full until they close. It is a beautiful thing.