Second day in Miami

Second day began pretty much like the first, except today instead of walking to get coffee, I'd found out how to get free coffee in the lobby, so I drank that and then instead of walking or trying to rent a bicycle, I went for a swim. Normally, if there are bicycles available I'm on one, and if there aren't I'm out on a walk. But here, I have the unusual option of going for a swim in the open water. And this isn't cold lake water with a gooey bottom- this is the beach and salty water.

I'm not sure why there are no waves here; we seem to be facing straight east out into the Atlantic, but I'm not complaining. I love to body surf, but I rarely have the opportunity to go out into calm salt water and swim for a distance without fighting surf. This morning I did exactly that- I went out to the beach and swam about 1/3 mile in the ocean. It was fun. Very salty, but fun. I saw lots of fish, and got to experience swimming with and against a current (and I'll tell you, those math word problems are right, it is slower swimming against the current). So at this point it's to hell with the bike. I can ride at home anytime.

After my swim, we went and had breakfast. Unlike most hotels, this one is too fancy schmancy for a coffee shop, so you can get (and pay for) a cup of coffee in a bar or go to the main restaurant. I should note that, next to making you pay for internet access, not providing morning coffee is the second most annoying thing a hotel can do. But if you promise the host at the restaurant that you will come back later for breakfast, they will give you a cup of coffee to take out.

Breakfast in the main restaurant can be had indoors or out. They are vastly different experiences. Indoor is sedate and like eating anywhere else. Outside is like a nature show. You have at least 4 different kinds of birds and a couple of large lizards competing for leftovers. Of course, being birds and lizards, they spend almost as time time trying to drive each other off as they do eating. and then back to the beach. Our favorite thing was watching the birds at the sweetener basket. They never touched the Equal, or whatever is in the blue packets, but would pick up any pink Sweet 'n Low packets sitting on the counter, drop them in the basket, pick up a sugar packet, and fly away.

It was nicer out today than yesterday, and I stayed out in the sun a bit too long as a result. No biggie. At this point, I have an intense biker tan, which is like a farmer tan without the manure and with very tanned knees. So parts of my body are extremely tan and pretty resistant to the sun. The other parts aren't pasty, but they're definitely and obviously much lighter. If I can keep from burning my feet, though, I think I'm ahead of the game.

This hotel is full of employees around, saying hi, how are you today. I'm never sure how to respond to this stuff. Do I just say 'hi' and skulk away, or do I strike up a conversation by responding in kind. That would have to potential to make it take forever to get anywhere. It's complicated by the fact that while most of the people who work here can speak English, few of them understand it. They can ask you all kinds of basic questions, but if you answer in any kind of unexpected way, they're completely lost. That's not good news for me. I really don't know any Spanish at all.

After lunch, which we ate outside in spite of an occasional puff of cigar smoke from a nearby group, we hung in the room for a while until it was time to go into Coconut Grove for dinner. Coconut Grove is a little enclave about 20 minutes south of Miami proper, and so is about the same distance from us as Miami Beach. It's a cute mix of funky and mainstream, with a 3 story mall of sorts right smack in the middle. There's a movie theater there, so we went and watched a nice little movie called Enough Said by a writer director, Nicole Holofcener, we had met at a beach resort 20 years ago and who has put out several excellent movies over the years.

After an enjoyable movie, we ate at a place called Green Street Cafe, which is not on Green Street, but who's keeping track of that kind of thing anyway? Food was good,  though they had too many fans and it was very windy. But all in all it was an excellent day.