The following takes place between 05:30hrs 2/5/11 and 06:00hrs 07/5/11:

Day 1:

Awoke at 05:30AM, but it didn’t matter as today we were going to Miami (we being me and my trusty sidekick R).  We jumped in L’s A-Team van at approximately 6:30AM and headed to Heathrow.  Nothing of any note happened at the airport, but my mild concern at potentially spending 10hrs on a plane was replaced by the excitement of 10 days in Miami and New Orleans.  Excitement was in the air.

We took off!  Within 5 mins of take off I had the woman in fronts chair in my face, this was most unwanted.  9hrs and 55 mins of the woman in fronts chair in my face wasn’t good, plus there was minimal leg room.  I don’t know why it is but I can never bring myself to lower my chair back on a plane.  I feel like I’d be invading the person behinds personal space, I don’t like it when it happens to me, so I never do it to anyone else, thus I spend all my flights sitting bolt upright.

I put the TV on.  There was a film just starting, it was a film about a plane that took off in London and had to make it’s way to Miami.  It was a fascinating film although to be honest it was a little slow in places.  I watched it for a couple of hours but began to get a little bored, so decided to see what else was on.  I decided to watch the film ‘The Green Hornet’.  This was not a great film, mediocre at best, the best thing about it was Cameron Diaz and she was crimally underused.  I would suggest if you haven’t seen it then don’t bother.

I decided to flick back and see how the plane was doing in the other film, it was doing well and I couldn’t help but feel a strange parallel between the film and my journey, especially as our plane and the plane in the film landed at the same time.  Strange.  Still I love a happy ending.

We landed at 2:15pm US time (7:15pm British time), and believe it or not we were 1 hour early.  Nice one Biggles.   Here we were…Miami baby!  Now all we had to do next was negociate passport control…It actually took longer to get through Passport control than it did to fly there.  I think it’s fair to say US passport officers are some of the scariest people you could ever meet.  Even though I have done nothing wrong ever they still have the ability to make you think you’ve done something wrong.  They put doubt in your mind and make you think that you’re up to no good.  Anyway the English guy at the front of the queue was getting asked all sorts of questions getting all sorts of paperwork out of his bag, it was like he was being questioned by Columbo or the Spanish Inquisition.  R and I began to panic, “What if we are bad people, and we just don’t know it?”.  I had all the documentation for the hotels in my bag, but R didn’t have any paperwork.  What if I get let in the country and he doesn’t?  We decided to approach the officer together, big mistake…”What is your relationship to each other?” He asked me.  “Err just friends, travelling together” I replied.  “Aah, are you friends?  Or are you friends…?” he asked with a funny look in his eye.  As he said this he interlocked his fingers and clenched his hands together.  Ahh bloody hell! 1o hours into our holiday and we had the first gay comment, bloody marvellous (not that there’s anything wrong with that, whatever floats your boat).  Well we tried to laugh it off.  “Just friends” I replied in a very masculine heterosexual voice.  R was told to take his pink suitcase and diamond encrusted Louis Vuitton handbag and get back in the queue. 

Taxi to Miami South Beath please and step on it!  We arrived at our hotel, the wonderful Essex House Hotel (obviously I tried taking photo’s of the sign and covering up the first two letters, hehe!  I managed to get a lampost to cover the first ‘s’ but that just made it the E sex House Hotel which doesn’t quite work.  Oh well, small minds and all that…).  The only way was indeed Essex with this hotel, usually a place this nice would be out of our league, but I guess we bought it in a sale.  Very nice.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Miami uh uh, Southbeach, bringin’ the heat, uh.  Haha! Can y’all feel that?  Can y’all feel that?  Jig it out, uh”.

It had been a long day and we needed a beer, we hit possibly our soon to be most visited bar of the holiday ‘Finnegans Way’.  We had beers and I had a pork sandwich (no gay connotations with that).

Within hours of being there I had been bitten to death by Mosquitos.  I had underestimated the mosquitos.

Day 2:

I got up at 9:30am, the beds here are very comfortable.

We took one of our long aimless walks before breakfast.  The problem is we cannot make a decision on where to eat so walk for miles in the boiling sun, hungry and thirsty just because we can’t make a decision.  No matter where we are in the world we walk aimlessly in search of food.  I had a Chicken burger and Chips for breakfast, when in Rome etc…It was nearly brunch by then.

Today was all about the beach, we needed a bit of beach action.  I needed to turn my superfit white body into a superfit adonis like tanned body.  We needed a plan, we couldn’t just go out there half-cocked so to speak otherwise we’d burn to a crisp.  We decided upon a 1 hr tanning session, 30 mins on the front, 30 mins on the back.  We needed to take it easy.  Of course I applied sun cream, but I’ll admit I’m crap at it.  I miss areas and never get it all on my back, hence after 1 hr, half my back was red, whilst the other half was white.  I looked like an idiot, a tanning disaster.

Anyway whilst lying there on the beach, I remembered a quote from R the night before.  His quote was “I’m not a pervert”.  What made me remember this was that a not unattractive woman had decided to lie on the beach not far from us.  I’d clocked this woman as soon as she got there, but obviously I only glanced at her in short sharp bursts, though as not to raise suspicion.  R however was wearing a new pair of sunglasses that he’d just bought, he was very proud of them.  He bought them in the shop earlier, when asked if they suited him I replied “Yeah, they look good”.  He was after a pair of Aviator shades like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.  There was something wrong with the shades but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, so I let him buy them.  Sadly he looked more Penelope Cruz than Tom Cruise and more Top Shop than Top Gun.  They were womens sunglasses!  Ha!

Nevertheless he wore his womens shades to good effect whilst definitely not ‘perving’ over the woman who was applying sun cream to her norks.  Topless.  I was half expecting him to go over and tell her she had missed a bit and offer to rub the cream in for her.  Fair play to him, she never noticed.  Or maybe she did, maybe she saw the female sunglasses and thought “well that can’t be a milky white British guy perving over me as she’s wearing womens sunglasses, it’s obviously just another woman who appreciates my body, just one woman complementing another woman in a strictly non sexual way with only just a hint of Lesbianism”.  I think I’ve thought about this way too much…

Drinks consumed during the afternoon included Coors, Heineken and an insanely strong Long Island Ice T.

“Bouncin in the club where the heat is on.  All night, on the beach until the break of dawn.  I’m goin to Miami, welcome to Miami”.

The evening consisted of some strong rum based cocktails in the hotel bar, before hitting the ‘Good news Cafe’.  Where the barman Tommy Banana, sorry misread his t-shirt..Tommy Bahama told us “Pimms tastes like Ass”.  I’m not really sure why he told us that as we weren’t drinking Pimms, and if he was trying to sell us some then he really needs to work on his sales pitch.  After this we headed back to our most visited bar ‘Finnegans Way’ for some Pool action.  If there’s one thing me and R are good at on holiday it’s beating foreigners at Pool, admittedly R is the better player.  Mainly because since he was old enough to hold a pool cue he has been playing Pool, even as a small child before he was tall enough to see over a Pool table he could play.  He would sit in his pram and use a complex system of mirrors attached to his cue to be able to see every ball on the table.  Anyway did I ever tell you about the time we took on the entire nation of Australia at pool and won?…That story is for another day.

So, we set up camp on the Pool table, when this time a gang of Cubans decided to try there luck against the Welsh Wizard.  Obviously R didn’t lose a game and the Cubans were defeated.  We were introduced to DonGato of DonGato Productions.  A shifty looking character who got his nickname because the pupils of his eyes were not circular but instead they were rugby ball shaped.  To be honest I’d had a few drinks and I had a hard time understanding what he was banging on about, I got it in the end.  To be honest the Cubans were a nice bunch of people, DonGato even thought R and I were 23 years old!  Sadly R told them the truth “We’re actually 27” he said.  DonGato couldn’t believe it.  Whilst the little Cuban guy and his Argentinian wife invited us to their family party which are legendary apparently.  Sadly we couldn’t make it although I doubt they would’ve remembered who the hell we were if we turned up on their doorstep “Hola! We’re here for the party…You don’t remember us?  Oh dear…Adios!” 

One last pint in Waxy O’connors Irish bar before heading home, I was a little drunk by now but two things were bothering me.

A)  I saw a man wearing shorts that were incredibly long, but should they really be called shorts?  At what point do shorts become longs?

B) Why was I attracting the attentions of not only Mosquitos but now cats?  I guess even they find me irresistable…

Day 3:

Breakfast at the 11th St Diner, Chicken sandwich.  This place was soon to become our favourite eating venue.  The diner is actually a silver railroad car which began life in Pennsyvania but now sits on the corner of 11th St and Washington.

After this we once again aimlessly wandered about but it was too hot, so we headed to the hotel pool to come up with some sort of plan.  Though the pool was small it was very nice and certainly did the job.  Not much else happened today, except watching some football before the evening set in.  We headed to the Good News Cafe, though Tommy Banana wasn’t working, then we stumbled across the Mayame Hotel bar.  It looked cool and sophisticated, right up our alley.  It was me and R all over, this is where we belonged.  It had a tropical beach hut bar in the middle of the hotel garden and there were a few cool looking people sitting at the bar.  “2 for 1 on cocktails ” the bouncer said.  So we were in, we couldn’t turn down the chance to look cool whilst drinking half price cocktails.  We had 3 cocktails each (My cocktail of choice for the evening was Caipirinhas), baring in mind it was 2 for 1 this was going to be cheap…errr not so.  Our bill came to $92 (£60)…Ouch.  It was at this point I rather coincidentally realised I had no money on me.  This forced R to pay on his credit card.  Who knows what happened to the half price cocktails, maybe they were half price and really they are double $92.  We both learnt from this experience, I learnt that it’s alway good to have R and his credit card around and he learnt to check I have money on me.

Day 4:

Today we were moving on to New Orleans for a few days, we bid a fond farewell to the Essex House Hotel and jumped on a flight to NOLA.  We arrived at 11:50am and we were picked up by E and his girlfriend G.  G is a born and bred New orleans resident while E is a Bostonian but spends a lot of time there.

We dropped our stuff off at there house and met there dog Otto.  I must admit he was a cool boxer dog, I’m  not sure how happy he was at the thought of spending the next 3 nights sharing his room with us. 

We took the streetcar (tram) into the downtown area for a good look around the city.  Our first stop for food in the city was a daunting experience as New Orleans is well known for having a big seafood scene, in fact I’ve never seen such a diverse selection of foods in restaurants, all kinds of bizaare meats and seafood.  Anyway Oysters are a speciality and we were forced to eat them.  Anyone who knows me, knows I’m always up for trying new foods.  I’m not the type of person who eats the same things everyday, you’ll always find me in the kitchen at home whipping up a culinary storm.  I’m not the type of person who eats Pizzas and burgers all the time.  Anyway I must admit I have never eaten oysters before and I was a little scared and apprehensive.  They looked horrible.  We were given crackers to eat with the oysters just in case.  Most hardcore people eat them on there own, but if you want to wimp out a bit you can put it on a cracker.  There wasn’t enough crackers in that restaurant to make me enjoy this but I had to do it…I put it in my mouth, bit down on it and it exploded in my mouth, it was slimey and smooth.  I swallowed it and just concentrated on the cracker…For a minute I thought I was going to bring it back up…I didn’t.  I wouldn’t be doing that again.  After I’d eaten it I found out that they are alive when you eat them!  Noooo!  There is no way Oysters and Crackers will replace my classic Saturday night snack of Cheese and Crackers.  Give me cheese please anyday.

I’m glad to say after this we got some proper food ie meat that is already dead.  Apologies to all the vegetarians out there, but you know I like meat (no gay connotations to that comment either).  We had dinner at the World War 2 museum, which consisted of pork sliders (mini baps with pork in them) and some sort of beef pie things (can’t remember the name).  After eating this feast I was surprised to see the manager come over and ask if the meal was ok.  E told her it was ok, but the chips were too salty and over spiced, so we got them free and I imagine the chef was made redundant.

Next we checked out the famous Bourbon Street, which is the home of Jazz.  The most famous name in Jazz.  I must admit even though it was the daytime and jazz is more of a night time activity I couldn’t see too much jazz going on.  We did see Preservation Hall which is possibly the most famous jazz club in the area, but what I did see was a sea of ‘jazz’ clubs of a different kind.  That’s right, strip clubs everywhere!  I don’t think I have ever seen so many strip clubs condensed into an area like that before.  Even during the daytime, there were strippers hanging out of the bars trying to drum up a bit of business.  A few years ago I would’ve been over the moon at finding this sort of place but I felt strangely nonchalant about the whole thing.  I imagine this is the type of place Americans go for stag doos or Vegas.

We walked a fair few miles today, all over the city.  In particular we made a beeline to a bar called Le Bon Temp Roule.  The rock/metal legend that is Pepper Keenan owns the bar and we wanted to meet him.  Apparently he can always be found in his bar, alas the one time I turn up he isn’t in.  It was a bit of a dive bar, but I liked it.  Quite a few beers on tap at the bar.  I didn’t really want the European beers that I drink all the time, I wanted something a bit more off the beaten track, something a bit more dirty.  There was a beer tap with a yellow rubber dog on top of it, I asked the barman what it was like.  I can’t remember what it was called, something like Surfin’ dog, or Dirty dog or Crazy surfin’ dog.  I don’t know.  Anyway the barman told me it “Isn’t a great beer, not very nice, you probably won’t like it”.  Well after selling it like that I was sold.  The barman was a born salesmen.  “2 pints of Crazy dirty surfin’ dog please!”.  I took a sip, it was digusting.  Needless to say it took a while to finish those beers.  The barman must have been pleased though, his cunning reverse psycology had sold probably the only 2 pints of that stuff ever.

Whilst walking back to the house we came across Magazine Street which has a few fancy shops and a few cool shops along it.  The shops were taking part in Shopfest, which effectively means all the shops stay open late and strangely to entice potential customers into their shops they give you free beer and nibbles.  This felt wierd, going into shops with no intention of buying anything, just going in to get free beer.  Of course we drunk as much as we could, we weren’t going to turn it down, but it did seem strange.  We went in one shop that specialised in feng shui-ing peoples home.  Basically they go in and remove anything that they believe is cluttering up somebody’s house, then sell it in their shop.  So they get paid to remove goods from a house then they make money selling the objects…What a great idea.  So we went in the shop which was being supervised by children, children hiding everywhere, operating the tills, giving out beer or Sangria if you  want it.  Needless to say we went in drank the beer, used the toilet, didn’t buy anything then left.

The evening was drawing to a close so we headed back to G’s house.  Otto was there awaiting our arrival.  At this point I knew something in the house was bothering me.  I didn’t know what.  My eyes were itching and more worryingly I was having problems breathing and my chest was very tight.  I could think of 3 possible reasons for this:

1) Otto the dog

2) Feathered cushions

3) Egg filled cookies

I unfairly thought that Otto the dog was to blame, I think I jumped at that conclusion too quickly.

I got no sleep at all that night due to 3 reasons:

1) R’s snoring was intolerable.  So loud.  It was like being in a room with a jumbo jet taking off whilst Maria Sharapova plays a 3 set tennis match against Victoria Azarenka, whilst a  Formula one car drives up and down the street outside at full speed.

2) I couldn’t breathe properly.

3) Worried Otto the dog would attack me because I suspected him of causing my allergic reaction.

Day 5:

I didn’t get any sleep at all, I was very tired.  I was half expecting to get up and see Otto the dog holding a pillow over his ears with his paws, I’m not sure how much sleep he got last night.

Today was all about going to the Jazzfest, this was one of the main reasons we were here.  It is a very popular festival, even though it is called Jazzfest it actually hosts all kinds of acts, Jazz,blues, gospel, rock, pop, etc.  It was an extremely hot day and being out in the sun all day with no real shade was difficult, any chance we had to walk through a tent we took it.  To cope with the heat we bought 2 large strawberry lemonades each then filled then when no one was looking with half a bottle of Vodka each…That should take the edge off…  Acts we watched today included Guitar Slim (Blues guitarist, too clean for me, need my blues to be a bit more dirty and unhappy), some Gospel (Praise the lord!), some Folk, The Soul Rebels Brass Band (very cool, synchronised dancing, excellent part band), Bonerama (white brass band, nice cover of Black Sabbaths War Pigs), Better than Ezra (Inoffensive tedious middle of the road crap).  Then onto the Headliners, Arcade Fire.  They were excellent, best band of the day for me.  They played all the hits off ‘Funeral’ except ‘Crown of Love’, but they never seem to play that…

“If you still want me, please forgive me, the crown of love has fallen from me.  If you still want me, please forgive me, because the spark is not within me”.

They played a great show, lots of energy and I was amazed by how they are all multi instrumentallists, continually swapping.  I get annoyed because I can’t play one instrument, yet these people can play four or five each.  They also have two good looking female violinists which made it even more enjoyable.

After 9 hrs in the sun it was time to leave, not before having a few beers at some post festival street parties.  We headed back downtown to the incredibly busy Bourbon Street area.  It was bedlam here now, crazy busy and strip clubtastic, I have to say it was too busy for me.  Drunk people falling out of allsorts of bars and the ‘clubs’ were in full swing.  We did maybe 3 more hrs of walking and drinking before settling in a bar with a pool table.  R was challenged to a game of doubles by a way too confident American guy and his mildly irritating girlfriend.  They tried every trick in the book to put us off, mainly the girl jiggling her boobs in front of the pockets etc.  It didn’t put us off, we crushed them.   After our victory we got a taxi home.

After complaining about R’s snoring the night before (I think Otto would complain if he could talk), I was hoping for a better nights sleep.  The snoring was more erratic, maybe 50-70% of the night was Snorefest but sadly for me R left his phone on all night and received some sort of text message in the middle of the night.  Which meant every 20 minutes or so a large “beep” would emanate from the phone, and it would do this until the message was read.  I couldn’t figure out what the noise was or where it was coming from.  I had a look around in the dark but couldn’t see anything.  I didn’t want to turn the light on in case it woke Otto up and he ate me.  So once again I got very little sleep, so even when R wasn’t snoring too much he still finds ingenious ways of keeping everyone else awake.

End of Part 1.