Back from Miami Vacation

7:16 AM

I went on vacation with my parents to Miami, Florida this past week. On the first day, Monday, we didn't do all that much. We settled into our hotel after several hours of a long flight. I listened to a few Godot related podcasts while on the flight and played some puzzle games. At the hotel I worked on some Godot game for a few hours, since we were just chilling there. This would be the last time I worked on Godot for the whole week, just because I wouldn't have any opportunity the rest of the time, and other times I'd be too tired. Then we went out and walked outside to eat at a nearby vegan restaurant, Cochinita. We were brand new to the area, but would get familiar with the whole place soon since we'd go outside and walk to different places every day.

The next day, Tuesday, we went out and walked to the Bayside Marketplace. We didn't really have that place as the destination we wanted to visit, it was just that we were looking to buy Hop On Hop Off bus tickets and that was the closest place. It was a pretty cool place, lots of stores, and a cool environment around the beach. Then we got some Hop On Hop Off bus tickets and rode them around Miami. We ate at another vegan restaurant, Love Life Cafe, which was pretty packed with people at around 1:30 PM. The food there was superb, unique. and amazing, I'd eat there every day.

The tour around Miami was nice. It was great learning of the local history. We didn't stop at too many places though. At the end we just got an Uber to go back home since the bus was taking a long time.

Tuesday night in Miami was incredible. We went outside again to just walk around outside at night time, and the night life was amazing downtown. First the city was vibrant and lively at night time, lights were on at the skyscrapers, lots of beautiful people walking around, expensive yachts all around the waters. We walked around the paths next to the water, passing by extremely expensive yachts, in some of them you could see families having dinner.

The best sight I've ever seen that wanted me to move to Miami were the hundreds of people jogging at night time. There was some running event going on, in which two running clubs were running around. I don't know the exact details or how frequently they do this, maybe it's an event they do every night, maybe it's an event they do weekly or monthly, but there were hundreds of fit people running around. There were a bunch of shirtless men with six pack abs running, and a bunch of attractive women with six pack abs too. This is what made me very interested in moving to Miami.

The main problem that I have now is the laxity of my skin. Either from fasting weight loss, minoxidil, microcurrent, or red light therapy, I did them all at the same time so it's hard to pinpoint the exact issue, but my skin is very thin and lax now. Smiling isn't the same as before. I actually still look quite good and quite young as long as I keep a neutral expression. A 27 year old woman a few days ago was surprised to learn that I was 32, expressing shock and saying that I look so much younger. It hurts that my smile feels destroyed though, I feel like I can no longer smile that well, and I don't really know if there is a recovery for this. I am very happy with my appearance now, I just want my smile laxity and turgor to go back to the way it was before.

We ate at Whole Foods at night, grabbing vegan options from the food bar. This would pretty much be where we would be eating the rest our time here in Miami. Actually we would eat at other restaurants and order vegan options where convenient, but we didn't encounter any other fully vegan restaurants since we didn't really go to any new places either, we would just take tours around the rest of the week.

On Wednesday, we took a boating tour to the celebrity islands of Miami. A lot of famous and wealthy people live in Miami apparently, buying houses at these islands. The cheapest homes here are $3 to $5 million, which is cheaper than the cheapest homes at the neighborhood I was just at a week or two ago in Puerto Rico, the cheapest homes there were $10 million minimum. But yeah, the most expensive homes at these islands are far more expensive than the ones in PR. There are many celebrities and big names that lived in these islands, crazy. During the tour, my parents "won" a cruise, we would just have to sit through a timeshare presentation to get it, we scheduled this for Friday.

Afterwards we learned how to use the Miami metro to go back to our hotel, and then we would be using the Miami metro the rest of the time to get around. I wanted to ride the metro since Monday night, and would suggest it even on Tuesday, but my parent's didn't want to ride it yet. But yeah, the metro made our trips much more smooth since we could now go anywhere in the city without having to walk there. There were two metro stations right next to our hotel, both within a block or two away.

In the afternoon, after resting in our hotel, we went to the Everglades to have a tour there. It was alright, we got to see some crocodiles out in the Everglades, and saw some more crocodiles at a sanctuary. Oh yeah, the bus ride to the Everglades was around 3-4 hours each way, so there wasn't much to do. I listened to some music since I had already listened to all my podcast episodes, and took some naps.

Wednesday night, we celebrated my mom's birthday at the hotel's pool. We bought a vegan birthday cake from Whole Foods last night, amazing that there were a few options there, as well as some other foods. We bought our dinner from Whole Foods again tonight, getting food again from the food bar, and ate and celebrated my mom's birthday at the pool.

On Thursday, we went to Key West today, and rented out a golf cart. The drive to Key West was like 5-6 hours one way. We had a table this time in the bus, and we stopped by a dollar store and got some snacks as well for the trip. At Key West, like I said, we rented out a golf cart and just drove around the whole place. We wanted to eat at a vegan restaurant, but like many other restaurants today, it was closed due to it being Thanksgiving. We didn't really do much here except drive around. The beaches weren't superb. I think it probably would've been better to have just gotten the trolley tour so we could have learned of the history.

On Friday, we went to the timeshare presentation in the morning. There was an Uber to pick us up, we went to the timeshare place, and yeah it was interesting. It was a travel club timeshare. You pay a large one time fee upfront, and then for one week a year, you can rent and travel to an exclusive location for a small fee. I think it would've been worth it, but I didn't take it. Maybe next time. We got invited to attend another one of these. Oh yeah, the presenter was a 27 year old woman, and she was the one who remarked shock at my age when she saw me. We know her age because she gave us her life story during the presentation to connect with us.

Then the rest of the day we just rested. We did get the cruise they promised us, and they gave us a free Uber ride back. They also invited us to another one of these events, in case we wanted to attend again. In the future, I think I would want to reconsider their offer, but right now I am too concerned with my smile to go out and travel. I really don't recall us doing anything else the rest of the day and night, we didn't even go out to Whole Foods to eat anymore, we just ate whatever foods we had.

On Saturday, the whole day was about flying back here to Virginia. We flew to Denver first as a layover, and we were there for around 6 hours. Then we flew back to Virginia. That was our entire day. We arrived pretty late at night and just fell asleep when we got back.