Miami

While I have a minute here, let me tell you some thoughts about Miami.
We drove out of the cold, even though it wasn't so cold this year, and all along the Eastern Sea Coast of the USA, down to the city of Miami.  We stayed there for three weeks.  We rented a condo on the 23rd floor of one of the many towers that line Biscayne Bay. We were on the city side.

Out place was not on Miami Beach.  We went to that side of the Bay a couple of times, but mostly that neighborhood is full of high priced hotels on the water, and lower priced, art deco renovations a few blocks from the beach.  They look great, and many of the renovations are very well done, but the place is a frat party. Now if I were single and forty years younger, opps, make that fifty years younger, I might have a good time on Miami Beach from 10 PM to 5 AM.  Seems like a lot of things can happen that could be fun for a brief time, and lead to heart-ache and hangovers later, and stories to tell for years after that.

But we are not in that market.  We went to Miami beach twice.  Once with my son and his family, including kids 2 and 4 years old, and once to swim in the ocean. We went in the morning when there was plenty of parking and the only folks around were either cleaning up from the night before, or asleep on lounges on the beach.

However, the city of Miami is the future.  The city is thriving. The building that is going on is amazing. The towers that were built on the bay fifteen years ago, rose to forty stories tall.  The ones built five years ago, next to or behind the first ones are sixty stories tall.  The ones they are building now are going to be eighty stories tall.  They are steel and glass with balconies.

I don't live there.  I go to visit, be warm and have some fun, so I don't spend much time thinking about where all the money for these places comes from.  Obviously, a lot of it is from South America. Money is safer in Miami  Who knows what can change quickly in Peru, Colombia, Bolivia or Venezuela, as well as Brazil and Argentina.  So people put their money in high rise condos in Miami.  They bank in Miami, they put their mistresses, the ones you see with the augmented breasts, walking their little dogs, into those buildings.

I have been told there is lots of money coming in from China too, and probably lots is smuggled out by some of the Russian oligarchs, and sheiks from the oil countries.  Not my problem.

But being in Miami is seeing the people of the future.  They come from everywhere, and they live, work and play together.  The first language of the city is Spanish.  There is Puerto Rican Spanish , as well as Mexican, Cuban, Haitian, and dialects from all over South and Central America. There is a lot of Brazilian Portuguese.  There is Moroccan and Canadian French.  Almost everyone speaks English, and there is still a tiny bit of Yiddish left, but that is almost gone.  Moved up to Boca. People switch languages in the middle of their sentences, using whatever word fits best.

The people range in color from whitish, to very Black, but most are some shade in-between.  The money seems to be distributed almost evenly among all of the colors, but not the neighborhoods.  Along the water there is money.  There are Maserati, Lamborghini, Bentley, and Ferrari, zipping along those streets.  Five blocks to the west, there is very little money.  There are lots of twenty year old Honda Civics driving slowly through the streets.

So many different  restaurants.  So many kinds of foods at all kinds of prices.  Our favorite serves food that is a Haitian/Asian fusion. So many different kids of music, all over the place. And while there are still many that play the music of the old culture, most of the newer stuff is a blend of three f or four cultures; Spanish,/hip-hop,/rock.  Jazz/Cuban/soul/Beethoven

It's all coming together down here and the rest of the country will follow.  It will make America a wonderful place to live, an whoever gets on the Supreme Court won't be able to stop it.

And soon all the buildings in Miami will be connected by beautifully colorful skywalks, as the first four or five stories will all be under water.

But as long as the kitchen is dry, things will be fine.