Saturday 19th May 2007

Ok, I admit it - the Flying Cloud isn't as bad as we first thought. In the day light, it's actually quite pleasant. We even met a member of staff this morning. We had free breakfast and then loaded the car before driving down to Miami - passing through Hollywood on the way.

Not THE Hollywood, another one - the one where Anna Nicole Smith was when she died. We didn't see much there. We drove through, tried to find somewhere free to park (everywhere was $5 and travelers don't pay (most travelers don't hire cars - but that's a different story)) and then continued onto Miami, which was only about 20 minutes down the road.

We drove the car directly to our Miami pad - The Clay Hotel, which is also a hostel so we didn't really know what to expect. This place is fantastic! Its a building from the 1920's and is on the corner of a Espanola Way (a spanish street) and Washington Ave. Washington Ave is superb - we're about a minute walk from Miami Ink (as we were driving past, we seen Chris Garver outside - but couldn't turn round to go back).

After checking in, we drove up to the Adventura Mall, where we knew they had free internet and Nikki wanted to spend her birthday money. Niks did buy something, she bought a HUGE slice of carrot cheesecake and sat eating it whilst I surfed the net. We had another quick look round and then came back to the Clay.

We spent the evening around South Beach. We had a walk along the beach and then looked in the shops on the way back to the hotel. Nikki even bought me a present, (I say Nikki bought it, because we didn't have enough in my wallet, so she used her birthday money), she bought me a new pair of Police sunglasses. She bartered the price down from $240 (before tax) to $185 (including tax)... yippee!!

That was it - we were way over budget now ($90 per day) and so when we got back we sat on the communal balcony drinking our beer. That was really cool, because we could watch all the hustle-and-bustle below. At one point this boy, who looked about 14, came up to us and asked if it would be ok to take some money from the internet computer in the communal area. We thought he meant that someone had left a dollar or two on top and he wanted it. We should've known we were wrong when he asked if we were police. When we said no, he thanked us, told us we were good people who were going to heaven - then pulled a screw-driver from his shorts and started to BREAK IN TO THE MACHINE. We didn't know where to look, so we got up and left him to it...

Miami - our second home!