Amalia's Florida Escape

All winter I've been going out on the balcony in New York looking for snow but nothing happened.

Then at the end of  January, Yiayia and Papou said that we should come down to South Beach, Miami for a long weekend because Papi was traveling in Asia on business.

Here we are in the airport: Mommy, Nicolas and me.

When we got to the apartment in South Beach where we lived when I was born, Nicolas took a nap in the courtyard while Mommy worked and I rode my bicycle around.  

It has three wheels and gives directions in Spanish.

Inside the apartment I showed Papou and Yiayia what I had learned in gymnastics and yoga.

One day we went to Flamingo Park where I rode on the dinosaur that used to scare me when I was little.

And went down the big curvy slide

While Mommy and Nicolas sat under the Banyan tree

Then we all rode on the little train. I was the engineer.

Later we went to Espanola Way and had crepes at A La Folie.  I made a design out of the sugar packets.

Then we went to the gelateria place nearby.

I got strawberry. I always get strawberry.

On another day we went to Lincoln Road and I did crafts at Books and Books with my Miami friends Eleni and Phaedra.

I colored this purse.  Do you like it?

On Lincoln Road, Nicolas liked to crawl around on the grassy knoll.

And at night on the grassy knoll I would shoot off into the sky rockets with colored lights, sold by the rocket man, while behind me a man was dancing and vogue-ing.

We were supposed to fly back on Sunday but all the flights were cancelled because of a huge snowstorm in New York, so we went to Eleni and Phaedra's house for dinner and their Mommy cut the King cake.

Finally on Tuesday we got on a plane for New York and Nicolas screamed and made a big fuss until Yiayia showed him Peppa Pig on her phone.

In New York there were huge piles of snow everywhere and the cars were all stuck in the snow.  After school on Wednesday, outside our apartment building, Yiayia and I made our first snowman of the winter.

It was the best snowman on East 80th Street.

Spring Break South Beach, Amalia Style

Since the 1950’s, Florida has been the traditional destination for kids taking a break from school, as immortalized in the film “Where the Boys Are”.  In South Beach, the week leading up to Memorial Day is a hip-hop festival known as “Urban Beach Week” which, according to Wikipedia, “has become known for its over-the-top parties and fashions, as well as incidents of bad behavior.”

Amalia took her spring break from pre-school in South Beach this year during the week leading up to Memorial Day, but her partying was a lot tamer than the Memorial Weekend antics of the hip-hop fans.  Here’s her story of

What I did on Spring Break 2015

The night before we left New York I made a really tall block tower.  It fell down by itself in the night.  I’m wearing my Big Sis top because my baby brother Nicolas was born on April 2, making me a big sister.

As soon as I got to our apartment in South Beach I checked out the mosaics in the courtyard.  The fountains aren’t running but they say they’re going to fix them.

This mermaid mosaic is near our door.

I rode my bike on Lincoln Road, which is a pedestrian mall.

And I took Papou to the alligator store (Lacoste) and bought him this shirt for Father’s Day.  He says it’s his favorite.

Here I am enjoying Happy Hour with Mommy and Yiayia Joanie on Lincoln Road. I usually order hummus.

I ordered a pink heart balloon from the Balloon Man and Lady on Lincoln Road.

He gave me an extra balloon free because I talked to him in Spanish.

I went to the water park in Flamingo Park near our apartment twice.

Papou took me in the water first.

I loved going down the slide into the water and did it a whole lot of times.

Then my Mommy took me in the water.  I'm wearing my green bikini from last year.

Another day I put on a new bathing suit.  It has hearts on it.

We took my baby brother Nicolas to put his feet in the ocean for the first time.

Here he is in a onesie with a monkey eating a banana.  I have a pink romper that's  covered with yellow bananas.

On Thursday Mommy talked about her new novel “The Ladies of Managua” at Books and Books in Coral Gables.  Here she is signing books for some friends and relatives from Nicaragua.  I’m helping.

In Florida I ate a lot of strawberry ice cream—the only flavor I like.  Here I am at the  gelateria on Espanola Way. 

Here I am eating strawberry ice cream at Dylan’s Candy Bar on Lincoln Road.

And here I am with a cone from Hagen Daz.  But it melted before I could eat it.  Yiayia said next time I have to order my ice cream in a bowl—no more cones!

Back in South Beach--Still the Strangest Place on Earth

I'm re-posting below something I wrote about South Beach, Miami, and especially Lincoln Road, back in September of 2011 when I spent a month here while awaiting the birth of first grandchild Amalia.   Now I've been back in her parents' wonderful art- deco apartment for some three weeks, this time with 3 1/2 year old Amalia along for part of it, and I've found changes--some for the better, some not.  I'll report on the changes in my next post.  But still, every day, walking up and down Lincoln Road, the pedestrian street full of restaurants, theaters and art galleries at the heart of South Beach , I'm convinced it's one of the most fascinating and, well, strangest, streets in the world. 

  South Beach—We’re Not in Kansas any More

I’ve now been living in South Beach, Miami, for over a month and I think it’s time to go home.  The other day I was walking on Lincoln Road behind a six-foot-tall curvaceous female wearing only a tiny black string bikini and very tall spike heels, and I took a good second look to decide whether she was a man or a woman. 

This is not such a strange reaction on my part, since nearby Ocean Drive swarms with gay bars and drag brunches in its elegant Art Deco hotels.   Absolutely no extreme or peculiar dress gets a second look on Lincoln Road, while back home in Worcester, MA, the bikini-wearing vision in front of me might get arrested, if she was walking on Main Street.

Lincoln Road, the heart of South Beach, was re-designed around 1960, by Miami Beach architect Morris Lapidus.  His design for Lincoln Road, with exotic gardens, bubbling fountains, raised “grassy knolls” for kids to play on and an amphitheater, reflected the Miami Modern Architecture, or "MiMo", style. The road was closed to traffic and became one of the nation's first pedestrian malls—stretching for eight blocks from Alton Road to Washington Avenue.

I’ve been here since Aug. 12,  renting an apartment in the same Art-deco building where daughter Eleni, her husband Emilio and my first grandchild, two-week-old Amalía, live.  (For an account of Eleni’s trials, tribulations and triumphs mastering the art of breast feeding, check out her blog post, “Say Yes to the Breast.”)

Every morning I set out to the nearest Starbucks, half a block away, past the optimistically waiting pigeons, to get my coffee and newspaper and then I walk up and down Lincoln Road, marveling at the rare and amazing  species of people, animals, flowers and birds.  This is surely the most exotic, bizarre and just plain weird street I’ve ever seen, and this is coming from someone who lived on Manhattan’s 14^th street in the 1960’s and is familiar with Venice Beach in LA and Haight Ashbury back in the day. Skate-board champs, shirtless and covered with tattoos, somehow avoid running down Hasidic Jews and  bikinied beauties.

Every day you see the regulars—panhandlers and people who earn money as living statues (this one is Ghost Elvis)

or weaving palm fronds into baskets,

juggling or letting  people admire his pet lemur  (or whatever this is.)

There are a plethora of design stores and art galleries.  I loved this piece of art work—a dog excreting a long length of pink fabric—juxtaposed with the nearby Dog-pot.

If you are a seasoned Lincoln Road pedestrian, your accessory of choice is a small dog or a baby in a stroller, and your vehicle is a Segway, or a skateboard, a rented bicycle or a motorized wheel chair.

I think no street anywhere has the caliber of restaurants, food stores and cafes as those found on Lincoln Road. I’m trying to taste every one of the tartes at Paul’s, which is so French that both staff and clientele seem to speak French most of the time. 

I’ve already discovered my favorite flavor of ice cream at Kilwins.  (It’s Kilwin’s Tracks—they throw in bits of all their hand-made candies.)   

The Ice Box, which serves indescribable brunches, makes, according to Oprah, “the best cake in the United States”.  Good thing there’s no scale in this rented apartment.

 

All the restaurants lining Lincoln Road have tables indoors and outside, and most people sit outside, despite the sweltering heat.  Cooling fans and misting machines make it bearable.

Overhead are towering palm trees chock full of parrots and parakeets which squawk non-stop and sometimes come down to be hand-fed morsels 

Orchids  grow parasitically on many trees but the most famous tree on Lincoln Road is this “Orchid Tree” dripping with  blooms that look like orchids but bloom only at night.  Its proper name is Bauhinia Varigata.

Lincoln Road turns into an outdoor market every Sunday, selling every exotic type of fruit or flower or spice or Latin food that you can think of.

An atmosphere of sin hangs heavy over the street, especially at night.  There are party busses with smoked glass windows and advertisements for “No-Tell Hotels”. 

Every time I walk by the  “Vice Lounge” I wonder what goes on inside.  This is what the outside looks like.

 When you have exhausted all the pleasures and vices of Lincoln Road, you can continue to the end, where the Ritz Hotel offers the best Happy Hour food and drink around.  (Every single restaurant and bar has a happy hour every day, sometimes starting at noon.)  Or you can hitch a parachute right on the beach.

No wonder every time I walk down Lincoln Road I feel like Alice falling through the rabbit hole or Dorothy landing in Oz.   But like those two ladies, I’ll have to return home in the end.  Sadly I’m leaving South Beach and my new granddaughter in four days.  Dorothy said, “There’s no place like home”, but I’m here to tell you, home is no place like Lincoln Road.