SoBe Soiree II

Friday, 1/14

We rolled into South Beach tired from long days at work and, in some cases, long flights or drives to get into town in the first place. Or, so I thought. We stayed at The Greenview Hotel and The Albion Hotel, near the intersection of Washington and Lincoln in South Beach. Nice hotels, but most importantly, in a solid location within walking distance to a number of nightspots, cheap restaurants, a Starbucks and a taxi stand.

The second-toughest thing about planning a group vacation is trying to guess what everyone will want to do, and trying to gauge everyone's energy and interest level when doing certain activities. While I was sure we needed to go out to hit a nightspot or two on the first night, it was almost 11 PM when we got to the hotel; hell, when the majority of us got to the hotel, Dan and Rina (who had taken an earlier flight into town) were watching "Dances with Wolves" in their hotel room and it looked like it was going to be a "one-and-done" night for the crew.

But, there was that magical moment where everyone rallied and said, hey, you know what, we're only in town for three nights...let's get the most that we can out of this, even if that means we only get one drink and call it a night. I had called the hotel earlier in the evening to get us on the guest list at Opium Garden, an indoor/outdoor club near First and Ocean. It was a cool spot that I remember hearing had a good Friday-night set of DJs, and since they had hip-hop (our crew was a 100% hip-hop team), I thought this would be a good opening night spot.

Yeah, it was.

Here's what I remember, after getting to bed at 5:30 and waking up in pain later--the hip-hop spin upstairs that night was an all-time top-five set, hands-down. This muthafucka was puttin' it together, baby! I was dancing for something like four straight hours. There was a woman that was a guy that might have been a woman lurking behind me for most of the night. Quan was being walked to the bathroom in 30-minute rotations starting at 1 AM. Dave and I blew $180 in drinks that night. Rina took to a platform faster than I could say "hottie." Tena and I were bobbing on the seat of a platform like we owned the place. Derwin, Gordon and Dave Bell were bobbing the heads and hollerin' every time another hip-hop classic graced the decks of the mixmaster.

Tourists and locals were clearly "hangin' out", and there were just a ton of smiles on everyone's faces. There's something about going dancing that just takes me away (maybe it takes you away, too)...it really does feel like, for just a little while, the world is a beautiful place to be, but it's even cooler if you've got some good friends to hang out with, and that's what this trip was all about. Even if this trip had nothing else planned, it would have been a success based on just this one night of clubbin'.

We had to get food afterwards, and there was a diner that I hit the last time I went to Miami last April that I knew about near our hotel. For the ridiculous price of $11, I got silver-dollar pancakes and a side-order of bacon...but, at 4:30 in the morning, I'm always amazed at how good bacon can make you feel. I may have blown almost my entire club budget on the first night, but at least I was going home happy.

Saturday, 1/15

A knock on the door.

"Hello? Hello, housekeeping?"

It was 12:30. Dave Bell and I were completely asleep when the knocks first came, so it took three or four knocks before I figured out that wasn't my skull but, in fact, the door. "Just, man, you get it...you're closer" was all Dave could muster from beneath his sheets, so I got up to inform the kind Latina at the door that we were okay with the towels and sheets that we already had.

We got the crew together and got "brunch" at Miami Subs, the local fast-food chain that is your combination Burger King, Subway, Popeye's and Baskin-Robbins all rolled into one establishment. The MO was to eat cheap for brunch because we were going to blow it out for dinner, so $6 for the chicken fingers combo was fine by me. Afterwards, we walked to the main drag on Ocean to check out the places that I just need to see each time I come to SoBe.

Miami in January is nice. Temperatures are normally in the 70s, sunny, moderate. Hotel prices that are usually under $100 in the spring and summer are closer to $150 in the winter, so since it was prime-time we had to spend a little more than normal to hang out on the beach. For our weekend, it was mostly overcast, with the occasional light shower, but temps hovered in the 65° range mostly. Sure, it wasn't crazy warm, but it was about 40 degrees warmer than it was in DC on Saturday, so I didn't whine a bit. On Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend each year, the Art Deco Festival runs on Ocean Drive with artists selling their wares, stage performances, a mini-parade and food vendors trying to earn a buck. It also means that they close Ocean Drive to vehicular traffic, so we got to wander down the middle of the street like we owned the place, which was cool. Then, we got a special treat (besides seeing Mike Tyson while walking up 6th Street near A1A)--a visit from my dad, who was playing golf in Lauderdale with some friends from Rochester and losing money in a skins game before coming to visit.

Dave, Dad and I talked some smack about anything that came to mind for a few hours; damn, it was cool having the Bell Boys all in the same place for my birthday. This is pretty rare for me, since those two live up in Rochester and I almost always spend my actual birthday with my mom, down in DC. Dad, also known as KB, was dropping the hammer left and right: he was burned that he lost so much cash on his skins game earlier in the day; he was pissed that the guy that tried to give him directions to my hotel didn't speak much English (I tried to make him realize that English is the second language in South Florida), he shook his head when he saw our bathroom sink, by far the smallest sink in the history of hotel bathroom sinks. He even took the time to hand-deliver my birthday card, in-between dissing hip-hop and the house music I have on my MP3 player.

Dad blew out and, after getting a nap, we got the team back together to head out to dinner. We had reservations at BED, the restaurant/lounge where you eat your whole dinner on an oversized king bed.

It was during this dinner that I may have worn my biggest smile of the weekend (if one can accurately measure that sort of thing, you know). The hardest thing about planning group vacations is that you are always rolling the dice if you try and bring together people that don't know each other. I have been lucky in the past with this trip; I've been unlucky, too. The chemistry of this crew was, in a word, spectacular.

Actually, it was scintillating. Or, maybe it was colossal. Either way, the dinner we had at BED was great not only because of the atmosphere, or the food, or the beyond-hot waitress that was crackin' jokes as fast as she could tell them to our 11-member band...but because of the fact that everyone got along so damned well, having not really even known each other just 24 hours earlier. I almost couldn't believe it; Quan didn't even know Dan, Rina or my brother before the trip started, and she was hangin' out with Rina like they had known each other for weeks. Kristin didn't know Dan or Rina before all of this started, yet she and Dan got along famously. Rina, who only knew Dan before this trip began, got along well with everyone. Instead of being a crew that made casual conversation dicey having just met, this group was hangin' out like it was a college reunion.

It was all you could hope for on a trip like this; maybe the weather wouldn't cooperate, or the clubs would all suck, but you had to hope that everyone could be friendly for three days and we knocked that one out of the park.

We rode that good vibe all the way through Saturday night; after doing dinner, we went to Wet Willie's for the requisite frozen drinks before getting to Mansion, another popular nightspot off of Washington that replaced Level more than a year ago. Mansion's hip-hop DJs were so-so, but to make up for this, a classic South Beach parade of talent (male AND female, I thought, but the ladies of the group disagreed with the male assessment upon further review) danced its way through the hip-hop area to the delight of all. A group of what looked like male models parked at a table near our group, and the Sloppy Seconds talent of women that came by to hang out with them provided ample eye candy while I mingled with our group and talked some shit with Dave Bell.

It dawned on me while standing around with a drink in both hands that I really might have to give up this lifestyle sooner or later. It was the first time I had really thought about giving up clubbing for good. Not because I don't love being out in the night, dancing or lounging or soaking in good conversation in the late hours with a dance floor nearby. No, because I've been doing this for so long that I need to find another hobby, something else to stimulate the senses like clubbing does but in a way that allows me to not lose my voice or pay $10 for a drink every time I want to come out.

I could see the light at the end of the tunnel for the first time. We tried to do the famous "24 Hours of South Beach", where we try to stay up until sunrise...but, by 3:30 in the morning, most of our team was done. We stopped by the Delano so I could show the rookies the lobby and pool area, but we were home and in bed by 5. And yes, I got my slice of pizza before calling it a night.

Sunday and Monday, 1/16-1/17

Sunday was a non-event; we got cheap eats at a spot near 15th and A1A and had cocktails at The Clevelander on Ocean Drive before watching football and "Celebrity Fit Club" over Burger King combo meals at the hotel. Rina went out and got her belly pierced; that was kind of surreal, because Quan and I went with her so I could check out the tat parlor near the hotel and see what it must be like to have your navel area pierced for the sake of outer beauty.

We went out to Nikki Beach that night, which was cool, mostly because I hadn't been in there before, but not so cool, because techno was the theme for the night's DJ and our team was none too happy about it. At least cover was only $10 a person, thanks to a deal our concierge got for us with the bouncer there. Those feelings of despair start to set in whenever I am on the eve of having to leave South Beach to return to reality, that place where work matters, bills are rampant and responsibility rules the roost. But, I made a go of it, enjoying the company of friends one final night before the inevitable return to the airport in the morning.

That kind of makes your birthday--your thirtieth birthday--kind of a downer, coming home from a great trip and realizing that you have to pay more for your life insurance now that you have moved up one bracket on the sliding scale. But, the end of any vacation is always tough...you never yearn to go back to work after a great vacation, even if it's back to something you love. Maybe you traveled without your spouse, or your arm candy, or your kids, or your family, and you start to miss those folks as you make your way through airport security. But, great vacations have a ton of great memories, and you take stock of that only when you are forced to...while sitting in the gate area, waiting to board a plane, hearing about security exits, watching a so-so in-flight movie and eating your complimentary peanuts.

Then you get off the plane, and normalcy begins to set in. It's almost enough to ruin the past 72 hours, but when you have as much fun as we did while hangin' out in South Beach, it doesn't taint the luster of it at all...it just makes you want to book another trip. Where am I going to plan my next group vacation??? Better yet, when?

The sooner, the better. Especially with a group this sweet.

Pictures? Of COURSE we've got more pictures, fool! Check them out...

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

Terry McDonnell: Opening Weekend
Getting back into shape (mostly): $9.50 Show
Duke losing...Maryland winning: Matinee
Those annoying Fanta trailers: Rental
A big-ass mole, a horse-laden jumper, and being forced to serve punch during rush your senior year: Hard Vice

bellview--whole lotta zoomin'

SoBe Soiree, II