I did it. I made the leap. I am writing from my bed in the Miami Yotel Hotel drinking shitty 7-11 coffee because I am up before the restaurant begins serving at seven. The bed isn't bad, one of those adjustable things that raises the head but not the knees so that if you have a computer sitting in your lap with your legs straight, as I do, it is something of a yoga stretch, at least for my short tendons and ligaments. I would sit at the desk to write, but there is no chair and there is no desk, just a bedside stand with a--I don't know what it is called--a low backless stool. The room is spartan but not uncomfortable. . . other than that. I slept well in the bed. The room is very high tech. I am used to staying in older hotels, I guess, where you end up crawling around looking under tables and chairs to find an outlet where you can plug in a charger. Not here. There is an outlet in every wall and table and even in the headboard. The bathroom light comes on automatically when I step out of bed. I'm still not certain about the lighting, but there are panels that, by moving your finger up and down from top to bottom and bottom to top, allow you to change the color of the lighting from red to blue. The lighting is indirect. You see no bulbs. I still haven't figured out how to turn on the reading lights above the bed.
Last night, I Chromecast shows from my laptop to the fifty inch screen mounted on the wall across from my bed. WTF? I guess I haven't been around for a very long time. The room is small, but not as small as the Pod hotels in NYC. The shower is nice with a rain shower head and a hand held nozzle controlled by touch buttons.
It has all that and stark white walls barren of anything. That is a bit disorienting like being in a hospital madhouse. But I am downtown, a few minutes walk from the Bay and Bayside shopping. It is not located badly at all. It is only a block or two from a more respectable neighborhood. And the damn thing is big, like forty floors. The elevators are smart, working from your room key. The lobby is spartan but there is a bar/restaurant when you walk in. Most of the guests I have seen are younger. Younger than what? Just younger. Lots of kids in their twenties.
The drive here was pretty quick until I hit Miami traffic. Getting from the toll highway to the interstate and then off that into downtown traffic took forty minutes or more, and extended my drive to four hours. Check in was quick and my room was ready early. I was in my room by two. I decided to go for a walk downtown, around the Bayfront then up to Brickell. I haven't walked that much in a very long time. Problem was. . . I forgot to pack socks, so I was walking in my flip-flops. Five miles in flip-flops on a bad knee. I did fine. I was pleased.
I took two cameras, my Leica M10 R and my Canon with the cheap plastic lens. I shot a lot of photos, but I can't download them as I forgot to pack my card reader, too. Again, it has been a long minute since I travelled, so I will have to wait until I get home to show you MY MIAMI! It is not the Miami most people have, I'm relatively certain. Like most big cities, mine is a daytime place. I was back in my room by nightfall, showered, and getting sleepy. You can say it is because I'm old, but you can ask anyone who has known me, I've been like that since childhood. I'm not a nighttime person. I like daylight and sunshine. I am well aware, though, that the city starts to come to life long after the sun goes down. That part is infamous. It's OK. That has never appealed to me.
I started writing this before sunrise, got sleepy, closed the laptop, lay down and closed my eyes, and drifted right off to dreamland. Then something happened that hardly ever happens. My phone rang. Loud. It was my mother.
"Did you just call me?"
WTF?!?!
I feel I could sleep more, but now it is time to pack up and start my day. Good old mom. Maybe I will come back for a nap this afternoon. Split the day in two. Now, though, I'm off to make some pictures. Fingers crossed.
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