Tried It and This Happened: Miami for Spring Break
For my final undergraduate spring break I went to one of the Spring Break Hotspots. Places like Panama City Beach, Cancun, and Miami become havens for stressed out college students in March and April. My junior year, I went to Cancun. This was an amazing experience, especially considering my friend and I stayed about 30 minutes outside of the Hotel Zone and inside the city. That’s a story for another day. This story is about my experience in South Beach, Miami.
South Beach strip via Smart Destinations
I stayed from Wednesday to Sunday with some of my friends at a hotel right on the South Beach strip. This proved to be the best decision we made because although we hated the hotel we stayed in, its proximity to all of the action -- and indeed there was a lot of action -- saved us money and time.
Our first day, we walked down the strip and sought out what everybody in Miami is searching for 100% of the time: food, alcohol, and fun. Walking through the strip is an event in itself. There’s music everywhere, bright colors, and most importantly, there are a lot of people. If people watching is your “thing,” this is the place to do it. We landed at a restaurant that served giant margaritas 2 for $25. While the service left much to be desired, a recurring motif in our Miami adventures, the margaritas were potent and...well… maybe just a little too strong. It’s safe to say out of our group of five, three of us fell asleep before 10 on day one. I won’t tell you which group I landed in, but I will say the other two were thoroughly disappointed. “We’re in Miami! Get out of bed!” was an echoing statement that night.
While in South Beach I learned one thing from my spring break experiences: the craziest things can and will happen. The stories you hear, the videos you see, the things you witness, the things you do may very well be things that you’ve never heard, seen, or done back home. It only takes a quick google search to see the WWE smackdowns that were going on in Miami. I never witnessed a fight firsthand, but some of the videos were downright disturbing. Sh*t gets crazy, guys. I would say “whatever happens in Miami, stays in Miami,” but that’s not entirely truthful. With social media, nothing ever stays anywhere and this city is no different. Still, that doesn’t take away from the craziness you may experience during your spring break vacation. A lot of this craziness goes down on the beach. There, you found a conglomerate of hundreds of college students, mostly from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, drinking, dancing, and blasting music. You know how usually on vacation you go to the beach to get in the water and relax? In Miami, it’s the polar opposite. Sure you may end up going for a swim, but honestly, you go to the beach to be part of the festivities. You go to dance, drink, and flirt. People are setting up there nighttime plans: all throughout the beach you hear a murmur of “what are y’all doing tonight?” This mostly includes clubs where girls get in free before 10, nearby bars, and parties thrown by party promoters or guys in fraternities. But, it also can be a coded invitation (or proposition) for night caps, one night stands, and sexual fantasies. For context, I ran into a group of my guy friends on the beach and innocently asked them what they were doing that night. Their response? “Having sex with somebody...that’s my only energy for tonight.” I honestly felt like I was in episode of either Jersey Shore or Floribama Shore. It’s literally a non-stop party. You wake up, you grab a bite to eat on the bustling strip, to when you get to the beach, to when you finally end up at the club for the night. It doesn’t end. By Thursday night, I’d felt like I’d been in Miami for a week already. I was still having fun, but I was starting to heavily get those “I’m too old for this” feelings.
The food was also not the best. Aside from a cute lemon-themed brunch spot called Limonada, and the restaurants of Little Havana, the food I had was never that great. Maybe they figured a bunch of drunk college students wouldn’t care about the quality of the food, but a foodie like me was not having it! Limonada offered a great reprieve. I was slowly starting to countdown the days until I was back in my bed. This may have been because our hotel was so uncomfortable. We had to beg for people to clean our room and give us fresh towels! It may have also been because on Friday my friend got sick. We didn’t know at the time what it was -- the flu, laryngitis, and pharyngitis -- so we encouraged her to still come out with us because it was “probably just a hangover.” It wasn’t (sorry, girl). The days and nights were all starting to run together at this point. I was having fun, but I was really ready to be relaxing -- really relaxing -- on a beach with a coconut in my left hand and a fork full of food in my right.
To sum it up, Miami was indeed a fun trip. I think it was a necessary experience for my collegiate life and I’m glad I went. But, if I ever go visit Miami again it will never be during spring break season. Had this been a trip when I was a sophomore or junior, I think I would have had the time of my life. But Senior Year Milan really only needed to stay from Thursday to Sunday, and even then she still would’ve been ready to go. Seriously guys, I needed another week just to recover!
#EARealBabe
Cover image via Buckitdream