Paintings on the Wall

Today might be called a mixed day, with three successes but with one less successful adventure (excuse the marketer in me - I mean failure). Still no one was harmed in the making of this blog post! Apart, I think Drew may say, his sanity.

The travel was something like the Map below, I say something like as Google won't let you combine Public Transport journeys, so it is a road map equivalent to the route we took on bus and train:

Breakfast

I got up at 5.00am and did my ablutions before completing the previous day's blog post. Drew awoke at 6.00 and we had coffee and watched US Breakfast News until going down for breakfast at 8.30am.

Today's breakfast delight were scrambled eggs and sausage patties - in previous year's in the US scrambled eggs have been a common breakfast, but this was our first for this holiday.

Drew tried out some odd coloured Fruit Punch, while I had orange juice, it had an odd colour and an odder taste. Drew says it was insipid in flavour. The vibrant colour led him to choose it but the flavour turned out to be an obnoxious, sugary, mush. Though, strangely, he did manage to finish it.

Going to Wynwood

We had decided to visit two places today, based on Drew's recollection of what he read about Miami in the book he had for his birthday last year, entitled Miami and the Keys: A Travel Guide. (NB - The book is sitting in a drawer in Tongwynlais, where Drew put it so he would remember to bring it on holiday with him - say no more). 

Haydn and Brolly
in Wynwood

In watching TV we knew that today was likely to have plenty of rain, as a small squall was running up the coast. When we went down to go out of the hotel, it clearly was raining quite heavily. It was a pleasant surprise to find that the hotel provided an Umbrella Service at their Ground floor Customer Service Area. So I took the opportunity and borrowed one of their umbrellas. 

We left at 9.30 and again walked to the Brickell Metro Station and bought a $5.75 Day Rider Ticket. You may wonder why we took the Metro Rail not the free Metromover which goes from a station 200 yards nearer the hotel. The reason is that we needed to buy a Day Rider ticket each for our later travels and a Metro Rail station is one of the locations to buy a Day Rider Ticket.

Our first journey was the same as yesterday's. From Brickell to Historic Overtown Station. From there we walked a block to the bus stop opposite the one we were at yesterday and caught the No 2 bus from North West (NW) 2nd Avenue at NW 6th Street to NW 2nd Avenue at NW 20th Street.

It was 10am when the bus arrived in Wynwood. Wynwood is a fascinating place. Being the next community North after Overland, which was the Black community in the days of segregation, it saw the arrival of a large Puerto Rican community in the 1950s. So much so that its local nickname was  "El Barrio" or "Little San Juan". After a period of decline Wynwood was renovated by the influx of Art. 

Building on the preexisting graffiti of the area, a developer Tony Goldman brought together 30 artists to develop an open-air Art display called Wynwood Walls. This display had the impact of drawing many other artists into the area and the vast majority of Wynwood's building are now covered with the most beautiful and amazing graffiti art. I've shared two of my favorites in the blog, but there are many, many more on our Flickr site. To help you navigate these pictures those titled Wynwood are on the street, those entitled Wynwood Walls are in the formal display.

We walked up Wynwood from NW 20th Street and got to Wynwood Walls at 10.30, just as the security guard was opening the display for the day. While all the art in Wynwood is spectacular, Wynwood Walls takes it to a new level of post-modernism. It is mind stretching, to the point that it hurts at time, with multiple messages and layers in the art. 

The image of a women laying down which can only be seen from a distance amazed me most, when close you see specific designs in each of the bits of wall, but have to move away to see the whole.



Before breakfast today I read a post on Facebook from a friend who said she was suffering from Spreadsheet blindness having worked so much one one. Well in Wynwood I wanted to go back to the rows and columns of a spreadsheet as they stay organised, whereas all the imagery and multiple layered messages was mashing my mind. 

After the Wynwood Walls we needed a coffee and at 11.30pm came to the Box Coffee stall in Wynwood, as well as having its own art Box Coffee was surprising as only servicing Iced Coffee nothing hot. As I'd already sat down and made myself comfortable I had my first ever Ice Coffee. Though friends, and work colleague, will now I often let my coffee and tea go cold before I remember to drink it, that is different from Coffee brewed through a cool-brew method. I had an Americano and Drew had a Latte. My coffee was lovely and refreshing, Drew was less convinced. <<Co-Pilot's Note: What’s wrong with normal (read HOT!) coffee! Bloody hippies! - they should be heading down south to Key West in my opinion!! And I can tell the people who came in after us were thinking the exact the same! Where is the logic in only selling ICE COLD coffee!!!! I, dear readers, have no objection to a) the selling of or b) the purchasing and consuming of cold brew or any other type of coffee that has ice in it. I merely suggest that only serving cold coffee is bizarre and a clear and present example of inherent insanity!. Just get a little boiler folks.>>

Little Havana

The main area of Wynwood runs from NW 20th Street to NW 28th Street, so on completion we went to the NW 2nd Avenue at NW 29th Street bus stop and headed back on the No 2 to the place we got on, a walk around the block and we caught the No 7 at NW 2nd Avenue and NW 7th Street at 12.00 we arrived in Little Havana (NW 7th Street and NW 25th Avenue) at 12.30pm. Here we were puzzled, Drew had read about Little Havana in his guide book (previously mentioned) before coming here, I hadn’t, but what we saw, though very Hispanic, was not what Drew expected. 

Depending on your perspective the problem is either Google’s or mine (I think you can imagine which one of us takes which of these perspectives!!). I had, as I did yesterday, for South Beach, added Little Havana into Google Maps before leaving the hotel (where we have wifi) it provided the bus route. However, Google’s view of where Little Havana is, is the central point of the geographic area called Little Havana, whereas we were looking for the Main Street of Little Havana as described in the tourist books. The location of both is 2 miles apart, and without wifi I had no way of finding that out. 

Having walked around confused at being in the middle of a residential area, all be it a nice residential area with mock-adobe houses, we popped into a cafe for lunch and a toilet stop. I had an Empanada Gallega con Chorizo and Drew an Empanada Gallega con Pollo and, due to the sugar in Cuban Coffee, which I had forgotten about, Drew managed both.

<<Co-pilot's note: I, dear readers, blame myself. I always believe him when he says he knows where he is going and time and time again I get caught out. Notable examples include walking around the dark back streets of San Francisco with people putting bodies in the boot of a car. And include walking half way from Dubrovnik to Cavtat, because someone knows where the bus stop is - NOT. 

I should have double checked myself.>>


The Toilet was an interesting experience here. It was located through the kitchen, past the bread ovens, past the office, past the storeroom and near the back door – no wonder there are no signs for them and customers have to be walked through to them!

Williams-Sonoma

We decided to give up on Little Havana and head for our next destination, Williams-Sonoma in Coral Gables. 

We are big fans of this store. Our first visit being to one in New York just before Christmas 2004. On that occasion we spent the best part of a day in one. At that time we were having our kitchen extended and refurnished we bought quite a few items, but only small items that could fit into the luggage. Our salt and pepper sellers, vinegar bottle, cooking implements and sugar pourer are all working well having come from there. When we were in San Francisco in 2009 we visited the store on Union Square and bought t-towels. We also visited the new store on Columbus Circle in New York when we were last there in 2015, but just to window-shop. So we had thought of going and I found this one on the map yesterday.

We travelled on the 27 bus from NW 27th Avenue at NW 7th Street to Coconut Grove (SouthWest (SW) 27th Avenue at SW 28th Lane) and on the Metro Rail one stop to Douglas Road, from there it is a few minutes’ walk to the Shops at Merrick Park which include Williams-Sonoma. We had a nice look around and were again amazed by the range of things we didn’t know you needed in a kitchen that American can provide. Our main object was to buy four t-towels, like the ones we bought in the San Francisco branch of Williams-Sonoma in 2009 (one of our existing ones is getting a little worn – we should adopt better rotation of the t-towels, because the others still look new).

We walked back to Douglas Road and caught the train to Downtown, the Government Centre, having bought so many clothes at JC Penny’s in Naples last week we will need an extra case on our way home (plus Drew’s case is very threadbare, and the wheels get stuck, so he has been looking for a replacement for a while). We walked a block or two and found a shop called Joelos’ Dollar Store, Drew looked at what they had to offer and bought one for $17.50 which is less than the £15 he paid for his current case at BHS (remember them!) <<Co-pilot's note: I was much happier paying $17.50 than I would have been buying one during our visit to Nordstorm earlier. Where the price was $625 for the same size case!!>>


We got on the MetroMover at NW1st Street and travelled the four stops to Brickell and across the road to our hotel arriving here at 5.30pm. The umbrella made it through the day safely and was duly returned. 

Drew went for another run in the Fitness Centre and I started to edit the photos before going out for dinner at 7pm

Dinner

Tonight's meal was in a small restaurant just two blocks from the hotel. The restaurant is called La Mexicana Cantina and Grill and is a recent addition to the Miami eating scene, which has got good feedback since it opened. 

The food is traditional Mexican. It began with a free plate of chips and salsa. The salsa was lovely and spicy, with a chili richness that characteristics Mexican food for me the chips are a deep fried tortilla broken into pieces. 









Moving on to our appetisers, I began with one of the most Mexican of street-foods; Tostades. Tostades is two crispy corn tortillas topped with black beans, lettuce, sour
cream, cotija cheese and chicken, it was delicious.

Drew chose to have Queso Fundido, which was a Monterry Jack Cheese warmed with three tortillas to scoop it up. Unlike the same dish which Drew had in Disney World this did not have any chillies but was a nice cheese with pleasant flavours.  








For mains I had Torta Choriqueso, a loaf of telera bread split in half and filled with choriqueso, lettuce, refried beans, guacamole, pickled jalapeños and red onions. Choriqueso is an old favourtie of mine, and this was a fine example. The picked jalapeños gave a lovely bite to the flavour fo the whole dish. 

Drew had a Hamburger and Fries, the burger had with tomato, lettuce and avocado on it. <<Co-pilot's note: Avocado has, in my opinion, no place in a burger!!!. Mustard and ketchup yes! Avocado no! The interloping piece of fruit was in this case quickly extracted (a task which proved simple as it was one single lump of 1/3 of an avocado) and deposited on the side of the plate!>>

After Dinner we had a gentle walk back to the Hotel taking in the bright lights on all the tall buildings around us and were in bed before 10pm.