Talk forty eight.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 25th March
- I do not like the name of this town!
- The name comes from a series of fortifications built by the United States during the Second Seminole war (India-us), and the commander was Major William Lauderdale.
- And again we can see here a phenomenal location of this town by the ocean, but actually it’s a chain of cities and towns from Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood (Florida!), Miami, to Miami Beach.
- We stayed here because the hotels are a bit cheaper, and the distance to Miami, and other attractions is only about forty miles.
- As anywhere else in the U.S., the distances here are long, and most importantly, here in Florida is such a tangle of hundreds of kilometers of highway, without a GPS we would not cope with that easily. The map would be very uncomfortable.
- Thanks to the GPS we don’t argue about where to turn, which exit to take.
- I don’t argue.
- No, you don’t. Just yell at me!
- You must be hypersensitive.
- Well, my sensitivity wouldn’t allow me to live in this region here, where there’s too much driving and life without a car is just impossible. Having a car also means a permanent fight for parking spaces
- Unless you take expensive parking lots.
- In this metropolitan region of Miami - Fort Lauderdale, where 5 and a half million residents live and 10 million visitors come every year, in my opinion, it is impossible to relax. But some like it hot ...
- The rich are better off here..
- They must be super rich since the prices are so high.
- However, on the nudist beach you can’t tell who is rich or who’s not.
- What kind of wealth are you talking about?
- It’s not called wealth, it’s equipment!
- Such a beach is located in one place only in North Miami, in the park called Haulover Beach[6].
- This is the only official nudist beach, because spontaneous nudism outside designated places, in puritan America, is strictly prohibited.
- At the entrance to the beach there are sign-posts warning people that from that point on there you might see naked people! And it may not be desirable! You may be frightened! You could get a shock! Or choke on the experience!
- Funny enough, the beach with the naked is full but the regular one, next to it, is almost empty.
- On the beach, the average age of both sexes is high (although everything is relative), but there is a natural atmosphere of relaxation on the loose… Especially when they play volleyball…
- The average age on Ocean Drive in South Beach is amazingly low. Where do these teens get money from for those clubs, pubs and other expensive attractions?
- I think parents give them the money for peace of their mind. Let the kids disappear from the home. Although I don’t think they were teenagers. They seemed to me that they were allowed to drink alcohol, which means that they are twenty one years old or more.
- The whole district of South Beach called Art Deco District[7], seems to be exclusively for the very rich.
- We are not rich! But I have to say that I didn’t have a problem walking around the district and enjoying drinks in restaurants along the main street.
- Some additional fun it is watching that streaming colourful crowd, and above all, those cars driving slowly past, showing off their beauty. They are from very old to the latest models.
- The Art Deco District is a district of Miami Beach (Miami itself is a city on the mainland, the island is known as Miami Beach and its most important and most interesting southern end is South Beach) with the architecture of the Art Deco style. It contains the world's largest concentration of 1920s and 30s architecture. The vibrant colours of the buildings represent an era when Miami was promoted and developed as "a tropical garden playground."
- Wouldn’t you like to go to a music festival with the hottest DJs in the world?
- Sorry? Do you call IT music? The fact that THEY call music this terribly roaring cacophony of sounds coming out at once from several huge stages set in a fenced area in the heart of Miami, it's not my fault. And the admission to that noise is quite expensive!
- Have you seen this crowds of happy people?
- People? Kids! Teenagers!
- But how colourfully dressed and painted! What glee!
- If I had been half a century younger …
- The whole century!
- Do not be a pig!
- Have you seen the Vietnamese pigs kept as pets?
- In a family living in a camper which came all the way from Alaska and now parked in a parking lot in Key West[8].
- Its was a long way over the Florida Keys to get to the very end, to Key West.
- Not so long in distance but long in time to get there because of the huge traffic at the beginning of the tourist season.
- It’s a fact, the weather here is excellent. Fortunately, this is not a period of hurricanes which are very common here from June to October!
- Key West has nearly 25.5 thousand residents. And tourists come here every day in tens of thousands. It is the most southerly point of the mainland of the United States, 150 miles north of Havana and 240 miles southwest of Miami. Besides the islands of Hawaii, Key West archipelago are the most popular tourist islands in the U.S. The average annual temperature for Key West is 26 degrees Celsius, and it has never been less than zero. According to a legend, on the island lies an Indian curse. If you come to the island once, you’ll want to come back here over and over again to the end of your life.
- I’m not coming back. Once is enough. It's nice here, but I've seen nicer places.
- Do you know what it's called? Indifference! You’ve been everywhere, you’ve seen everything! I'm here for the second time, and even you can be touched by the curse and you will have to come here again!
- I had also seen before coming here, the main item of the program on the island - the famous, supposedly the world's most beautiful sunset[9]. Back home in Wisełka, for example!
- But not everyone has been in Wisełka. You can’t see such sunset in Manhattan, on Champs-Elysées, in Trafalgar Square or Red Square.
- I admit that there is a unique atmosphere around the event, that is, an international crowd of people in the bars, cafes, and restaurants along the waterfront; ships, boats, motor boats, yachts - large and small at sea. And margaritas[10] in people’s hands! In such a way the world seems more beautiful!
- Right here the margarita drink became so famous and is a flag beverage of Key West. Hemingway drank it in large quantities when he lived here in the 1930s.
- After all those margaritas I couldn’t drive, and you, poor thing, had to drive at night all the way to Miami, in high traffic.
- I managed. However, it wasn’t easy to drive over five hours non-stop to our Fort Lauderdale.
- We forgot to talk about gay life in Florida.
- About the Mecca of world’s gayness?
- About the phenomenon which occurs here openly, without prudery, and deceit, and above all, proves that we exist in this world, in nature!
- Although Fort Lauderdale is mainly known as the paradise for gays, I saw there a great neighborhood, the place where life of gays and lesbians doesn’t distinguish itself from any standard. It distinguishes itself (I mean the district) with the fact that everyone, without exception, all the homo and hetero feel here very well and at home.
- In addition to pubs, bars, discos, there are many small restaurants, ice cream parlors, pastry shops active almost all day and night, where you can meet friends or just hang out.
- Two million people live permanently here and about seven million tourists "invade" the area each year.
- Nobody has counted gays and lesbians separately?
- Be politically correct!
- Is politically correct in Poland to celebrate the Valentine's Day? It's such a non-Catholic holiday?
- This is the last thing that worries me in our country. Here's your Valentine's Day card from 2002:
“Not happy is the one who picks flowers,
But the one who picks only one flower,
And calls it luck.
- for my only Valentine - A.”
- Obviously, I'm getting sentimental under your influence.
- There is nothing to be ashamed of. On the fifth anniversary of our relationship I got yet another Valentine card from you:
“Everything is so confusing:
Is it milk or cocoa?
Is it heat or cold?
I do not know what it should be.
One thing I know beyond any doubt
I LOVE YOU more than life!
- I think, I’m going to cry!
[1] Haulover Beach Miami
[2] Art Deco District Miami
[3] Key West Florida
[4] Key West Sunsets
[5] Margarita Drink Haulover Beach Miami
[7] Art Deco District Miami
[8] Key West Florida
[9] Key West Sunsets
[10] Margarita Drink
