A couple months ago we received an invitation from MJ’s family for a Bat Mitzvah boat party for one of his cousins in Miami. MJ hadn’t seen these relatives in several years and it seemed like a nice opportunity to visit. We took today off from work, booked our flights and then were pleasantly surprised when a relative offered a use of their beach house to us and MJ’s father for the weekend. Further surprise came in first class status upgrades on all our flights, awesome!
We flew out from Oakland at 6AM Pacific on Saturday morning (read: we left home at 3:30AM!), picked up an 8AM connection in Phoenix and landed in Fort Lauderdale around 4PM Eastern where MJ’s father picked us up.
The beach house ended up being a stunning condo between the Intracoastal and the beautiful Atlantic beaches of Hollywood, Florida. The patio wrapped around the unit and we ended up with a beautiful view of the ocean from our room.
We went out for dinner with MJ’s father and his girlfriend soon after arriving and headed to bed pretty early. Unfortunately MJ was suffering from the tail end of a cold he’s had for several days.
I woke up around 6:30AM the next morning because jetlag these past couple of weeks has seriously wrought havoc upon my sleep schedule. I was able to watch some of the sunrise and spent the morning on the patio with my laptop and the beautiful view. When MJ woke up we headed out to breakfast and then to enjoy the rest of the morning at the beach and by the pool.
Sunday afternoon we headed down to Miami Beach to meet up with the family and board the bay cruise boat they had arranged for the party. I think I managed to burn my nose a bit, but otherwise it was a fun 3 hour cruise and really nice event.
Afterwards we took a quick drive down to the South Beach area of Miami before returning to Hollywood. That evening MJ and I met up with the older sister of the cousin whose Bat Mitzvah we had celebrated for dinner at Yard House where I snagged a burger and a glass of Inlet Brewing’s Monk in the Trunk Organic Amber Ale from Jupiter, Florida. I’ll take this opportunity to say that it’s so awesome to go most places in the US now and tell them you want a local brew and manage to get some great brew from a local microbrewery.
This morning I woke up around 7AM and headed down to the ocean for a swim. The current was crazy strong and the waves pretty big so I got a nice workout! It was then over to the hot tub for a few minutes before going back up to the condo to relax on one of the patio couches. We had everything packed by 11AM and left for the airport.
The trip was far too short and I wish MJ’s cold hadn’t damped the experience for him but I’m very glad we went, and I think we’ll be adding it to our list of beautiful places to visit again (but first I have to visit my Florida family in Orlando and Melbourne!).
Edit: More photos of my trip can be seen in this Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157626777231498/