Days 16, 17 & 18 - Welcome to Miami!

After an early start in cold Pittsburgh and a couple of flights across America, we arrived in Florida early evening. The landscape was quite a change with, sun and palm trees rather than the cool climates, forests and lakes of North East. It was a welcome change! We were met at the airport by Anthony, one of the debaters we'd be facing on Monday, and taken to our hotel across town. We headed out that evening with Anthony and his wife Lauren, to South Beach, a pretty famous part of Miami (not least due to its mention in Will Smith's 'Miami'...). We had an excellent dinner in a restaurant on the beach, enjoying the amazing weather. We down the street of bars and restuarants, taking in the buzz of the city and enjoying the luxury of such an amazing climate.

We awoke on Sunday to another day of pretty much perfect weather in beautiful Miami (around 30 C and perfect blue sky..). Our host at Miami Dade, Professor Todd, picked us up from the hotel and we headed out South towards Key Largo, and to the Pennekamp State Park. The Florida Keys are made up of Islands off Miami, connected by bridges. I got to snorkelling, which was really incredible; there were loads of tropical fish swimming inches away from us (think Finding Nemo) and super impressive coral reefs. There was also a 9 foot tall statue of Christ about 10 ft from the surface (see left), which somewhat of a suprising sight when swimming around, and also really impressive to see. Lewis, who is not a keen swimmer, took a trip in a glass bottomed boat, and so also got to check out the reefs and fish. We then headed to 'Robbies' dock, where you can feed some of the hundred or so Tarpon fish in the water with baitfish. They're nicknamed the 'Silver King' due to the colour of thier scales, and they reach an impressive 8 feet. We got to watch them jump for their food, which was a pretty cool sight!

Whilst I realise this blog has tended to excessively mention food in America (though this is largely because of the fact our trip has been largely based around being taken from restaurant to restaurant...), our evening meal was definitely worth noting. We went to 'Golden Corral', one of a chain of buffet restaurants around the country. It's a fairly self explanatory concept, in that you pay for entry and then eat as much as you want. The choice and amount people were eating was pretty remarkable though; I'm going to put it down to the fact I'd spent an hour and a half in the water, but I inexplicably ate four large plates of food - perhaps the mentality of over-eating in the US is having an effect... But we were pretty conservative with our portions compared to most... The other bizarre thing about the experience was the extent of functionality of the restaurant - there was no real decor and it really was just focused on the food bars... It was a good meal though!

After heading back across town to our hotel, and after I had washed the salt off, we met up with Anthony and Paul (the other debater for Monday's debate, and also Anthony's brother-in-law); we hung out at Paul's house for a bit, where the football was on - we (/mainly Lewis) are getting better at being able to talk about football and sound clued up! We then headed out to the cinema and watched the 'Social Network' which was really good . In a couple of the scenes where there were British characters, their accents sounded really odd - we are clearly getting accustomed to the Ameircan twang!

Monday saw another beautiful day in Miami, with locals eulogising about the 'cool weather', at only 30 degress C! We headed with Professor Todd to a local Cuban restaurant, Paul and Anthony. Miami is a really interesting place, that feels very different to the other places we've visited. This is partly due to the tropical climate and the palm trees everywhere, but is also due to the diversity of the place. About 75% of the population is hispanic, with Cubans the largest group (Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida, and Cubans qualify to settle as political refugees in the US legally if they can reach American land). The massive Spanish influence is clear, with Spanish the primary language for a lot of the population; we heard Spanish being spoken more than English around the city, and a lot of signage in both languages. The other impact of this influence though, is the excellent food, and we very much enjoyed an excellent Cuban meal in one of Professor Todd's favourite restaurants.

We then headed to Miami Dade College for our debate. Its an enormous College, wtih 50,000 students on the one Miami Campus alone. The debate was "This House belives America has a duty to spread democracy across the world, using force where neccessary", and we were proposing. There was a really good audience, who got into the debate, and Anthony and Paul did an excellent job in opposition. Certainly one of our most enjoyable debates so far.

After the debate, we were picked up by our next host, Dave Steinberg, from the University of Miami. After checking into our next hotel, we headed for dinner, in a restaurant in 'Little Havana' and ate at Versaille (a Cuban restaurant, curiously decorated to mimic a French palace..). We then headed out to 'Coconut Grove' with some University of Miami students for some drinks in a popular area of town. The warm night air was punctuated by cries of joy and (more often) cries of despair as the Miami Dolphins were defeated by the New England Patriots 41-14... In no small part due to the joyous novelty of being able to drink outside comfortably in the late evening, it made for the end of a good day.