Miami, Day One: Freezing under Palm Trees

The flight down from New York was on time. Unfortunately, it was only to Dulles Airport and I had to wait for hours and hours for the only flight to Florida. Okay, there were two, but they left at the exact same time, which doesn't make much sense.

The problem with Dulles airport is while this is a very large airport, there's really no place to sit down. There are a couple of very expensive pubs, and they were so filled up there were lines. Also, there was a shuttle bus between terminals, which take forever to get.

The snow began to get heavy just when we got on the plane and they had to de-ice us and we finally got off the ground an hour late in a momentary blizzard. There was this annoying woman sitting next to me asking innane questions and a religious fanatic who gave me a hug. There's no food, except for free pretzels, which is better than some airlines, where they charge for that.

The SuperShuttle was four dollars more than advertized and took forever to pick me up, but at least the temperature was decent. That was until I got to South Beach and the Hostel. The temperature then began to drop preciptiously. There were no more blankets, so by around three in the morning I was getting really cold.

I got up at six in the morning, and it was freezing. 42 degrees farenheit, and ten degrees lower in Homestead, cold enough to snow. This is not what I wanted in Miami. There's one place open at six-thirty in the morning and the seats are outside. Fortunately I had a winter coat on, although some unfortunates were wearing shorts, which would be absolutely painful.

Right now it's eight AM and I'm sitting in the lobby of the hostel where there's wi-fi access and a bunch of people are shivering in the cold. This is Miami beach and there's no heat.

The schedule for the day is the city tour (I've been here a half a dozen times over the years and I've never actually gotten my bearings) and then there's just some hanging out before heading to the screening in the evening. More later.