'Windy' Florida

This is the second year in a roll that i get to spend mexican independence day in the US.. this time it was due to work reasons. Uh huh! One of the banks I work with is headquartered in Miami, so me and a colleague went there to get a 10-days-hands-on training... yay! The office is located at a really neat building on Brickell Avenue in the middle of the fancy Financial District.

Life is full of cool coincidences and my good old friend Andrew also had to go to Miami for business that week, so we met again after exactly one year!

The 'intense' 10 days training was only interrupted by a very nice weekend in the Florida Keys. We drove from Miami through all the keys till we got to Key West, which happens to be the southern most point in the US... the distance to La Havana, Cuba is only 145 km, while the distance to Miami is around 240 km!

From all the weekends in the year.. we happened to go there exactly during the annual Key West Poker Run! Yeah baby.. 10,000 motorcycles, long haired & tattooed guys with their biker-babes of course (looking something like this) lots of beer on the streets, and to wrap it up.. american culture at its best!

At first i was sort of annoyed with the whole thing, the city is small but really pretty and it couldnt be fully enjoyed when it was that crowded and there were big motors roaring all over the place, -or so i thought- but i ended up having a great time! It was fun and interesting to see the procedures of that 'local' institution..


On our way back on sunday we saw some warning signs on the road, saying the Keys were under evacuation due to a hurricane coming closer.. for some reason i didnt give any importance to it then, but the next morning while getting ready to go to the bank, we heard in the news there was really a hurricane on the way (Rita) and it was expected to hit Miami the next day... exactly when we were flying back! Everybody was kinda panicking in the office.. Katrina had hit the US recently so it was understandable.. we had to evacuate the building around 2pm and go 'home' to get ready to welcome Rita.

Luckily, Rita was not as bitchy as they had forecasted.. some winds, rain, fog and lightnings.. but nothing scary... anyways our flight was rescheduled for next day and we got home safe and sound.


Just some additional remarks about the trip:

- It turns out that mexican independence day is not celebrated AT ALL in the US.. not that i was expecting to see americans screaming Viva Mexico! buuuut, what happened to all the immigrants in there? Its funny though that they celebrate May 5th as if it was THE national mexican holiday... i dont even have the day off from work here!

- Miami is really like a Latin America extension in the US... the 'official' language is (by far) spanish and americans are a minority, its so strange!

- In the building where the bank is located (Espirito Santo Plaza), they were shooting some scenes of the upcoming movie.. Miami Vice. Colin Farrell is in the cast.. and yessss, one day we were lucky to see him right outside the building. He was shooting a scene with Jamie Foxx while a lot of girls were drooling by the windows...

- The bridge connecting Marathon and the Lower Keys is around 12 km long! Almost as long as the Öresund bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden!.. This one is known as the 7-mile bridge and its been on movies and stuff... really cool location.