It is more than six months since my last sojourn into America and it is always fun to write about traveling and to review or report on places, spaces, tastes and the gritty stuff of travel. My first stop is Miami because there are doctors waiting and my four day was planned for initial appointments for all the medical tests, tune-ups and surgical games I can fit into a month or so of time.
So far I have spent 3 hours with a fine ophthalmologist in Coral Gables (Dr. Mario Sabates, 1385 Coral Way) who is planning to cut up my other eye in two weeks. Since I have been having trouble finding a general surgeon for another reasonably small problem with the time to talk to me within a month, he called his cousin (It is the Tulane Medical School family into which I have happily fallen) , Braulio Sabates who will see me this week before I leave for New York. Tomorrow it will be the excellent electro-physiologist (cardiologist), Efrain Gonzalez who will tune-up the pacing device in my chest with his dedicated computer which will pull out a history and moving, computer-enhanced picture of the beating heart. It is better than a soap opera.
What to review first? The hotel. Because I had tens of thousands of “points” from Marriott and past visits to Miami during medical procedures and time spent with an incredibly incompetent prosthetic group in Hialeah (therein lies a warning to amputees hoping for help who find only incompetence and negligence), I decided I could and should use them for this stay and chose the Courtyard by Marriott near the Dodge Island cruise ship terminal. It is on 2d Avenue downtown in the center of this vibrant, Miami financial district, growing arts area and tourist magnet. It is also a short taxi ride from the ships, in the middle of Miami’s public transport system of people-movers and metro-rail and close to the Bayfront Park and Bayside - Biscayne Blvd. at NE 4th Street, a mall with “food court”, restaurants, bars (and “Hooters” which I have heard is a strip joint with food), live music and waterside restaurants.
Marriott’s Courtyard brand is being touted as a business-oriented hotel at a moderate price. The Marriott Rewards program had annoyed me greatly when it seemed designed to keep customers from using their tiny kick-back because of its muddy and hard-to-navigate web site. Some of that is true but much was my attempt to make arrangements on the ‘Net from the cruise ship at $20 per hour using most of the hour to deal with them. However, I finally sent in an email requesting them to put in my credit card number and finish the process because, after the hurricane and a week without electric service and fresh food, I was too tired and hassled. Amazingly, they did it for me. When I arrived at the hotel at 10 AM the bill had been paid with my “points” (actually $60 for the first 3 days), my room was ready and waiting and the staff were as pleasant as a TV commercial. Service and courtesy should not surprise but the world has become a tense place and I was surprised — pleasantly.
One of the next reviews will be that of my first digital camera, a Nikon D40x which is pleasing me. I may understand cameras but do not yet understand the digital versions so it is still on automatic point-and-shoot.
The first night I looked forward to Miami’s fine Chinese restaurants. None are around here and I haven’t had the energy to journey far for my feedings. The concierge suggested Bayside saying there was a food court. I planned to avoid such a thing thinking it would be fast food, junk food, grease on a stick. But the walk was fun and they have a carousel. That night I ate Cuban food at the Latin American Cafe overlooking the water. The Filetillos de Pollo Salteado (sauteed chicken strips with onion and peppers) that I had with side orders of black beans and rice cost $10.25 and were tasty, fresh, pleasantly served and filling. I wandered home to my hotel satisfied.
Tonight the proximity and fact that I finally had the energy to carry a camera and had figured out how to make the camera basically work. This time I wandered a bit more, found that there was a real mall there — the typical upscale American line-up of Gap Kids, Gap, Gap Pets, Sharper Image plus kiosks for massage, tattoos, toys and people making music and the carousel. I love carousel horses.
The food court turned out to not be made of McPoison, Kentucky Fried Chicken Fat and the other junk food dealers. Instead I nearly stopped for swordfish steaks or Salmon fillets, checked out the sushi, and finally settled down in front of Parillada Argentina with a lot of really tempting beef and spare-rib dishes on the grill. I took the chicken breast quarter with two side dishes — tomato & cucumber and yellow rice (which tasted just like the Cuban Yellow Rice on which I grew but, hey, it is Miami). The bill with a large Coke was $7.21. Except for having to eat with plastic utensils and foam plate, paper cup, it was delicious, well-seasoned and filled with the taste of the grill.
And here was the fun part with the Nikon’s little strobe built-in and just a little iPhoto manipulation:
