Work brought me back to Miami recently.
The state and local tax group at my firm had its yearly retreat in South Beach (of all places!) It was a sweaty experience, but I made a weekend of it and visited a lot of my old college haunts.
The state and local tax group at my firm had its yearly retreat in South Beach (of all places!) It was a sweaty experience, but I made a weekend of it and visited a lot of my old college haunts.
The University of Miami has gone through some major renovations since the last time I visited.
The cell-block dorm towers are still there, as is the law school and library, however there is a brand new student center, a hospital, and the dumpy student dive bar is now a gorgeous multistory restaurant.
We spent the weekend in Miami for my mother’s birthday and then immediately launched back into a packed workweek back in D.C. I wanted to jot a few notes about the weekend before I forget everything…
It was my first time back to Miami in almost five years, and a lot has changed. I’ll cover the Miami trip in greater detail in posts during the coming weeks, but here are some quick observations:
Hurricane Irma is crawling toward Miami and all of the flights are sold out.
There’s one seat left for an American Airlines flight. I quickly enter my payment information and hit purchase.
The system then tells me that the flight is sold out.
This situation repeats five times before I realize that American falsely claims to have a seat left for all of its sold-out flights. I move on to several other websites.
After a few more failed attempts, a purchase finally goes through and I call my mother.
This week I undertook the humbling task of reviewing all of my blog entries.
This blog stretches back to my freshman year of college, so there are a lot of great (and not-so-great) memories archived in these pages.
Here’s a look at how I spent the last decade or so, from Miami to Minneapolis, and then down to Texas.
We start in Miami — there were long days in the library, bad drag shows, and misadventures in Little Havana.
Then there was the move to Minnesota, where I started law school and lived in a frat house during my first semester.
I recently came across this hilarious sorority recruitment video from my alma mater:
The video is pretty epic – and says a lot about the Miami fantasy – yachts, multi-million dollar condos, hanging out with your closest 30 friends on the beach.
Of course all of the girls are also in great shape, and there’s even a black and a Latin girl “for diversity.”
There are a few shots on the actual University of Miami campus, the message is very clear: rich girl’s vacation.
I took the red-eye to Miami and joined the mass of friends and relatives.
After making it Iowa City and Chicago Gay Pride, I decided to surprise my mother in Miami. I haven’t been back to Miami in two years and she was not expecting me to just arrive at her doorstep at 6 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
Miami is as pretty and crazy as I remember it. Breast implants, crazy cars, body builders and drag queens…
And palms. Lots of palms.
Working from my South Beach hotel was amazing and I’ve determined that working vacations need to be a part of my life.
I was exhausted and my liver hurt, so I spent the rest of the summer enjoying Minneapolis. I made a point of going to the lakes and parks about three times a week and it was amazing. Minnesota isn’t half bad during the summer.
At the beginning of August I began the epic move to Lowertown St. Paul.
It reminded me of that line from White Noise – “The more things I threw away, the more I found.” – I was just horrified by how much crap I own and ended up throwing a ton of it out.
Oh and yes, Ikea furniture is still horrible to put together. I had to have two friends help me with that bar stool. These are my first world problems.
I am so happy that I made the move to downtown St. Paul. This city is cute, historic, and I’m having a lot of fun.
I made some hard choices to make it possible, but the incredible opportunities I had to travel and network make me sure that I made the right decision.
I’m excited for fall and my new adventures in St. Paul.
Oh, and sleeping. I miss that.
Memorial Day Weekend in Miami is also Hip Hop Weekend. I think the official title is “Urban Beach Weekend” but it’s basically Black Mardi Gras. So you know my mom is on the beach for the hot mess people watching.
She texted this to me this morning:
She saw this car accident in downtown Miami while on her way to the beach. My guess is that the upside down car braked just a tad too hard.
Somehow no one was hurt. Mom says that everyone from the crash was standing on the side of the road, horrified.
Oh, and down the road there were naked zombies…sigh. Only in Miami.
What a year.
I started the year as a 3L law student living in a mouse infested apartment building in Whittier.
My weeks were hectic. I spent my time jetting between my last few classes, my internship in the suburbs, tax training, and a public defender clerkship in downtown St. Paul.
Things changed quickly when I secured a permanent position at my company and started working full-time in February. There were also drag shows, long nights at Jetset, and blizzards.
The snow melted and classes ended quietly. Pride came and went, I turned 25, and I finally moved out of my ghettotastic apartment.
Work got busy once I moved. Drag shows and dancing were exchanged for Netflix marathons. I was promoted at work and got good at making brownies and mojitos.
By the time of my Miami trip I was 20 pounds heavier than I was at the beginning of the year.
I took the love handles to Miami anyway, which was fairly epic.
I started personal training at LA Fitness again upon returning, so I was horribly sore once New Year’s Eve rolled around. I was one of the DDs for New Year’s despite the best attempts of some people in our group.
My goals for this year include working harder, spending more time on creative projects, and losing these 20 pounds. Hopefully my grueling morning workouts help me get there.
Ending the year plump and employed isn’t bad, but 2012 will be better.
As far as I can tell, Wynwood Walls seems to be at the epicenter of the Wynwood neighborhood revitalization. It’s an event space that has murals and a chichi restaurant-bar.
The streets immediately surrounding the Wynwood Walls are covered in street art and most of the empty warehouses are now studio spaces and businesses. The developed area is massive, and probably the most interesting area in Miami today. I took a ton of pictures, which I will finish editing in the coming days.
It’s back to Minneapolis and goodbye to the warmth, palm trees and breast implants. Not a bad way to spend a week in December.
The fact that there were 2-4-1 Whiskey-Diets on the plane made the return to winter easier to bear.
Sure, I may have gone to a few underground hipster parties in college, but the Wynwood Arts District was nothing like this.
Palm trees, mutant ducks and Lake Osceola.
It was kind of a cool place to go to college.
I didn’t appreciate it when I lived here, but this place is kinda pretty.
Window shopping in South Beach reminds me that Miami women may have different proportions than Minnesotans.
I suspect Minneapolis is a tad classier, but not as fun.
