Miami is a whole different world!

Before I moved to Miami, many people warned me about the diversity; however, they should have warned me about the men! I could care less that I live in a predominately African American community or how many Cubans there are. By far, the largest culture shock has been the extremely, aggressive men! A woman can't walk down the street without being stared, whistled, honked and yelled at. They don't discriminate down here, they even yell when you’re with a group of guys. Moreover, there are no age restrictions on these oglers: they are 14-114 years old. They even slow down or stop their cars (or bikes when appropriate) as to get a better look: it is unbelievable! I've been offered more rides in the last six weeks than I have in my entire life. On Friday, I was walking to the train and a body builder in a Corvette yelled, "You shouldn't be in the sun baby; let me give you a ride." At least he wasn't old enough to be my great grandfather!!

I think that in many ways, I'm an old woman in a young woman's body. I like to cook, go wine tasting, hand write letters, and I love to knit, which is clearly the strongest piece of evidence that I'm an old woman. Well, I decided on Friday night to join my friends and go out to one of the hottest clubs on South Beach, Mansion. I'm really glad that I decided to go. I had SO much fun (which is hard to imagine since there was no knitting involved, ha-ha). As most of you know, I'm a terrible dancer, but that didn't keep me from dancing the whole time I was there.

We all car pooled there and some genius decided that we should park at a lot on the corner of Lincoln and Michigan, which was approximately one mile from the club. I don't have a car in Miami, but even I know that there are parking lots that are cheaper and within three blocks from the club. The car I rode in had one gentleman and three women, who were all wearing at least three inch stiletto heals. Needless to say walking back to the car after a night of dancing, we moved as quickly as a two year old leaves an ice cream shop on her own accord. I still can't believe it, but it took us one hour and twenty minutes to walk to the car. Our driver was complaining about her feet and the gentleman in our group took off his giant man shoes and gave them to her. I laughed so hard seeing this cute, dressed up girl in a man's size 12 shoes--her feet sliding with every step she took. To top it all off, men were approaching her on our walk and asking for number. If I wasn't laughing at watching her, I was laughing looking over at the gentleman walking in dress socks. One good thing about being in Miami is that it is still 80 degrees at 2:00am. It really was a fun night, even if it took us longer to walk to the car than it did to drive across Miami to go home. Two days later, I still have blisters on my feet in places I didn't realize that blisters could develop. Going out is fun, but I'm still just as happy sitting at home knitting, having a cup of tea and watching a good movie.