1) Every Saturday morning a Spanish language newspaper is delivered to my house. I have no idea why or who is paying for it. I don't know how to speak enough Spanish to figure out how to cancel it. But the paper has not stopped in a year and it just keeps coming.
2) By my office close to the airport in Miami there are people who sell fruit and water bottles beside the road. As you stop they run out to the cars and sell their wares. It is like being in a foreign country! There was even a guy who sold these great churros (a sugary pastry) but he disappeared one day and I have not seen him since.
3) The further south you go, the more optional the stop lights become. I was driving home recently and basically both sides of a stop light were running the lights. So all the people with the red light were driving through it. That meant that the green light side was stopped. So when the green light started to turn red that side started going...and ran their red light. Then the cycle began again!
4) Cuba is not just a concept down here. It is very real. You meet many people who fled the country and they are not amused by Castro at all.
5) It is really that hot. You get about two weeks of cold and then it peaks back up into the 70's and 80's during the day. At night it is in the 60's. Most neighborhood pools are heated so people swim all year here. You can go to the beach in January and it is packed with people sun bathing.
6) People think a lot about hurricanes. They are sort of the elephant in the corner of the room. No one wants to talk about them but you always have to think about them. People sit around talking about the best way to maintain generators and what neighborhoods have the most buried power lines.
7) The Caribbean is literally in your backyard. For 25-$30 you can hop on a boat and go over there anytime.A boat leaves from the port 20 minutes from my house. It goes out every day at 8 and is back by 10PM.
8) It is really one long city. From the tip of Miami to the north of Palm Beach is 100 miles of residential neighborhoods all stretched along the coast.
9) The freeways are huge and rarely full. Most of the major roads here are built to get a lot of people out of town as quickly as possible(hurricanes again). I rarely drop below 80 on my morning commute. I am frequently passed by police doing 85-90!
10) It is actually a great place to live if you do not mind that you have to learn some Spanish and you basically have no seasons.
5 comments:
Where did you live before? I'm wondering how big the contrast was.
Too bad about the Churros.
I'd be disturbed by the traffic light thing. And the heat.
You probably have interesting food.
My daughter may end up moving to Florida, so if she does I guess I'll have to visit!
I grew up in Western Palm BEach county. Dad is a farmer, Cane, leaf vegetable and some others...Yes its hot, humid, and how bout them roaches???? Maybe we just had them being in the middle of a cane field! We also had lots of lizards. We love those when we go back every summer. WHen I was a child we would catch them, open their mouths and hang them on our ears like lizard earrings!!! Life is a lot different hear in the DC suburbs!!
I lived in Tampa. However, I think no matter where you live South Florida is a culture shock. There is a huge Cuban,Colombian and Venezuelan influence down here.
The food is great. The Colombian's love to drink fruit smoothies with their meals. So you can get great smoothies! Also, the Cuban food is comfort food at its best.
The heat is really not bad. It is like the Caribbean. It is never really cold but never really hot. The wind blows off the Atlantic and it cools things down. Also, it tends to rain every afternoon in the summer and that cools the place down also.
I saw your daughter is getting married to a Navy Diver. There is plenty of diving down here! We have a pretty strong Navy presence also. Big base in Ft. Lauderdale.Are they looking at South Florida or up in the Panhandle? They are way different places. The Panhandle is more like Georgia than Florida!
Wow - Julianne....what a revelation! Who would have thought!
Ian, I'm not sure where Lydia would go. She says they will be in Virginia Beach at least another year, though. They would have a choice between Florida, California, Hawaii, Guam.... Clearly she won't be in the midwest anytime soon!
As for lizards hangiong on my ears as pretend earrings and roaches, yikes. I'd freak out. I have been to Ft. Lauderdale, Miami and the Keys - beautiful, beautiful beaches. Being a New Englander who loves winter and snow, I would miss the seasons though.
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