Day eighty-two

Flying out of Mexico and into the US were problems in themselves. I had booked online using American Airlines, to fly from Puerto Vallarta to Miami, through Mexico City. Except when booking the ticket, when you have to fill in your billing address, there was no country listing for Australia. Go figure. So I ended up putting down something random, like “Peru” or whatever was decent on the list they had provided. The site said “purchased” and then “ticketed”, and I had seat numbers and everything.

So of course checking in was a hassle. They told me I had a reservation, but it wasn’t paid for. It took like an hour to sort out. It didn’t help I had forgotten that I had put down my country as somewhere completely different though :P. So I gotta make sure to check (CHECK ADAM CHECK!!) that I haven’t been charged twice for the same flight.

Finally got away though. Passed through Mexico City, which judging from the fly-over, extends foreverrrrr in every direction. Seriously, to the horizon in every direction. It was massive. I had a few hours there but didn’t really do anything with that time. I got into the US at about 10pm.

Except US Immigration wasn’t too happy with me. Why are you doing this? Where are you going? How are you paying for all this? We don’t believe you get that much paid leave for that many years of service. Etc etc etc. They took me into a little room and asked me a bunch of rapid-fire questions, then left me in there for like 45 minutes while they mulled over whether or not to just kick me out and send me back to Australia. And then they just let me through :). Yay for me! I didn’t ask any questions, just thanked them and got out of there :P. There was a waiting room in there too, and I was the only white person out of like 30 people they had stopped...

So this is Miami! You know, it’s everything you see on Dexter, Burn Notice, Janice Dickinson, etc. And more. Ocean Drive is spectacular, the beach is pristine, the water is crystal clear, the heat is (un?)bearable, the people are beautiful, the pastel art deco buildings are fantastic, and they look great at night lit up with neon and coloured lights.

I saw them filming some of Burn Notice yesterday afternoon. And I passed the Versace home, where Gianni used to live. And the Catalina, where Janice set up her makeshift agency when she was here. And the stretch of hotels Dexter drove by at the beginning of the first episode of the first season. It’s a veritable treasure trove of TV trivia here. I also passed by this big tent where the “Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Swim Show” was happening right then, and to be sure, Janice herself was probably in there!

Yesterday it got up to 110 F (which is high 30s?), and I passed by the big thermometer thing on Ocean Drive at about 11pm last night, and it was still in the 90s (which is about 32 C, I think). It stays hot all the time. It’s still really nice though! You’d think that would mean a complete no to any outdoor dining, but most restaurants, bars, cafes etc “mist” you. Ie they have fans on, and in the centre of the fan shoots out a very light misting of water, which gets blown about by the fan. It’s lovvvvely.

Oh, and the rollerbladers are true too! Every time you (or at least, I) saw something on Miami/South Beach, there were always rollerbladers going up and down the pavement. They really do that! They talk about the obesity of America, but as I’ve traveled round, I’ve realised that there are like polar opposites to the health-conscious in the US. New York and Miami are incredibly health-conscious. There are smoothie bars, food markets, gyms etc everywhere, and it shows in the people, who are pretty much all either trim and beautiful or beefy but built. And then there’s other parts of the US, like New Orleans, where they have fast food joints on every corner, deep fry whatever they can get their hands on, and eat all day long (admittedly for very cheaply, and with a giant helping of taste).

Last night I got to see The Dark Knight. Loved it. I’m not a fan of these “realistic” Batman movies though. I like the Gotham City of stylised Batmans; ie the Gotham from the original two movies. Making them more realistic opens themselves up to a lot more scrutiny, and there was like four parts of the films where what happens just would not happen in reality. Suspension of disbelief is much more difficult when they ground it more in reality, and those parts of it really jarred :/. Also, what was up with Batman’s voice? Did they really need to turn it down like 30 octaves? It sounded stupid.

The two best parts of the film were the Joker and the story itself.

The Joker was fantastic. Every time he was on the screen was incredible. You couldn’t take your eyes off him, couldn’t help but concentrate on every word, every syllable. I actually cringed a fair bit in the movie because he was so unsettling. I also cringed when one SWAT team member announced “I didn’t sign up for this!”, which was just stupendously cheesy.

And the story... Wow. You remember, I saw Hellboy II the other week. It had a story, but by about a third of the way through the movie you knew how the entire rest of the movie was going to play out, and it was just a matter of sitting through and watching it happen. But The Dark Knight’s story... It goes everywhere. It was fantastic. Every now and then you had a snippet of where it was going to go in, like, the next five minutes, but other than that it felt pretty damn unpredictable. A lot of that was just because of the nature of the Joker.

Downsides to the movie? Um... the voice of Batman, like I mentioned. And Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne. He just doesn’t look or sound like Bruce to me. I guess cause he’s so much younger, and these movies are supposed to be when he *was* younger, but it just doesn’t sit right.

On my way to the Dark Knight cinema I passed the Fillmore Theatre. Apparently Jerry Seinfeld is doing a stand-up show there on Saturday night, so I’m going to see if there’s tickets available for that.