First couple days in Miami

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30/12
On my first full day in Miami it was surprisingly quite cold. It was still 20 degrees but for Miami it was chilly and the strong winds didn't help. I walked around the shops in the morning. They had a forever 21 and a Victoria secret, it was so difficult not to buy anything!! I had to restrain myself as I knew that my rucksack was already pretty full so I didn't want to overload it with more clothes. I've decided I'm just gonna have to wait till LA/Vegas to do some shopping! I had a Starbucks for lunch and sat down to write my first blog post.
One of the things I am most conscious about on this holiday is gaining weight. Obviously because of the amount of the alcohol and the lack of exercise it is inevitable that this will happen. So because of the temperature I thought I'd go for a run along the beach as a lot of people were also doing the same! It was lovely. I ran for about an hour (had a couple of stops in between for water) but it was a nice way to see the beachfront and was also very relaxing. When I got back to the hostel I bumped in to Cara and we decided to have a drink as she was leaving that day. A man came and joined us and straight away I got a weird vibe from him. However he was nice enough to chat to for a bit but then he started asking me if I wanted to go to a spa with him and I wasn't interested. He was staying in my room as well.
The hostel is about 90% male. Except from Cara I didn't really meet any of the other girls so I have stayed with the two Australian guys the whole time. Their names are Ben and Brandon and they are cousins.
In the evening us 3 decided to go for food together. We went to a pizza place and got a large to share and it was soooo filling. We opted to do a deal with the hostel in the evening which you paid $30 and you got an open bar for an hour before you went, transport to the club and also entry. After our filling meal we all decided to take naps and meet downstairs for 10pm as the open bar started at 10.30pm. However I overslept and woke up at 10.40! Luckily I was already ready so just shot downstairs to meet them. The bus to the club was cool, it had lights and could get about 30 people on and everyone was dancing. But I was one of only 3 girls so it was getting a bit annoying cos a few guys started getting a bit creepy. Luckily I just stuck with Ben and brandon all night.
The club itself was definitely an experience. It was exactly like I've seen in reality shores like jersey shore etc, lots of grinding and fist pumping and people taking drugs! It was called Heart and it had 3 floors. The bottom was Latino music, middle was hip hop and upstairs was techno and house. We stayed at the top for a bit as we didn't discover the other two floors till later on in the night. Drinks were very expensive so we stuck to coronas which were $10 each. After trying out the other two floors we decided to leave at about 2.30am. We got an uber back to the hostel and whilst we were waiting for it we struck up a conversation with a very intelligent homeless man. In the 20 minutes we were chatting we covered a lot of topics including - Trump, Brexit, Celebrities, the police, clubbing scene in the US. It was very interesting. Once we got back to the hostel we all went to bed. Ben and Brandon are both lovely but Brandon can be quite negative about going out etc. But he was still a good laugh on the night!

31/12
Us 3 were still unsure what to do for NYE as we didn't really want to go to a club as it was way too expensive. We decided that we would drink in the hostel with everyone and then head to the beach for the fireworks at midnight. In the morning I got up and went to beach as it was much warmer (about 25 degrees). The beach can be deceiving though because it is so windy , you don't feel that hot when you are lying there tanning but you obviously are! Bit worried I'll get burnt but we will see. I got a Caesar salad from 7 eleven for lunch and it was surprisingly very good for $4.20. I'm trying to stick to one meal out a day as otherwise I'll just spend too much money on food and a sandwich/salad at lunch is fine! I went back to the beach after that for a couple more hours and started my book - the book thief. I'm finding it hard to get into at the moment but I've heard really good things about it so gonna stick with it. I went for a little walk along Ocean Drive and there was a drag queen catwalk happening at one of the restaurants. I stood there and watched it for a bit and then headed back to the hostel to shower. Brandon and Ben were at a dive sports bar watching college NFL so I went and joined them for a drink after I was ready. We stayed there for a bit and then headed back to the hostel. We drank there until 11pm which was a nice chilled vibe. I wasn't up for clubbing at all so glad that NYE was chilled. We met a guy called Adam who had just got the hostel. He was travelling on his own also. He was an artist from Tennessee and told us that his shed where he kept his artwork had burnt down! So he just decided to take a trip with some of the insurance money he got from it and was hoping to get some inspiration for new pieces. Ben's friend from Sydney and his dad came and met us and had a few drinks with us also. As it was all men they did talk about sport a lot but I didn't mind. I am very excited to socialise with girls in Argentina though! We all headed to the beach at 11pm and it was very busy but not too packed. We sat by a palm tree and watched the fireworks at midnight. It was definitely one of my best NYE's to date. We headed to five guys after to grab a burger and then Ben, Brandon, Adam and I headed to a bar for some g&ts. We stayed there for a while and headed to the hostel at around 2am. I was very drunk at this point but was still aware so it was fine. Very nice and chilled NYE's!!

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