February 23, 2007
SOUTH BEACH: BICYCLE SUBTERFUGE
So I when I check in at The Pelican last night, I ask the woman at the front counter, "Where's your bike rack."
She looks at me like I just shoved a piece of Roquefort up her nose.
I brought my bike last year and it saved me a ton of walking. Plus, I got to see a ton of Miami Beach that I normally wouldn't have seen. It's a great way to see a place you have no idea about.
"We don't really... have a bike rack."
Oh, okay, I say.
Time to go in CAUBSM (Complete and Utter Bullshit Mode).
"When I booked, I was told that I could bring the bike into the room, that it would be big enough."
Roquefort face.
"I don't care..." she says. "It doesn't matter to me personally. You know, me as a person."
Thanks for clearing that up.
"I don't really want to drag it through the restaurant out front," I say.
Extreme frommage erupts. We may be in Gorgonzola country now. It's clear no one has suggested such heresy before.
"I wouldn't go through the restaurant," she says. "I'd go through the side door."
Okay, I say.
I find the side door. The only way to it: Through the restaurant.
So I go out and get on the bike and start weaving through bumper-to-bumper traffic on Ocean Drive. I button-hook around the corner to the alley, hoping to get lucky and find a place between the hotel and the neighboring building, which is also an ultra-hip-pinky-in-the-air-kind-of-place.
Nothing. Gigantic white bars blocking my way. Looks like the fencing used to keep the Marielitos under the I-95 overpasses after the boatlift.
Then I see a door in the alley. Which leads to a staircase filled with all kinds of things people haven't moved or touched since Jackie Gleason lived in Miami Beach.
I hoist the bike and start the ascent to the second floor.
A guy in a white shirt, black vest and black pants meets me midway.
What to do... what to do...?
When in South Beach, I think to myself, do what the locals do: fake an accent.
"Andiamo! Andiamo!" I begin shouting in a generally friendly, maniacal Italian way. I visualize hurried rush hour in Reggio Calabria. "Buon giorno, andiamo!"
All those hours watching "Breaking Away" and "Moonstruck" finally pay off.
So, I get the bike to my room and realize:
I have a serious space issue. My feet already are going to hit the wall when I lay on the bed.
(This photo is not what the room looked like when I arrived, FYI)
The bathroom was almost the size of the room.
Maybe I could put it in there...
I love me a nice, big walk-in shower.
Problem solved!
Alan would be so proud of me.
The bell on the handlebars sounds really loud with all that tile.
SUGGESTED SOUNDTRACK FOR THIS POST: "Hypnotise" by The White Stripes.