I went to Miami during the 2017 summer holidays from July 23rd to August 4th. I was a little bit nervous beause I had never taken the plane before, so it was my first time ! The flight was fine. When we landed, a man was waiting for us to drive us to our hotel. His car was really big ! Like in a movie actually ! We arrived at our hotel which was situated on Miami Beach, in Ocean Drive in front of the Atlantic Ocean. The hotel was very cool, beautiful, and original and the staff was very nice and welcoming. It was just 9 am and it was already warm ! In Miami there is a lot of humidity so my parents and I took some time to get used to the heat. On the first day, we visited the surroundings and we took a bus which showed us Miami Beach, Miami downtown and some neighbourhoods like Little Havana, Coconut Groove and Wynwood. Unfortunately, we did not have time to visit Little Haïti during the summer holidays. We spent a lot of time on the beach since we had only crossed the roadto go there ! The Atlantic Ocean was very warm. I had never experienced that before, because it was totally different from the Atlantic Ocean in France with a lot of waves and a cold ocean. We tried different food, many specialities from different areas. The food was delicious everywhere ! One day, we wanted to go to Fort Lauderdale because my Dad had read in The Routard Guide that there was a mall with 400 stores !!! So we rented a car for 5 days to have the time to visit Fort Lauderdale, Key West , the Everglades and Miami of course. Let me tell you an anecdote. We were on our way to the mall and we had taken the highway to Fort Lauderdale but once arrived at some point, we did not know where it was necessary to go. We were lost so we decided to go back to Miami. The next day, we took our time to do the ride again to go to Key West. It was impossible to leave without a ride because it was 3 hours away from Miami. We stayed the day to visit. Key West is a very typical small island with wooden houses. In the street, there are many pubs. One of the most original has walls covered with bills and bras !!. Key West is like a city of the old America. Key West is the last island of the archipelago of the Keys. After visiting the city, we wanted to spend the night there but all the hotels were full so we had to go back to Miami. On the following day, we went to see crocodiles in the Everglades. Once there, there was a park with different animals like turtles, parrots, emus , and of courses crocodiles. There was also a kind of animal like a vulture. So we visited the park but before we made a tour by airboat. It was really funny, we went really fast and we made a lot of U-turns, what splashed us ! It was a great moment ! After, we saw a terrarium with snakes. One afternoon we visited Miami Beach. We found the mall so we decided to go there. In Miami and Fort Lauderdale and maybe in other cities, malls are not like ‘La Toison d’Or’. it is a street with stores on both sides and it is totally pedestrian. Let’s talk about the neighborhoods we visited. First, we discovered Litlle Havana. It is the Cuban district. We went to a very nice bar with a band with an old man which was dancing very well. He had a sense of the rhythm. The area was very typical, we could imagine we were in Cuba. People were very nice and charming. Then we went to Wynwood. We saw beautiful stuff. At this level, this is not just graffiti but this is a masterpiece. The district was not the most welcoming… but you must go there to see the beautiful work. I may forget some things but here are the main parts.
No doubt, attending the EURO SECTION has helped me a lot for this trip. I was prepared to hear real English and I was in good condition to learn ! It helped me, I was not lost when American people spoke to me. I understood everything and I knew how to make myself understood. The language was not a problem and that encourages me to travel again !
By Camille Debard, 1ES2