January 30th - February 3rd

trip began with a night out in London.However, it is worth mentioning that whilst on the train down, Martin and I were mixing it up with Chelsy Davy (Prince Harry's ex). She was looking Orange but Harry had most definitely done well.

Anyways, we spent that night in a few bars.The first was right next to the Thames with a superb view of London.12 pound for three pints though came as a shock for us northern boys.We then went to this other bar that sold us beers in tankards.They were see-through and I found it amazing that you could see your hands.Moving on.Martin was away early that next morning for his short flight to Miami and I followed later on a different flight, both particularly excited about the trip.

We arrived in Miami (customs were a joke).Two hours to get through, arrogant Americans making us wait.We then got a taxi to South Beach to our hostel.The next morning we woke up and strolled around the sights on Ocean drive, Collins and Washington Avenue.Martin severely underestimated the overcast weather, typical brit abroad…I don't need sun cream its not sunny… A few hours later he was a lobster which I found hilarious. We hit up the beach that afternoon, the two whitest people on there by some distance.That night we met probably thee most random person ever but he provided us with some joke for the evening.He was a 70 year old Black American who was on a gringo trail…?? Plenty of jazz juice was consumed that night, (vodka and cranberry) and a good night had.

The next day was super bowl Sunday.It's a weaker game of rugby that all Americans seem to pine over.We met a couple of people from Manchester who were spot on and so we found a bar in town where we would all watch the game.$8 pitchers was a result and we proceeded to get pretty drunk. The game actually was not that bad, quite entertaining listening to all the Yanks screaming.. TD BABY was one of the lines we often heard.

The weather was progressively getting better each day, by Monday it was around 26 so again we headed to the beach.We started to get s*** hot at bat and ball yet still remained the whitest on the beach.We looked like a bottle of red stripe, martin provided the red and I was the stripe.Quite ironic really when in a few days time we were going to be supping plenty of them in Jamaica.

That night we went to watch Miami Heat play in the NBA.It was class.The arena was probably only half full at most but that's probably because they were playing LA Clippers.Id never heard of them either.We had the cheap seats, the nose bleeds as the Americans would say.We spent the first half up in the roof before spending half time eating an All American dog.Yes we expected a huge foot long hotdog with all the trimmings and to say I was devastated when it arrived is an understatement.It was less than six inch big but according to the dude, his defence was that it was thick. Think what you like but we were screwing.

The second half we managed to sneak into the courtside seats, we could actually see the players.We had moved from $5 seats to $300.Score.It was absolutely awesome, we saw plenty of slam dunks.After the game finished we were stopped by this Brazilian guy who claimed to work for MTV Brazil and wanted to interview us.It was videoed on an ordinary camera and a huge finger from the bball was used as the microphone but we duly obliged.Was very funny.We then met this guy who gave us lift on his bike.He was too funny, claimed to be called Harold Wilson. He certainly did not look like a Harold but he was a legend.It was a perfect way to end Miami which had been a fleeting but most enjoyable four day visit.Bring on the Red Stripes.