So here we are finally arriving in Florida during the middle of the week . . . barely. My new car is already trashed, especially its cracked windshield and my co drivers’ wallets are starting to hurt from all the speeding tickets; but we finally made it. With the exception of one of us we are all a little light on money. One friend and I were both underclassman in college who worked just enough to get by, making this trip a stretch on our finances. Only one friend had a career and a house and really didn’t have to worry about a budget throughout the start of the trip.
We started the week off in Ft. Lauderdale. Nothing was too crazy here, but it was only the middle of the week. We were staying at my aunt’s apartment and I was saving up money for the rest of the trip. By Wednesday we figured we would get a cheap hotel in Miami and really go out in style Thursday night. When you spend less money on a hotel in a rich city chances are you are in a bad neighborhood, and we were.
Once Friday night came and after we finished our Pre- Game (drinks in the hotel before we went out) we put on our Money- Makers on(nice collared long sleeve shirts). Two minutes after walking out of the hotel we could tell this was the place to be. Some guy pulled up in a Porsche with music blasting so loud it echoed off of all the building. He had a full- fledged Jew- Fro (curly afro) and quickly jumped out of the Porsche and started busting out dance moves in the middle of the street and in traffic. Coincidently we ran in to him later on. We couldn’t understand his name but we just called him Aladdin because it sounded close enough.
Throughout the night we all definitely surpassed our budgets as everything in Miami revolves around having money. People often say it is a very fake city where the people only care about looking flashy and having money. They are probably right, but there is still an awesome night life there. I remember slipping the bouncers at The Mansion forty bucks each to cut the insane line. The Mansion is nuts. Plenty of rappers talk about it in their song and DMX was even on hand.
We met a bunch of girls from Long Island and while walking back to hotels. We definitely made a wrong turn somewhere. Like most cities, if you walk too far the wrong way you quickly find yourself in the wrong part of town. Now we were in the wrong part of town and the girls were getting heckled by everyone we passed. Our walking group gained two more girls that didn’t fit in and had bad intentions. My one friend, the only one with money, quickly took to the new editions of our group.
They tried to draw our attention by pointing at a golden key on the ground saying, “One of ya’ll dropped a golden key”. Well the most intoxicated member who just happened to be the one with the most money thought, in his jaded state of mind, that they were trying to pick him up. “Oh that’s my golden key” . . . idiot. The golden key was symbolic of one of the biggest downfalls of our trip.
We tried to get him to walk with us and not stray away with his two girls. We even tried to physically move him away. He wasn’t having it and we went back to the hotel thinking he would follow. He didn’t. We took to the streets in the car and found him staggering alone by himself with a big smile on his face. The smile quickly dropped when he was in the car and realized that his whole wallet was gone. The smile was even further gone when he found out that his bank account was wiped out. All he had left was the damn golden key. We even bought a necklace to mount it on to commemorate the dumbest decision and night of his life.
Now we were all broke. We barely had enough money to live it up like we did Thursday night in Miami. We thought about driving back to Ft Lauderdale and toning down the rest of the trip. This was not happening. We continued down south for Friday night in Key West. We couldn’t afford a hotel, but who cares, we had the Focus which then became known as The Focus Resort.
Next week- things get worse in Key West. . .
-Brian
Miami
Aladdin in the street
Aladdin in person
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