Esther & Adiel’s Blog

Friday
On the advice of long time Floridian, R, we drove to Bill Baggs state park Friday morning. The place is STUNNING!!! It’s a park right by the ocean, in Florida’s uppermost Key, Key Biscayne. Just beautiful trees, pleasant ocean breezes, empty beaches, just gorgeous. We got there in time for the 10:00 showing of a lighthouse. Very cool and awesome. A little dizzying getting up there, cuz you have to go around and around, but once you reach the top it is well worth it.  We learned all about the history of the lighthouse and how important it was to our nation and saw the house the lighthouse guy lived in. Then, we got drinks on a cool and breezy deck and chilled for a little bit. We saw two dogs who each had three legs, they lost it in an accident, but still can run!! Good mussar haskel. Then, we rented a ‘junior limo’ bike where we both had to pedal. It had a canopy and a basket in the front, very romantic. It was a fun ride, but hard work too! It was an amazing morning, with the one downside – I fell on the beach and broke the camera L. I was very sad about it but Adiel convinced me  to just enjoy the moment and not to let it bother me. So I tried to do that and ended up having a wonderful time despite. And we’ll just have to use our imagination when we want to remember things.  We went out to eat in ‘Sara’s’ which was a shlep to get to in North Miami Beach, but well worth it. The menu was literally the size of a short story, and they offered every type of food, all different fake meats, and Mexican, Chinese, Italian, and good ol’ American cuisine. Once we sat down, we noticed the guy from our flight! And he was with the tattooed guy along with a bunch of other non-frum Jews. Really awesme kiruv buddy. This time, Adiel was convinced it was Matisyahu, and asked the owner, who confirmed what we thought. Pretty freakin’ cool! Too bad, we didn’t go over to him and shmooze. Maybe he’ll be on our flight back. J.Anyway, later, Adiel went swimming on the roof and I hung out there for a little. It’s cool, the building has it’s own pool and noone takes advantage. Actually, almost all houses there have their own big pools, I even noticed on the way down from the plane, almost all houses have a big square of blue in the back. So after, I went to CVS and bought the digital disposable camera till we get another real one. Then we got ready for shabbos.

Shabbos  It’s amazing that with yiddishkeit, you aren’t bound by location. You can be in one of the world’s most popular vacation spots, and can keep the same mitzvos and learn the same Torah and daven and be the same frum person you were in Far Rockaway, NY. We had a beautiful, spiritual, shabbosdik, inspiring Shabbos down in MB, just with beautiful weather and palm trees in the background. Friday night, we ate with the S’s and their neighbors, the N’s. Nice, chilled out, good food (though we were still somewhat full from lunch). Then, we got an early nights sleep, we were exhausted!!Shabbos morning, I actually made it to shul, Ohr Chaim which is a few feet away from the apartment. Nice, geshmak minyan, everyone is tanned, Adiel got hagbah, big Kiddush, lots of people coming over to say hi. Nice experience. We had lunch at R‘s family, the ‘G’s. The last time I had seen them was at R’s wedding when I flew down, 4 ½ years ago. Now, they have a few more daughters and sons-in laws and grandkids, but less kids at home. Still the meal was wonderful and full of Torah, zemiros and good food. After that, we walked back, admiring the homes and community of Miami Beach. Then, we shlepped back up to 8 (how do they do this every week?!) and took our Shabbos naps.  Before we knew it, shabbos was over and it was time for us to leave. We got some pizza and started our journey upwards (though not really) on Motzai Shabbos. All in all, a great and wonderful time was had in the city of Miami and Miami Beach. Thanks so much to the S’s for their kind hospitality, we hope to make it down there again soon!Sunday