So, I woke up on Saturday morning at 5 AM, after going to sleep at about 11 or so. I did about 4 loads of laundry on Friday, packed, cleaned, was sooo busy, so it wasn't a problem to go to sleep so early.
Woke up, showered, got dressed, finished packing last minute things like my toothbrush, body care items, etc. I was listening to music, ATB, of course... and actually dancing around my room. At 5 AM! LOL, so I knew I was excited. Shane woke up a bit later and came downstairs as I was filling up our coffee mugs. Thank god our coffee maker brews automatically on a timer. ;) Shane was all freaked out because a giant spider had attacked him while he was trying to brush his teeth. I saw it, it was giant and nasty. It had a pattern on its back like an eye... It was creepy. I sprayed it with Raid, it started coming towards me, and I was like, I'm out!
So Jiganesh came to our house at 6 and we smoked a cigarette (Jay has a no smoking vehicle) and left on our way. I got some cool pictures of sunrise across the Skyway Bridge. The ride down was pretty uneventful. I was surprisingly awake for it being that early. We stopped around Ft. Myers for breakfast at McDonalds, and then ventured through alligator alley. We stopped a couple times for smokes and photo ops. Some of the rest stops are absolutely disgusting. We stopped at one that was just completely full of litter. And one of the pieces of litter that we kept noticing at different rest stops, and even under a bridge in downtown Miami, was discarded underwear... ?
I started driving halfway through alligator alley. The drive from here to there is super easy. It is one road, 75, pretty much all the way. So, in Miami, on whatever road goes to downtown, Shane told me to exit, as he was navigating, in charge of the directions. We took the wrong exit, but ended up being able to take regular roads south to our hotel, the Radisson.
Now, we had a problem because the festival started at 11, and the hotel check in time was 3 PM. So, we parked, and I went in with Shane to see if I could check in. No clean rooms. So, we got our stuff from the car, and walked to the festival, which was right down the street.
It was a gorgeous day, and I got to see a lot of downtown Miami, and noticed a lot of things I hadn't before. Such as, they have an above street-level rail system, which looked cute, but we didn't take it anywhere.
We got to Bicentennial Park around 12 or 12:30. There were 3 large enclosed stages, under tents, 2 giant, side by side outdoor stages, and one little one, which was kind of lame. So, we started having a couple beers, and listening to different DJ's. One in particular that we all liked was DJ DRC. She kind of reminded me of Alix, actually, her mannerisms, and the way she looked, which was funny. She totally rocked. Shane went to take a picture of her, and she posed blowing him a kiss. Unfortunately, the camera was still powering up, so he didn't get that one. He got a good one nonetheless.
After DRC finished, we hung out in the grass by the large stages. There was a band playing kind of Jazz/Reggae with a DJ and a lady alternately singing and playing the flute. It was intense, but really cool. I was also pretty drunk at that point, and wanted to sit down and chill out in the sun.
I found a flyer with the schedules for the different stages and saw that ATB was coming on at 5 on Stage A. So before 5, we made our way into that tent and towards the front. There was a DJ playing who was really good, and had packed in a crowd, so I gradually made my way all the way up to the barrier in the front, a couple feet away from the stage. I was dancing my ass off, all the while, scanning out back for ATB. Then I saw him! I felt like a 15 year old girl. I grabbed Shane and screamed at him, "I saw him! I saw ATB! There he is...!" And then we waited.
ATB came on stage with his entourage, and I was standing in the front row with my ATB shirt on. He started playing Ecstasy, and then it just stopped. He came on the mic all pissed off with his German accent and told us that they hadn't hooked up the record player for him, and all of his stuff was on records. He said he'd have to play the CD's he'd brought.
I was kind of disappointed, but ATB put on a great performance anyways. It was seriously one of the best hours of my life. I took a whole bunch of pictures, but since my digital camera was new, and I never took the time to RTFM... A lot of them were out of focus. I got some good ones though. Shane and I were right up front the whole time. ATB played some really good music, and conducted the crowd really well.
So, after ATB's performance, and all that excitement, we headed over to the beer area to get more drinks. We walked around to a couple different stages to see what was going on. It was dark by then, and everything had gotten really crowded. I kinda wanted to see DJ Icey, but realized that he didn't come on until 9. None of us had eaten, and I still needed to check into the hotel.
So we decided to leave. After seeing ATB, and considering all of us were pretty drunk, we were all cool with that. We walked back to the hotel. On the way back, I saw the Art Institute of Miami. It was in a building adjacent to our hotel. How random and scary is that. I took a picture of their reception desk. Haha.
So, we got back to the hotel, checked in, and got our stuff up to the room. The hotel was kind of strange. The parking garage was the first 7 floors, so the lobby was on the 7th level. And our room was on the 9th level of the hotel. So we were pretty high up, and had an awesome view of Biscayne Bay, Miami Beach, Downtown, and we could see Bicentennial Park also, where we had just come from. We could even hear some of the bass coming from the shows. It was very cool.
We were hungry, so we took the elevator back downstairs, and went to Burger King. I was so drunk, but still ordered and ate a massive amount of food. Then we went back to the hotel and all got cleaned up and ready to go out. My feet hurt so bad, and I realized I was really tired. But I'm a trooper, and I was in Miami, I was not going to bed early.
So we got a cab and told the driver we wanted to go to Mansion, which is in South Beach. We got there and walked down the street to find a functioning ATM. We walked back past Mansion, where it didn't look like much of anything was going on. It was only 11 at that point, which I told the guys was too early to go out in Miami, but no one wanted to listen. So we walked a little further, and Shane just ran in line to this one club where there was a drag queen who looked like Mrs. Doubtfire. She was like, honey, for you, there's no cover.
There was no cover because we were the only 3 people in there for a while. We got our $9 drinks and sat down towards that back. The place was called the Rock & Roll Fag Church. How funny is that. And then, Mrs. Doubtfire came over and started blabbing about how the TV show Miami Heat was going to film her doing a song. And how she was getting out of the drag business and getting her real estate license. Then she went on to tell us how her and her boyfriend's dream was to buy a house in Maine, or some shit... It was amusing...
So, RRFC never did get very busy, but they played some interesting music. Jay started feeling not so well, so we decided to go back to the hotel.
On Sunday, we woke up and cleared out of the hotel by noon. Oh yeah, I had gotten the room for the 'government rate' since I'm a government employee, which came to a total of $122 after tax. The sign on the inside of the door said that it was a $359 room. That made me feel great! LOL
I drove the first half of the way home, so I was driving when we left the hotel. Shane was navigating. Mistake! He told me to take an exit that wasn't even near to where we were supposed to get off the highway, so I had to drive up a 4 lane non-highway road for a while to get back onto the highway. Then Shane kept barking at me to turn around, and insisted that he told me to not take the exit that I took. OK, regardless. I didn't care, I just wanted to know where I was going. So, I asked him to see the directions, which I had so painstakingly bound into a plastic folder. Found the nearest numbered road, and got back on the highway.
Other than that and another wrong turn, which was entirely my fault, the trip back was without incident. Once you get on 75, there really aren't any other directions, other than stay on 75, and exit when you get to 275. So, Jay and I switched when we got to Naples, and he ran into quite a bit of traffic. I slept most of the way back while he was driving.
I'm about to go to Walt's here in a little bit to hang out. I'm out for now. :)
