Coming back from my vacation and a few developments. Yet again another US city where you cannot get around without a car. They had this wonderful sidewalks and the street lights are geared towards encouraging pedestrians but then, the heat was stroke giving, and most of all, the stuff you really want to walk to is miles apart from each other. I did a ton of walking especially in the malls and in the morning I walked to the cafe to have breakfast on the sidewalk, (heavenly if it was not so hot, and I didnt have to wipe off beads of sweat intermittently) and in the evening I walked to and from the bar, avoiding the throes of people half naked and headed to the beach.
I stayed behind an extra day after my family left to spend some time with the city and get my monies worth from that exorbitant plane ticket.
However, I went cheap with the hotel (so that I could spend the money on something else, maybe good dinner) so I stayed at this dump shit motel that just was appalling any which way you look at it. The bed was creaky, the sheet had pubes still attached to it, there was no window and the bathroom was certainly so small that only a kid could fit in. It reminded me of living poor, of having that as your home and having to live like that.
Sometimes we forget how privileged we truly are to afford the kind of living quarters that we get, that just sort of made me miss my flat, my bed and just my general life.
There is so much of a class difference--super rich and dirt poor. The dirt poor live in motels just like the one I stayed in, and then right next to it, like a stone throw away are these high rises overlooking the beach that are 2-3 million dollars. I mean it's great to admire that kind of living maybe for eye candy purposes, just walking to the mall, the streets are lined with vintage cars, amazingly pricey vehicles even I don't know all their names, and then you see dirt poor people waiting for the bus. What is that? It just sort of brings life into some kind of perspective. What would be your motivation if you find yourself on the other side of the class divide, how would you scrunge to get out of it, and hopefully make it.
We took a boat tour in Miami of the stars' homes--P. Diddy, Enrique Iglesias and his dad, Liz Taylor, Jackie Chan, J.Lo, Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony and Will Smith among a few were some of the homes that made an impact. But you start to wonder what kind of culture do we have or are we lacking that we have to tour superstars' homes as opposed to the museum, or some other notable artifact. Then, again that class divide I mentioned is drawn out and essentially demarcated.
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