South Beach

Last week I was in Miami for work. We stayed at the South Beach Marriott. When I checked into my room a went straight for the balcony. If I leaned out and looked East I could see the water. The ocean in Miami is so much more clear than it is up here in Jacksonville. The only negative was that I had no time to enjoy the beach, pool and all that South Beach has to offer! On Monday afternoon I walked down Ocean Drive with my friend Stephanie. That evening I got in a quick work out and then went to dinner with Rick and Mike from my work. We went to Sushi Samba on Lincoln Road. The food was good and the people watching was even better! After dinner we headed to the Delano hotel, my favorite on the strip. It was as beautiful as ever! Maybe one day I'll be able to stay there!

Tuesday we had a day full of meetings in the conference room at the hotel. Our area director and another manager joined our group. I liked spending some extra time with our director and getting to know the other manager as well. That afternoon we went to a local homeless shelter and helped serve dinner. We got there around 5P and had to wait for about 90 minutes before our services were needed. They gave us very stylish hairnets, plastic disposable aprons and plastic disposable gloves. My job was to fill peoples' glasses with "iced tea." The liquid was called iced tea, but I am still not quite sure what it was...The rule was that each person only got one glass of iced tea and the rest of their refills were supposed to be water. I ended up being a horrible iced tea girl because I just couldn't tell the people no when they asked for refills of iced tea, so I quickly switched my pitcher of tea for water. The shelter was not air conditioned...it was really hot!

After dinner service was done we all carpooled to 8 Oz. for dinner. It was the longest dinner ever! The service was horrible, but the company was nice. I enjoyed talking to my teammates from across the state and to my boss and his boss. We got back to the hotel around 10:30p. I went to my room and called Grant and went to bed. Wednesday was another day filled with meetings. We got out a little early. It looked like it was going to rain, so instead of heading to the beach I headed to the gym. After my workout we all went to dinner at a Brazilian Steakhouse. It was definitely meat overload! I think it's a once a year type of restaurant as it was good, but I definitely couldn't go again any time soon. After dinner we all hung out at the hotel bar outside by the pools overlooking the beach. Thursday was our last day in South Beach and the day that included my workshop. I gave the team a workshop on business acumen and tracking. My goal was to do something that the individual teams could bring back and use to better understand their business and drive sales. I hope that I did that for at least one of the 6 teams in our district!

Michelle (my work partner) and I were recognized for having top sales in our district and I was voted MVP by my peers for the meeting! I was so excited! At the end of the meeting Chuck and I dashed out of the hotel as quickly as possible to get to the airport and fly out. We arrrived at the Miami airport at 3:05...my flight was at 3:45...I was nervous I'd miss it! Luckily I made it to my gate in time for boarding. Once on the plane we waited at the gate for about an hour while they fixed some "nonserious mechanical issue." Good thing I skipped all of the security lines and ran through the entire terminal to get to the gate in time. Once the mechanical issue was addressed we taxied out to the runway, where we sat for awhile until the pilot told us that there was bad weather in central Florida, so we were grounded until the weather passed. All in all, the flight left 2.5 hours late. Everyone on the plane was starving.

They announced that there were several food options available for purchase on the flight...$3 bags of chips $4 bags of nuts $10 sanwiches...I would have taken any of it, but by the time they got to my row for drink and food orders they were sold out of every food item! I got a glass of OJ to hold me over until we landed. Next time I'm bringing a snack!

I really liked South Beach, though. It was the first time I'd been to South Beach since college. I definitely want to go back with Grant and maybe Penelope!