Land of the Greed

Wasn't planning on writing another post for a little while. But I felt compelled to document the Miami leg for future reference. What I see and hear confirms every stereotype about North American waste, excess, gluttony and superfluosity (is that a word? you know what I mean though). At the same time it also feel like I'm talking to movie stars all the time, and it must feel this way for many travellers in the US, the accents, particularly in the south (Florida) are very distinctive and are not the kind of American accent you hear from other travellers (mostly from California or the North East) and I've only ever heard them on movies - which means they all seem like extras on a movie set to me. Although that probably is added to by the fact that everyone is dolled up beyond belief, the guys are all fresh out of the gym (in their designer gym clothes of course) and the women, after being in the gym are fresh out of the ubiquitous beauty salons. Don't get me wrong, good on them for going to the gym, I think its great, but the men are all HUGE and the women are anorexic with breast implants, it is an unhealthy extreme. It doesn't bother me watching them live like this, the excessive wealth and the myriad of ways to spend it on beautifying products, but it does bother me that this way of life is creeping into other parts of the world. It really would be a sad day when we take such efforts to make ourselves seem beautiful. It reminds me of a Bolivian saying that I feel a little indifferent about -"There is no such thing as an ugly woman, just a woman who hasn't dressed herself up nicely". You could go two ways in interpreting that and I swing between the two...a) All women are beautiful or b) A woman needs to wear nice clothes and makeup to be beautiful. So I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

I popped into a book store in San Jose to read a Florida lonely planet and it refers to doing 'people watching' because they are all so beautiful. I have only two things to say about that, the only beautiful ones are the Cubans and South Americans who have emigrated here - b) the rest are barbie dolls that don't have that natural beauty in their faces that the Latin and Latin cross carribean people have, all without the expensive clothes and makeup, in fact, I have probably already mentioned that Cubans are without a doubt the most attractive people on the planet. I suppose because this is read by some people I should point that I know it is just my opinion and beauty is subjective blah blah blah. Oh and the other things that annoys me about the contrived beauty of this place in comparison to Latin America, is that when these Americans finally achieve the beauty they have strived for, they feel it necessary to suddenly adopt the beautiful person attitude. Some of the friendliest people we have met on this trip have been the most beautiful I have ever seem, maybe because all the beauty is so natural they don't feel the need to suddenly upgrade themselves to 'beautiful status'. Who knows, different cultures I guess. Gee I said 'beauty' a lot in this post. Maybe that's part of what I'm missing already, and the Spanish, I am craving talking Spanish to people, there's plenty of it here but English is the first language people use with me.

Anyway, I'm a bit bored with Miami already, all they have are expensive 'exclusive' night clubs with Limos driving around with their logos on them. Even if I had the money I would rather poke myself in the eyeball than sit around listening to drunk obnoxious Americans. Again, it's not Americans in general that bother me (the San Franciscans and North Easterners we met in South America were great), it's these conservative greedy Floridians and the tourists that choose this place as a destination that are make me want to burn this State to the ground and populate it with Guatemalans. Anyway, enough ranting, I'm going to put my blinkers on and go for a swim (will try and avoid the oil slick I got caught in yesterday).