Naples Pier

Ayk and I headed to the Naples Pier after the zoo. We would have checked out the animals longer, but there was a wedding there that evening. Look, I love animals too, but zoos smell foul. Who gets a whiff of sulfurous swamps and wildebeest dung, and thinks “Now THAT’S what I want wafting through the air while reciting vows.” What a romantic.

The beach was too chilly for swimming, but that didn’t stop us from dipping our toes in the gulf. We stayed on the pier till twilight. People watching should always come with a sunset backdrop.

So long, sun.

Beaches to the left

Beaches to the right

Dutch fisherman (Ayk swears he was Serbian) was kind enough to let me document his fish-gutting process.

It has teeth!

Expert gutter

Open wide

Looking back to the beach

Awkward nighttime flash

“Don’t touch it! It’s an electric eel!” the kid said as the fisherman reeled in his catch. Shocker: this guy wasn't giving off any hertz (baazing!).

Now it’s bait.

Sunset on the pier
 

Playing with perspective

For dinner, Ayk and I went to Café Barcelona. The only reason I’m mentioning this restaurant – not for the forgettable tapas – is because a Big Boyz Bail Bonds pen, ubiquitous in Baltimore restaurants, found its way to Naples. We asked the server, and she wasn’t sure where the pen came from. Guess someone wanted to share a bit of Baltimore with the Sunshine State.

Key West: Nighttime

The Porch

For drinks we headed to The Porch, a laid-back bar that sells only craft beers and wine and manages to keep away the liquor-thirsty tourists.  The historic-home-turned-bar feels like a chill house party, only with the typical flavorless beers to be replaced with quality microbrews.  We liked it so much, we went back after dinner.

Note:  The camera's flash overpowered the mood lighting and the beer goggles effect.

This guy had it made.  He worked with the Park Service in Virginia.  He heard there was a position available in Key West.  Now he gets paid to work in a museum in Key West.  You can’t help but admire and hate someone that gets paid to do something they love in paradise.

This guy had it made, as far as homeless people were concerned.  Face it:  if you're going to be homeless, go where it's warm.  He and his buddy told dirty jokes -- some old, some new and some downright disgusting -- for only a buck.  Before we left, he asked Ayk what he does for a living.  We told him we were jobless.  "So am I," he retorted, "But how'd you get a hottie like that?"  I didn't have the heart to tell the wisecracking vagrant that even though Ayk's unemployed, he has a masters, and he does have money in the bank.

El Siboney

While we were at The Porch, we asked the locals where we should get dinner.  They all recommended El Siboney, a Cuban restaurant.  Trying to suppress our disgust for Cuban food, we asked what else they recommended.  They insisted that this restaurant would not disappoint.  It took them a while to convince us, but we figured if this restaurant managed to screw up Cuban food only 90 miles away from Cuba, then we’d give up on Cuban food forever.  For real this time, with the exception of an actual trip to Cuba.

A twenty-minute walk later (damn me and my inability to ride bikes) we finally got to the family-owned restaurant.  We weren’t too hungry, so we decided to split the basics of Cuban cuisine: ropa vieja, rice, beans, yucca fries and plantains.  Just two minutes later the server brought the food out to us.  And, wow, was that food amazing. Though we were glad to be proven wrong (Cuban food is good!), it was still sad that we knew we would probably never have Cuban food this great anywhere else.

The plantains were less sweet than I’m used to, but that just means it tasted more like a side dish than dessert.  Without a doubt, the yucca fries with the green sauce were the best part of the meal.  The yucca was paler than the typical golden-brown we expected, but looks aren’t everything.  Crunchy and fluffy, it was like eating deep-fried mashed potatoes.

The savory ropa vieja was melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  For once, my rice and beans were moist and well seasoned and not dry.

The desserts were good, but not as phenomenal as the entree and sides.  The creme caramel was delicious, and the guava cheesecake would have been unremarkable if it weren’t for the non-traditional flavor pairing.

Key West: Daytime

With all the driving we did in freezing temperatures, we wanted to treat ourselves to some tropical weather.  Such a shame Ft. Lauderdale was a chilly 70 degrees.  We decided to take the nearly 5-hour trip to balmy and beautiful Key West.

Food: Savory, Spicy and Sweet

It was lunchtime when we arrived in Key West.  We went to Garbo’s Grille, a one-woman operated food cart that sells some pretty awesome fish tacos.  Heidi, the owner, gave us some helpful sightseeing suggestions for tourists our age.  I added the age qualifier, as most of the winter-time visitors were retirees stopping by on cruise ships.

Garbo's hours of operation.  This is livin'.

Lunch al fresco.

Heidi Garbo, owner and chef and refugee from cold Connecticut.

Fish taco burrito made with mahi mahi.

The best part about Garbo’s Grille?  Location, location location.  Directly across the street is Peppers of Key West, a hot sauce store that will let you sample different hot sauces on your yummy fish taco burrito.  They feature some sauces made in house, but they have a wider variety of sauces from other companies.

As much as we love hot sauce, we needed to cool down our mouths with the island’s famous Key Lime Pie.  Here it’s served frozen on a stick and dipped in chocolate, unlike the slices on a plate I’ve had on the mainland.  Sadly, most of the pie-on-a-stick businesses have closed.  The Key West Key Lime Pie Factory, the only one that’s still open, seems to have a bit of a monopoly on the island.  Nevertheless, it was still delicious, but could’ve had a touch more lime.

Sightseeing

Apparently the best way to see the island is to rent a bike.  Embarrassing confession: I only learned how to ride a bike at the ripe age of 20 and I haven’t gotten back on a bike since.  Yes, laugh all you want, but at least I don't have gruesome scars from falling on asphalt.  Feeling rather dubious of my skills, we decided to drive around instead.

 The Southernmost Point in the Continental US.  I felt the need to clarify since I unwittingly covered most of the buoy.

90 miles to Cuba (not pictured).

I guess we could have seen the island this way. 

The beginning of US Route 1

Feral chickens run rampant on the island.  One of our servers told us that if you kick a chicken, they'll put you in jail; if you hit a homeless person with your car, you'll get a fine.   He was exaggerating, clearly, but I wouldn't put that logic past most vegetarians.

Apparently the only way to deal with the wild chickens is to get a cat -- preferably not a lazy one like this.

New Orleans: Frenchmen Street

Jazz is a genre of music that’s much better live than recorded.  As Ayk pointed out, when is any music not better live, other than heavily auto-tuned pop singers?  Touché.  Be that as it may, there’s nothing more captivating than listening to truly talented jazz performers on stage.  And there’s no place better to find the best jazz acts than our favorite place in New Orleans -- Frenchmen Street.

Maision, our favorite bar.

There’s a part of me that wants to sing praises about this low-key jazz haven only steps away from the French Quarter, but there’s another part of me that dreads outing the city’s best kept secret.  As one Nawlins native put it, “Bourbon Street is where we quarantine the tourists, so they don't [expletive] up the city."  (I’m assuming CNN censored “fuck,” in case you were wondering).

Booty Trove, a 12-man brass band, playing at Maison.

As much as it pains me to admit this as an out-of-towner, it’s true:  most tourists are obnoxious.  And the tourists who visit New Orleans generally want to get shitfaced.  Far be it for me to judge.  If I were in college, I’d giddily roam Bourbon Street with a drink in both hands.  So by all means, get sloshed; just stay on Bourbon Street and keep Frenchmen Street sane for those whose livers can no longer handle excessive drinking.  We come for the jazz, not the hangover.

A bartender wearing the colors of the Egyptian flag to celebrate Mubarak's resignation.

What makes Frenchmen Street so amazing is you can go into any bar and listen to the best performances without having to pay any cover (don’t be a stingy bastard; tip!).  Some bars do charge cover, but most don’t.  Hell, you can wander the street and find an amazing brass band playing on the corner with people dancing in the street.  Anything goes here.

A band playing in the street.

Even white people started dancing.  Though I wouldn't encourage it.

This guy's cheek puffed out like Dizzy Gillespie's.

The sidewalk is filled with artists other than musicians and singers trying to earn a buck.  There are painters and even poets.  We chatted with Tristan, a former music teacher turned street poet.  He didn’t much care for his boss’s teaching method, so he quit.  Now he’s his own boss, using a typewriter to crank out verses for poetry patrons, passersby, or just piss-ass drunk tourists who lost their way from Bourbon Street.  Poems range from 5 to 20 bucks.  Considering our state of employment, we went with the $5 poem.  Scribbling down a few notes, he asked us what we wanted our personalized poem to be about, and we picked – what else – our road trip.  Cherry on top of the best night of the trip: 

Tristan the Street Poet

The best $5 we spent on the trip.  Actually $10.  Ayk tipped him an extra $5 for booze money.