Monkey Jungle!

Not only did I get to feed peanuts to primates yesterday, a monkey peed on my head! Will fill this post in later. Having a great time in Miami. NYC friends, I'll be out on the town in New York on Friday night. -Eric


Things i've eaten in Miami:
1. A Cuban Sandwich at Versailles. Sources (other than citysearch/chowhound) said this is one of the best cuban sandwiches in town. Versailles is completely different than the L.A. Versailles (I don't think they're connected). It's sorta the Canter's/2nd Ave. Deli of Cuban Restaurants. It's simple food that serves a mostly Cuban clientele. Prettiest girls I've seen in Miami were sitting at a table towards the back. I'm convinced they were stars from Spanish television.... Drove around Calle Ocho to see what it's all about. Honestly, it's a dump. I expected it to be people dancing in the streets, drinking rum, singing songs. It isn't, at least on a Monday afternoon. No wonder Elian Gonzalez wanted to go back to Cuba, if this is all he saw of the United States. Sorry, I'm sure there's great stuff in Calle Ocho, but to me it looked like fast food, hair salons, and auto repair shops.

2. Stone Crab claws at Joe's Stone Crab. This place is supposed to be the best, despite being touristy. It's like a great steakhouse but with crab claws instead of steak (great bar, great sides, etc.) except for one thing: I thought the crab tasted bland and mushy. Thumbs down to flavorless crab. Thumbs up to great side dishes.

3. Wolfie Cohen's Rascal House. Roadfood.com, the website that lists some of the unhealthiest/tastiest food you can get in remote parts of the country, had this place listed. It's just like a New York jewish deli. Think 2nd Ave. Think Canter's. I had a Reuben one day, and was so impressed by their great work product, I drove back for a turkey sandwich the next day. Everything is on fresh bread. The best rye bread I've had outside of Connecticut. This place is as good as most. Just good to eat some good deli food. I really don't go to Canter's much in L.A.

4. Roger's is a beautiful restaurant on the water. Unfortunately, Zagat's was wrong about this place. I'll tell you: shittiest meal I've eaten in a long time. They're a fairly recent restaurant doing pretty pedestrian fare. I'm sorry, but they brought out my mom's chicken salad sans chicken. Great place to go drinking in the Miami area. But other than french fries, I'd skip the food. My salad had brown lettuce. Roger to Roger's: Clean up your act. Mediocrity will only take you so far in life. On the other side, our waitress was crazy.

Oh, lemme get to talking about the monkeys!!! This place is a few acres of paths, and costs an excessive 18 bucks per adult for the privelege of seeing unhappy monkeys. There are cages along the way with various monkeys. Tubes lead to these cages. You drop raisins and nuts down the tubes, and the monkeys eat them. At the cageless monkey swimming pool, you can throw peanuts into the water and watch as the monkeys swipe the nuts out of the water with their hands. This is a lot more fun than it sounds. There aren't a lot of staff standing around watching you, so I guess people feed all sorts of weird stuff to the monkeys (I'm thinking marshmallows, cool ranch doritos, mozzarella sticks, etc.). I stuck to peanuts, but did consider buying a pizza bagel at the snack bar and seeing if an orugantan would come out of its cardboard box (yes, orangs were hiding out in cardboard boxes, and all I could think of was writing a story where a homeless man who lives in a cardboard box befriends a monkey that lives in a cardboard box). This place, like zoos, smells like animal shit in places, only more intense. During most of the walk through the small area that consists Monkey Jungle, you are in an enclosed walkway that small monkeys scamper over. These monkeys drop down little metal cups on chains, for you to drop raisins/nuts/food-of-any-sort into. These monkeys are trained well to beg. They shake the chains to make noise so you hear them. It's hard to tell if they're really appreciative of the food or not. They don't use sign language to say "thank you" or any Project X shit like that at all. At one point, I gave a monkey a peanut, and looked up as he ate it. He then gave his thanks by peeing onto my head. This was a first in my life. Dad and K were amused. And I was proud. I mean, having a bird shit on me while on our last family vacation in 2003 was pretty exciting (mostly 'cause we were eating inside!) but this was different. Just 'cause I'd interacted with the monkey pre-mituration. I fed it, and then it peed on me. Most of the monkeys at the place were little monkeys but there were a few big ones. There were gibbons with a baby gibbon that was just learning to walk. I'm not one of those people who goes crazy for baby animals thinking they're the cutest thing (all I'm thinking is, if I get an animal that lives in my house, I want one that already knows not to shit on the carpet and newborn puppies/kittens don't know this). Anyway, the baby gibbon trying to walk was so cute to watch. Eventually, it gave up and went to sleep. It's mother swooped it up and took the baby in her arms. Such a sweet moment. We left the park but not before stopping at the gift shop.

This post is gonna expand even more, so save room. Peed on by primate, Eric