Miami Nights: Trespassing at the Best Western

There’s a special kind of phenomenon that occurs only when an adventurer of the foreign variety travels far and wide, until they find themselves somewhere wild and exotic. Where nothing is as expected or practiced. Somewhere, for example, like Florida.

There are many things that separate Florida from somewhere like— oh, I don’t know… let’s say Italy. The drinks are brighter, the water is colder, and the calendar, as one would read it on a phone or website, begins on Sunday instead of Monday.

I’ll be clearer here: the American calendar reads “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc.” The Italian calendar reads, instead, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.” This detail is largely inconsequential and is easy to overlook in 90+% of circumstances.

Unless you are, perhaps, booking a hotel room.

Let me tell you about Miami.

By the time my Italian and I landed at the Miami International Airport (which pulls a shockingly high Google rating of 3.9 stars), it was 1:00 in the morning, and we were exhausted. As a long-distance couple, it’s always a thrill to come back together, but due to a very delayed connecting flight, our reunion took place at the Buffalo Wild Wings at JFK while we waited, and waited, and waited for Miami. And being that we hadn’t seen each other in three months, we were excited to engage in some of the anticipated activities that a long-distance couple would look forward to— like chess. We were very excited to play chess. And shockingly, it’s very difficult to play chess at the Buffalo Wild Wings at JFK (due to the lack of the surface, hardware, and focus required).

So by the time we landed, we were running through security like we actually had contraband in our bags and didn’t dare give TSA the time to find it. We were in an Uber, we were on the highway, and we were at the double doors of our hotel by 1:35 AM. They welcomed us quickly, due to the hour, and started to prepare our room. I collapsed, seductively, on the lobby chaise, exhausted by the journey and thrilled to finally feel the sweet release of having reached our destination. You never realize how tight your shoulders are until you can feel the soft welcome of a bed twice the size of your own. With clean sheets to boot.

The kind host at our hotel, who had been so cheerful and welcoming just moments before, returned to the front desk with his hands clasped firmly together; the equivalent of a tail between his legs (as men over thirty still feel shame, while men under thirty simply refuse to express it). Slowly, he explained to us that he had misunderstood. See, our intended reservation had been for Sunday night, but it was accidentally booked for Monday night, and since it was after midnight, the computer had misread the data and confirmed our room. As an aside, this was in no part due to the booker, as any self-respecting reservation website should be able to adapt its calendars to the user’s location. But alas, our room was not reserved for that night, and they had no rooms available.

They respectfully informed us that we would have to find other accommodations.

I’m not ashamed to say that both my Italian and I offered bribes that night. There are times morality takes a backseat to desperation, and this was one of them. But they just didn’t have the space to help us. So we picked up our bags and headed to Collins Ave.

We were certain that we’d be able to find another place to stay. At that point, it was 2:08 AM, and the exhaustion had fallen behind the curtain of adrenaline. We opened the hotel booking app— the American version this time— and started searching for rooms near us. At this point in the night, money was no object. Neither of us had fear of credit card debt or the New York rent we would soon have to pay.

But here’s the funny thing, and one that more people should be aware of: you cannot book a room on an online booking site after midnight. The computer does not recognize it. After midnight, you are not booking a room for Sunday night. No, no, no, you are booking a room for Monday, and then you’re going to go fuck yourself because we’re Expedia and you’re nothing but an ant beneath our 2023 Thanksgiving-Special Marriott rate.

So we had to be daring. We had to call the hotels. As the little miracles after Millennials, we were unfamiliar with this concept; even dialing the phone was an adventure. But it was all for naught. Of the 10 (count them: TEN) hotels within walking distance, only one answered the phone with a real person who could help. Not that they did, because they were full-up too, but at least they had the decency to tell us.

And what’s a girl to do at that point?

My Italian and I— still high on adrenaline and probably fucking jet fuel because otherwise I can’t fathom how we had the energy— pick up our bags and start running down Collins Ave. The late-night delusion had kicked in. We couldn’t stop laughing. We’d run up to hotels, knocking loudly. No answer. We’d go to the next one, all the same. It felt like a sadistic ding-dong-ditch, except we were the poor suckers getting played, and the hotels were the pissass kids who wouldn’t open the door. By now, it is 3:30 in the morning, and I have never laughed harder. As I lugged a carry-on the size and weight of a black lab, and my Italian dragged a chic European suitcase up and down the stairs to the Holiday Inn Miami, his backpack flopping against him all the way— the absurdity of the situation spurred the unadulterated joy that’s usually reserved for children and drug enthusiasts. And in the face of all our monumental adversity, we laughed.

But that kind of joy has a limit, and comes, in all cases, with a crash. Exhaustion, like a slow rain, passes unnoticed for the first hours, until suddenly, you look down and realize you’re soaked to the bone. And nothing you could possibly do in that moment will make you dry again. After the running and the hoping and the failing, I had started to offer that we could sleep on the beach. There weren’t many hours left in the night, and if we picked a good spot, probably no one would bother us. This was not necessarily a popular suggestion, but I stand by the fact that it could’ve worked. Meanwhile, he had started to expand our search radius, wondering what would happen if we went another mile, another two. But I didn’t have it in me. I had nothing left in me.

I was sitting on a curb two blocks from the beach when a movement caught my eye. In front of the Best Western, two ladies were moving their luggage into a cab.

I tugged at my Italian’s shirt, humming and nodding toward the new spark of hope. He moved quickly, and I followed in his stead. We approached the women, waving and calling out as loudly as we could at 4:27 in the morning. They stopped quickly, looking toward the two desperate twenty-somethings near tears and reeking of airport. They waited for us to explain the situation. The long distance, the calendar, the Expedia.

“Oh, you poor things,” one of the ladies said.

“You must be so tired!”

“Wait—,” the other one stopped, thinking for a moment before coming to a conclusion. “We’re leaving for an early flight. But our room is booked for the night, all the way til 11.” She looked at us, as if reading our intentions. She had a way about her; I could tell she had a good eye for chess lovers. “We were in room 347. But we just dropped our key in the key box… if you can get it out, you’re welcome to stay there. As long as you don’t do anything to get us in trouble.”

The promise I made to this woman was more binding than any I’d made to my mother. If she’d asked me to, I would’ve started signing away kidneys.

We thanked her profusely and wished them safe travels, then we ran into the lobby of the Best Western. The key box was proud on the counter. I reached for it, but my Italian got there first. He pulled on the box and, to both of our surprise, it lifted easily from its base, the pile of key cards sitting pretty beneath it. This was our first blessing of the night. We took the cards and ran to the elevator. We tried every card on door 347. Then 437. Then 743. Then 473. By 734, we couldn’t bring ourselves to try again. The Best Western had defeated us.

It would’ve been a better story if it had worked. I thought about lying to you about it. Telling you how we ended the night with a borrowed bed and a surprisingly decent water view. But it didn’t work. Some combination of the room number shuffling in sleep-addled minds, and the sheer worry of running through a hotel we did not book with a handful of key cards we were not handed.

At 5:30 AM on Monday, we checked into a room at the by-the-hour motel next to the airport and collapsed onto a bed that could tell stories. Chess, at this point, was out of the question. We slept in the way where the feeling falls away from you. When your mind is too tired to dream and your body too tired to toss or turn. But three hours later, when the morning came and the alarms started, I couldn’t shake the feeling of the running, the calling, the laughter as we ran through empty streets with two phones, three bags, and a dream. And the stirring of pride came from deep within, knowing I had seen Miami as I hadn’t before, with an adventurer of the foreign variety, and I had survived another night in paradise. Chess is better in the morning anyway.