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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday afternoon, the day before my 30th birthday, Heather and I dragged our sleep-deprived asses to the airport and got on a plane to Charlotte, North Carolina.<\/p>\n
No, come back! It gets better, I swear.<\/p>\n
Our already late-night flight was delayed due to weather, so we spent four hours in Charlotte, which was exactly four more hours than we wanted to be there. I whined and fidgeted and complained until Heather told me to go away so she could read. I can say with assurance that I have seen every square inch of the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, from the cigar-store Indian with giant man-breasts to the Stock Car Cafe, and every women’s room and Starbucks in between. It’s not as big an achievement as it sounds.<\/p>\n
Finally, our plane arrived and dumped its load of crotchety old people on their way back from Vegas into the airport, many of whom got back on the flight to Miami. I spent the next two hours hearing every single detail of one such woman’s worst vacation ever. Because it was my birthday, I decided to forgo smacking her, but I’ll admit that I did consider it once or twice.<\/p>\n
We got to Miami at 2:15am, and Alex was there waiting at the gate. He drove us to the hotel, then showed us around South Beach, which was mobbed even in the middle of the night. I ate black beans and rice and fried plantains at a little Cuban restaurant at 4am, and laughed my ass off at the old waiter, who had it out for Heather. Alex introduced me to Cuban coffee (the cortadito in particular), which was probably a huge mistake on his part, as I’ve been jonesing for it ever since. After dinner, we went to the beach, because my plan was to watch the sun rise over the ocean. I wanted my own perfect 30th birthday moment. And that’s exactly what I got.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saturday afternoon, the day before my 30th birthday, Heather and I dragged our sleep-deprived asses to the airport and got on a plane to Charlotte, North Carolina. No, come back! It gets better, I swear. Our already late-night flight was delayed due to weather, so we spent four hours in Charlotte, which was exactly four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[83,182,184,501,183,185,84,186,124],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"geo":{"latitude":27.59114459999999979800122673623263835906982421875,"longitude":-80.34421539999999595238477922976016998291015625,"description":"South Beach, FL, USA"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Z5R-f","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/30th-birthday-in-miami\/mon-692003-part-three\/","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":0},"title":"My 30th Birthday in Miami, Part 3","author":"Jenni","date":"06.10.2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Monday morning, I was awakened at 6am by Heather banging on the phone, trying to get it to stop ringing for our wakeup call. I finally gave in and put on a different shirt. We packed up, checked out, and got a taxi to the airport. I was a little\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Miami for my 30th Birthday"","block_context":{"text":"Miami for my 30th Birthday","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/30th-birthday-in-miami\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/30th-birthday-in-miami\/sun-682003-part-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":1},"title":"My 30th Birthday in Miami, Part 2 (Getting a Tattoo on South Beach)","author":"Jenni","date":"06.10.2003","format":false,"excerpt":"We walked back to the hotel. Alex, who had finished a 12-hour shift at 8pm that day, headed directly to work for another 12-hour shift. Heather and I went upstairs and slept for two hours, then headed to brunch. I ate the best gardenburger in the universe. Or half of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Miami for my 30th Birthday"","block_context":{"text":"Miami for my 30th Birthday","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/30th-birthday-in-miami\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5009,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/copenhagen-berlin\/a-very-pleasant-trip-home\/","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":2},"title":"A Very Pleasant Trip Home","author":"Jenni","date":"09.4.2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Tuesday, it was time to head home. We got up at 5:30, which hurt a lot. We had a quick breakfast in the lobby, checked out, and rolled our bags over to the bus stop. We didn't have tickets (the buses are cash-only), so we crossed our fingers and hopped\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Copenhagen \/ Berlin"","block_context":{"text":"Copenhagen \/ Berlin","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/copenhagen-berlin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2016\/12\/29949734786_1fc72e55b1_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":307,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/las-vegas-for-kates-bday\/las-vegas-for-kates-birthday-sept-18-21-2009\/","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":3},"title":"Las Vegas for Kate’s Birthday","author":"Jenni","date":"09.30.2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Dan and Kate invited us to Las Vegas to celebrate her 30th birthday. How could we say no? (The entire Vegas photoset is here on Flickr.) Read from the beginning below, or jump to each day: 9\/18: friday 9\/19: saturday 9\/20: sunday 9\/21: monday","rel":"","context":"In "Las Vegas #5"","block_context":{"text":"Las Vegas #5","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/las-vegas-for-kates-bday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4300,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/jamaica-3\/driving-with-champion\/","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":4},"title":"Driving With Champion","author":"Jenni","date":"02.13.2015","format":false,"excerpt":"We got up at 8:45 Saturday morning and got our stuff together. It was refreshing to not have to get up at 6am and catch the shared shuttle, because that's always kind of painful. We rolled our bags up to the front desk to check out just as Champion was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jamaica #3"","block_context":{"text":"Jamaica #3","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/jamaica-3\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2015\/02\/16425362708_e557eb47f1_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C902&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4739,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/copenhagen-berlin\/the-longest-day-key-west-to-copenhagen\/","url_meta":{"origin":15,"position":5},"title":"The Longest Day (Key West to Copenhagen)","author":"Jenni","date":"09.15.2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Thursday morning, we had the luxury of sleeping in and making leisurely preparations to go to the airport mid-morning. Flying out of Key West, the airport that's a little over a mile from our house, is a fantastic luxury; thankfully American's mileage redemption is the same from here or Miami.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Copenhagen \/ Berlin"","block_context":{"text":"Copenhagen \/ Berlin","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/copenhagen-berlin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2016\/10\/29098469113_bc699b9baa_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}