Sweet Home Hialeah

Hialeah has recently been put on Forbes ten most boring cities list. How this could be I cannot imagine because Hialeah is anything but boring.

It's a city that grew from a cockaroach infested agricultural flatland surrounded by brown canals into a cracked up kaleidoscope of Cuban culture. Gone are the beige and white Miami box homes, replaced by hot tropical pink concrete stuccoed palaces surrounded by iron grilled gates with statues of the Virgin Mary on every corner, or maybe St. Barbara for all I know. But hey, not just anyone could dream up what one could do with a house architecturally without ever pulling a single permit, so give Hialeaheans credit. Of course, it helps that Code Enforcement in Hialeah could always be bought for less than a bottle of good rum, but it still comes down to good old creative Cuban ingenuity and cohones.

Hialeah is not a rich city, it's a raw, fugly city where the smell of areapas & strong cuban coffee permeates every tiny strip mall, music and horns blare everywhere, and a town where you can drive as if you had never left Havana. Grab lunch from a street vendor without ever leaving your car, or even having to stop your car.

Boring? Go visit & judge for yourself.