Welcome to the Eras Tour. Miami, FL. October 2024.
This story begins in August 3, 2023 when Taylor announced that she was going to add a second USA leg of The Eras Tour.
I knew this was our chance. Tzvi, Inbar (our previous au pair) and I decided we would all sign up for the lottery to get a code to even be able to buy tickets. Inbar had seen her in May (2023) in New Jersey, and knew she wouldn’t even be in the country for the second leg, but kindly decided she would help us get tickets. When Ticketmaster sent out the codes, shockingly, Inbar was the only one that got one! This meant our fate was in her hands. Wednesday, August 9th, 2023, 3:30pm was when tickets were going on sale. Inbar was picking up Madeleine at the JCC and arrived a few minutes early so she could try to buy the tickets. If you don’t remember, it was a mess. But, with her Israeli grit and determination, she managed to snag two tickets to Miami Night 3, October 20th, 2024.
The question remained, who would be joining me on this once in a lifetime adventure? At first we assume Tzvi would go, although from the start he wasn’t quite excited about this opportunity as I was. And then, slowly, over the next year and a half, something happened. Hallie morphed into a full fledged Swiftie. She watched the Eras Tour on Disney+ over and over, and when she found out that we had bought tickets she asked (daily) if she could come instead of Tzvi. I’m sure Tzvi would’ve had a nice time, but I needed someone to go with me who’d be as excited to see Taylor as I was.
When we finally told Hallie she was going she was ecstatic. We prepared. We bought outfit options. We made friendship bracelets. We watched the tour on Disney+. We were ready to go.
October 20th, 2024
After a long three day holiday, Hallie and I woke up Sunday morning and Ubered to the airport. Due to the fact that we weren’t checking bags (very uncharacteristic of me, I know), and that it takes 15 minutes to get to the airport, I was in no rush. Well, there is now construction at JFK and it took almost 40 minutes to get to JetBlue departures. Thankfully security was quick, and we had no issues, but Tzvi would have been freaking out. We were definitely not first on the plane (not that we could have been, because we had zero status without Tzvi), but I found space to put our suitcases so everything was fine, except we took off about 45 minutes late. We had Swifties all around us, lots of moms and daughters. The flight was uneventful, except for a few kids watching the Eras Tour out loud, but no one was too upset.
We landed around 12:15 and Ubered to the hotel. Afer I got in the Uber I realized that somehow I had accidentally set our destination as Margaritaville. I’m not sure how I did that (I’ve never been to a Margaritaville), or what the driver must have been thinking. What did he think Hallie was going to do there? Luckily I realized early on and quickly changed it and then the driver started laughing.
We arrived at the Hilton Aventura Miami, but found our room wasn’t ready, so we decided to walk around the Aventura Mall. We had a late lunch at Motek where we ran into someone we knew. We ordered Malawach with Techina, Hallie had salmon, and I had Impossible Arayes. Everything was delicious and I wish we could have ordered more food. I would definitely go back. We also found chocolate covered strawberries (I think trying to mimic the ones from London). Hallie was wearing her Taylor for President shirt so she got a lot of positive comments. Then it was almost 3:30 so it was time to go back to the hotel.
The guy who manages the hotel shuttle said he would be there in ten minutes, except ten minutes later he still hadn’t left, so we opted for Uber. When we pulled into the hotel we already saw people dressed and leaving to the concert. If you really wanted merchandise, you had to go this early to have any chance of getting one of the two exclusive items you can only get at the actual concert (everything else is available online).
As we were getting dressed, I realized I had left my entire makeup bag at home. This should be interesting. Fortunately, I had purchased face sparkle tattoos, so I paired that with some of Hallie’s makeup. Good solution.
We got dressed and met our driver. I had hired a driver to bring us to the concert and back, because I heard the Uber situation post-concert is horrendous and I knew Hallie wouldn’t make it. On the way, it started to rain. I started panicking and we stopped at a CVS to buy ponchos. Well, they were out of ponchos, but I did buy a mascara. I guess we were going to get wet.
After a lot of traffic we pulled up to the Hard Rock Stadium. It was amazing seeing everyone’s outfits. Walking in we had to scan our tickets four different times. We made it in and started exploring. You could feel the energy in the stadium. We got some popcorn, some pizza, traded some friendship bracelets, and eventually made our way to our seats. We were in section 115, which is low with a side view and thankfully was covered! The opening act was Gracie Abrams. After Gracie finished, Hallie peed, and then we went back.
Taylor plays Lady Gaga’s Applause before the countdown clock comes on, so when we heard that people started going nuts. From there until she came out was absolute insanity. Applause fades out, the countdown clock appears. 2:30. People are screaming. The lights dim. 5-4-3-2-1-. The opening begins. The only way I can explain the energy is what it feels like when you’re on the top of a really tall roller coaster, and you go over and start dropping and there is nothing you can do but scream.
From there it was three and a half hours of pure magic. Every Era was better than the next. Even when we all know what’s coming, its mind-blowing. Real Swifties know the nuances of the show, and Taylor delivered. She had some new outfits, the TTPD set, and Florence Welch came out for Florida in Florida!
The only annoying thing that happened was when two moms with three daughters tried to take the two seats next to us. The people on their other side called security. Ends up they had those two seats, but the rest of them had seats elsewhere. They ended up leaving the three kids to take up the 2 seats, and then the two moms sat in two empty seats in front of us. It could have been worse, it was just annoying that this all went down during the second half of All Too Well.
During the Folklore/Evermore Era I thought Hallie could use a break, so we went to the merch line. It actually wasn’t that long, so we waited. We missed the Era, but ultimately I think it was a good move. We got a shirt, and ended up ordering a few more things online. The surprise songs were Mirrorball/Guilty as Sin and Out of the Woods/All You Had to do was Stay.
After three and a half hours of pure fun, the concert came to a close at 11:30pm, with “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs” (which was followed by red fireworks). We were on such a high, but it was time to go.
Here is a highlight reel with clips from the concert. Tzvi edited it down to less than ten minutes. Stephanie’s Version would’ve been the full hour of clips I filmed, but consider yourself lucky that you’re just getting Tzvi’s version.
If you don’t want to watch the full video above, here’s two short clips of us singing along to Karma and to Florida:
Leaving the stadium was a mess. It took a while just to walk through the parking lots, and when we left the lots I heard one of the attendants say that he had only let out five cars. I can’t even imagine how long it took people to get out. We had to walk maybe half a mile, but we had no problem meeting our driver. Thank God he was there, I have no idea how we would have even gotten an Uber.
We got back to the hotel and Hallie said her stomach hurt a little. We bought tea biscuits at the hotel market and went upstairs where we had a 1am snack of tea biscuits and M and Ms’. Hallie said it was the best night ever.
October 21, 2024
We didn’t even wake up late – we were up by 8:45am – but we definitely didn’t get out of bed. I think we headed out around 10:30 and Ubered to Zak the Baker. They told us it would be a half hour wait, but it was only about 7 minutes. We ordered bread and jam, a chocolate croissant, a bagel with cream cheese, and I had avocado toast. I had wanted tuna, but apparently they put cream cheese in their tuna. Weird. Everything we ate was great. I tried to bring stuff home but they were out of a lot, so I ended up bringing home a whole wheat sourdough, two slices of babka, and a chocolate chip cookie.
After lunch Hallie wanted to go to the pool, so we went back to the hotel and hung by the pool. There were other Jews there and one came up to us and told us she had bagels if she wanted. Hallie was ready to accept the offer and I was like you literally just had a bagel.
Eventually we left to the airport. Our flight was delayed by an hour, but eventually we made it on. Boarding was something. Nobody could read their ticket or rather chose not to. The flight attendant was like “I’m closing the door and not opening it again until everyone moves away.” We made it on board, once again surrounded by Swifties.
The flight was uneventful. We Ubered home and were given a warm welcome.
Great trip.