Freelance Announcer Aika Kanda Heads to a Bar in Florida for Summer Vacation Travel Diary 1

A Dream I Always Wanted to Achieve

When the pandemic prevented me from traveling to my beloved America, I searched for videos of American travel and scenery on YouTube to at least capture the feeling. Among them, a video of a certain bar caught the attention of my husband and me. It was a live-stream video showing the bar’s terrace seats through a fixed camera, running 24 hours a day. I had never heard of this bar before, but the more I watched, the more intrigued I became.

It was a quiet rural town. On the road in front of the shop, carriages and trolleys slowly passed by, indicating that it was a tourist destination. Across the road, a large river flowed, and every time a tall boat passed, the bridge would rise and fall. Even though it was a bar, it opened in the morning, and the customers eating breakfast and lunch while enjoying the view seemed very happy. Each time food was brought out, my husband would enthusiastically exclaim, “I wonder what that person is eating? Scrambled eggs!” At night, the popular spot always had a line, and there were even nights when the police would visit with sirens blaring.

With the scene changing throughout the day like that, I could watch without getting bored. I started to recognize the faces of the staff and their work shifts, giving them nicknames and feeling a sense of familiarity. And at some point, we began saying, “We have to go there someday!” This bar gave my husband and me a bright goal during the pandemic.

Four years later, this summer, I finally decided to go there in person.

According to the sign in the video, the bar’s name was “The Tini Martini Bar.” When I searched it on Google Maps, I found it was located in St. Augustine, Florida, on the east side near the base of the Florida peninsula. I learned that this city is the oldest in America, which doubled my excitement as an America lover.

I flew from Haneda to Jacksonville via New York, and it took just over an hour by car from there. My connecting flight was delayed by more than two hours, and my checked luggage took a long time to arrive, so it took nearly 24 hours to get from my home to the hotel.

I checked in around 10 PM, just when the line at the bar was starting to form. Since it was about a five-minute walk from the hotel, I decided to go see it. I felt a mix of excitement and nervousness, thinking, “Am I really going there?” and “A dream I’ve wanted to achieve for so long is about to come true.” The time spent walking felt much longer than it actually was.

The scenery I saw in the video was right in front of me!

After a while, in contrast to the darkness around me, I saw a place sparkling like another After a while, in contrast to the surrounding darkness, I spotted a place that sparkled like a different world, filled with people and lights. It was the Tini Martini Bar. “Wow… that’s it,” both of us said with sighs. “It’s amazing,” and “We really made it.” I thought we would be more energetic, shouting “Yay!” but it was the opposite.

As seen in the video, there was a line of customers at the entrance. My husband and I exchanged looks, thinking, “Just as we expected!” Finally able to express the excitement bubbling up inside us, we snapped lots of photos in front of the bar, and since it was late, we returned to the hotel.

The next day, we visited the Tini Martini Bar twice for lunch and then again for drinks, and we had the staff take many photos of us. It seemed that the staff member I had given a nickname to was no longer there, and I learned that the live stream on YouTube was no longer happening. No wonder I hadn’t been able to find that video recently. We placed our phone where the fixed camera had been and took pictures of ourselves from that spot. It felt like we were part of the YouTube videos we had watched for so long. It was a commemorative photo.

I decided to try the martini, which is the namesake of the bar. I had heard that a martini reflects the character of the establishment, but this one tasted like extremely salty ocean water and was particularly unique. Looking around, I noticed not a single customer was drinking a martini, and I still couldn’t understand why the word “martini” was included in the bar’s name. However, the oldest city in America has become an essential and cherished part of our story as a couple. (Thank you, St. Augustine.) I conveyed this to the city in my heart and set off for our next destination, Walt Disney World Resort.

★ The author’s first book, compiled from this series, “Where is the Royal Road?” is now available and receiving great acclaim!

Aika Kanda / Born in 1980 in Kanagawa Prefecture. After graduating from the Department of Mathematics at Gakushuin University, she joined NHK as an announcer in 2003. She left NHK in 2012 and became a freelance announcer. Since then, she has been active mainly in variety shows and is currently a regular main MC on the daytime program “Poka Poka” (Fuji TV).

 

From the September 27 and October 4, 2024 combined issue of ‘FRIDAY’