A day out at the British seaside can be a joyous affair but not, it turns out, if you’re used to the golden sands of Miami.
A man from the Florida city decided to make a trip to Weston-super-Mare to go swimming in the sea, but it wasn’t quite what he expected.
Nick Alexander, known as Mr Miami UK on social media, recently moved to Wolverhampton from the US and has been sharing his experiences of English culture.
But while he’s a big fan of his adopted city’s butcher’s, cafes and restaurants, according to his TikTok account, he soon discovered that he wasn’t quite so enamoured with local beaches.
In the first of three videos uploaded to the platform in June 2021, he described his horror at the state of the southwestern coast.
Addressing his viewers, he said: "Today I tried to go swimming in a British beach and it didn’t work out so well.”
Then, filming the scene around him, he asked: “It’s just horrible, what the hell is this?"
To be clear, Wolverhampton isn’t exactly next door to Weston-super-Mare – Alexander and his friends would have had to drive a good two-and-a-half hours to get there.
However, when they finally did arrive, they weren’t impressed by what they found.
Getting to the beach, Alexander said he was appalled at having to trudge through “mud” to get to the water, insisting the sea itself was “like 20 miles away.”
@mr.miami_uk Someone needs to take me to a real U.K. Beach Please!! #britishbeach #wow #mrmiamiuk #badday #mud #westernsupermare #neveragain #beach #reststop #fyp
Filming himself ankle deep in the sludge, he fumed: "Now I don’t know who decided to call this place a beach but where I come from beaches don’t look like this.”
Alexander said he and his pals were excited to hit the beach... until they realised the sea was ‘20 miles away’@MR.MIAMI_UK/TikTok
He then concluded "Overall it ended up being an absolutely s*** day. I didn’t get to go swimming, I lost my wallet in Weston-super-Mare.”
In other words, it really wasn’t for him.
That said, he admitted in a follow-up clip that the group found a funfair in the town, which ended up being the “highlight of the day”.
But it still wasn’t enough to salvage his opinion of the place, and he insisted: "I’m definitely going to go to Cornwall or Devon to find me a better beach because I need to go swimming this summer in the UK, baby."
Despite enjoying his trip to a Weston funfair, he vowed never to visit the town again@MR.MIAMI_UK/TikTok
The trio of clips racked up more than 140,000 views and 13,000 likes, as fellow TikTokers rushed to defend the UK seaside.
Numerous users responded with recommendations for alternatives to Weston, which they agreed was “basically a swamp” and had rightly earned itself the nickname “Weston-super-Mud.”
Beaches in Devon, Dorset, Sussex, north Wales and Cornwall all got shout-outs, with Bournemouth getting a number of mentions.
One viewer suggested Alexander should have asked advice before setting off on his trip.
They wrote: “You would have had so many good recommendations but you went ahead so…”
We’re guessing he won’t be making the same mistake again.
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