Playing Catch Up: Tampa (the town)

Having never been to Tampa before I was not sure what to expect. There really is not much to downtown Tampa. The Performing Arts Center is beautiful, and sits right on the river. Our hotel was right across the street from the PAC, but as I have indicated below I had issues with the hotel. Especially the night that all three elevators did not work, and I had to climb fourteen flights of stairs. I only climb stairs at the gym!

In terms of activities, there were really only a handful of fun things to do that were close enough to walk to. The one day a bunch of us headed to what we thought was a cinema and turned out to be a small entertainment complex called Channelside. We ended up skipping the movie and going to the Florida Aquarium instead. It was a nice Aquarium somewhere in between Dallas and Houston. We did get to see a presentation with the river otters, and one with the penguins. I was going to ask at what age penguins begin tap dancing and singing Boogie Wonderland, but I refrained.

I was going to go to the Tampa Museum of Art, but they have a new temporary space outside of downtown while they build their new building. The Tampa Zoo was not within walking distance. There was always Ybor City. Ybor City is a historic part of Tampa that is basically now just a shopping and nightclub center for Tampa. I did not really go to Ybor, but the hotel shuttle drove us through it on the way to the laundromat. That was enough really.

Also performing in the Tampa Bay PAC was a production of The Rocky Horror Show so on Friday a bunch of us got tickets and went to the 11pm show. This was full out audience participation Rocky and it was insane. At times the audience was so loud that you could not understand the actors. It was fantastic! Sadly my participation was quite rusty, and I found that the lines I knew were different from what other people were yelling. So I had a few awkward moments of me yelling something when nobody else was. Oops! The cast was really good, and the band was fine except that they did not use a reed player! The most fun part though was seeing the looks on the faces of those in our group who had never experienced the Rocky Horror Show in all of its glory before. Priceless!

I did do quite a bit of walking though. Now that I have a phone with GPS, I can find the places that I need much easier. One day I decided to walk to the Target that was about 4 miles away. Except for the fact that it was disgustingly hot outside, it was a pleasant walk. As it turns out unknowingly I also ended up right down the street from the Tampa Bay Buccaneer's football stadium. I opted not to walk to it though. Imagine that!

I also keep noticing these interesting looking metal rooftops right on the other side of the river from the PAC. So one day I walked towards them to check them out. It turns out that they are a part of a building in The University of Tampa. From what I could make out the building was formerly a hotel designed by someone who may or may not have been famous. I guess the university has since taken over use of the building. So it was a bit of an anticlimax, but the building was pretty cool.

So after a week of no internet and very little to do, we packed our bags for the trip up to Orlando.