Dolphin (NOT!) Cruise and International Plaza

On the last day of these conferences I attend, there is usually some kind of social activity offered after the serious stuff is over. This time it was a dolphin cruise off of Clearwater Beach. Sounded like fun, so we decided to go.

We hopped on a superstretch tourist bus (complete with the bendy thing in the middle) for a ride to Clearwater. The ride was longer than I expected, maybe about one hour -- I thought it would be more like 20 minutes. Sometime toward the end of the bus ride, one of the conference coordinators said that the dolphin tour people canceled at the last minute because of some kind of problem with the boat. Fortunately, the bus driver was able to suggest another boat company that might be able to take us.

We arrive at the harbor, and we're watching the conference coordinator walk over to "The Calypso Queen," which apparently is the replacement boat. I need to add a picture of it later (UPDATED to add photo at left!), but just picture the cheesiest boat you can imagine -- yellow, with a fake coconut tree on top. The logo on the flag consisted of martini glasses, and the interior was even more cheesy, with tropical print plastic seat covers over all the chairs. But, my theory is that at least we have a story to tell, and this boat was definitely more interesting than the one we were supposed to be on (see picture on the right)! While we didn't see any dolphins, the captain pointed out some nice homes that belonged to celebrities such as John Travolta and Tom Cruise. The cruise lasted a little over an hour.

The adventure didn't end there. On the bus ride back, I noticed that we had been sitting at a traffic for quite a while. Several minutes went by and I saw cars passing us on the left as we just sat there. The conference coordinator came on the PA system again and said something about a truck hitting the bus. None of us even felt anything! So, we sat there for a while. One person commented that it's too bad this didn't happen near a Starbucks or something. Instead we were stuck in a boring area surrounded by houses on one side and a couple of office buildings on the other. After a while, the bus moved. But we were turning right onto a side street to get out of the way of traffic. Bummer. Stuck there for a while longer. At least we were having a good time on the bus sharing stories and getting to know people better. I think the whole ordeal took about an hour. Again, I just looked at it as another story to share when I get home!

After we got back to the hotel, we decided to hop into our car rental (our friends picked it up at lunch so we'd have it ahead of time for our drive to Orlando) and go to a mall. The hotel gave us directions to two malls on the same street. We ended up at International Plaza. It was a very nice mall, although surprisingly dead. I guess everything in Tampa is dead! We went shopping for a while, then set out to find dinner.

We found an outdoor restaurant and entertainment area. THIS is where everyone was! No wonder the mall was so dead, everyone was out here eating, drinking, and having a good time! There were a number of places to choose from, but we chose a quiet place that had no wait or huge crowd, the Gallery Bistro. Although being that quiet was a little scary...was something wrong with it? The food was terrific. We all started with a cup of blue crab and corn chowder, which was most excellent. We shared an appetizer of bistro chips, which were freshly made potato chips topped with a balsamic syrup and gorgonzola cheese...yum! For my entree, I had a cobb salad. It was good, but too huge after eating the soup, and a bit overdressed. I should have just ordered a small salad (which was still pretty big!) like my friend did.

Once again, our adventure was not over. By the time we finished dinner, the mall was closed, and we couldn't go back to the car the way we we came in. We found an escalator down to the parking garage, but we were parked on the other side of the mall, so we started walking. Then a security truck pulls next to us...uh oh, were we doing something wrong? Were we going to get busted? "Do you guys want a ride?" the friendly female security guard asked. There were five of us, so two walked and three of us hopped in with her. I figured she was probably bored and enjoyed having some company for a little while! We have found the people in Florida to be very friendly overall.

Coming up...driving to Disney World!

Ybor City

When researching what to do in Tampa, you will most likely come across a suggestion to take a streetcar to nearby Ybor City. Sounds like a fun thing to do, so we did. The street car ride was kinda fun, and the stops are pretty convenient.

When we got off in Ybor City, I didn't really know what to make of it at first. It seemed pretty dead. What kind of place is this? We figured we'd be able to cover the whole thing in an hour and go back to the hotel! However, it began to grow on me.

While I've never been to New Orleans, I imagined that Ybor City shares some similarities with the French Quarter in its quirkiness and kind of dark nature. We later learned that we were there on what is typically a quieter night. Apparently things pick up from Wednesday to Saturday, and we were there on a Tuesday night. A lot of stores had "Sorry We're Open" signs in the window. They definitely have a sense of humor here!

There were also a lot of "Guavaween" signs. I wish I'd taken a picture of one. We heard that a long time ago, someone had set out to make Ybor City a kind of guava capital, but it didn't take, and now Ybor City pokes fun at itself by celebrating Guavaween during the Halloween season.

There were a number of interesting places to consider for dinner. Initially I was looking at a place called the Green Iguana, a bar and grill type of place. There was another place that had wood-fired pizzas that sounded interesting. We let one of my coworkers choose, and she felt like eating Greek food, so we headed for Acropolis. It turned out to be an excellent choice! I ordered the mousaka and a glass of wine. They had a pretty extensive selection of Greek wine.

Before we decided on dinner at Acropolis, we walked by a place that served crepes. We decided ahead of time that we would go and have a crepe for dessert, so we made sure not to overstuff ourselves at dinner. The crepe place ended up being a good choice too. So good that I didn't even think of taking a picture of it before we started digging in! (UPDATE! Found a picture taken by my friend...) My friend and I shared one that had Nutella, bananas, and walnuts in it, and was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

While Ybor City appeared to be dead, Acropolis was quite popular, which isn't surprising given the goodness of the food and the funness of the live Greek entertainment, complete with napkins falling from the sky and dishes breaking. There were definitely more people walking around by the time we left, around 9 p.m. The cigar shops were pretty interesting too. We got to see cigars being rolled, and the guy in the window even posed for my friend. I'll have to post that pic later when I get it from her. All in all, a worthwhile adventure.

Cafe Dufrain

Okay, it looks like Blogger is finally letting me do my thing, so I have some major catching up to do! I'm in Disney World right now, and today was a lazy day for me consisting mostly of shopping and taking pictures. Tomorrow is my spa day, so I want to be nice and rested and relaxed for that!

Back to last week...so last Tuesday, lunch was not included in our conference, which kind of sucked given that we only had a little over an hour to walk around and find something. We went on a little bit of an urban trek thinking we could find something over a nearby bridge, but to no avail. So we basically ended up just a short walk away from the hotel at a place called Cafe Dufrain, which I had on my list of possible restaurants to try. It turned out to be a good choice.

It's a cute little place with indoor and outdoor seating. Two of my friends had a pulled pork sandwich, and my other friend and I both had the chicken rigatoni, which was excellent! It was in a creamy sauce which was very tasty. And I still say you can't beat the taste of fruits and vegetables on the mainland. Our produce at home sucks, unless it's locally grown. So all of you who live in Hawaii, SUPPORT LOCAL AGRICULTURE!

Our little adventure ended up making us a half hour late in returning to the conference, but, oh well...at least we returned! A lot of other people didn't!

Coming up...Ybor City.

Splitsville!

I gotta write super-fast since Blospot has not been cooperating with me these past couple of days!

Most of today was spent in a conference, which for the most part was pretty good. Especially the lunch part! The hotel food was surprisingly good, and you really can't beat mainland fruits and vegetables. Most of the stuff you get in Hawaii, especially things like berries, suck.

Anyway, tonight we started out with a conference-related reception. Again, good food: mini beef wellingtons, mini chicken quesadilla rolls, really good cheese, fruit, veggies, and spring rolls. Then we decided to venture to a place called Channelside. But it was pouring, so we caught a taxi. It only took us about 5 minutes to get there. Channelside is an entertainment complex, pretty similar to Aloha Tower. And just as dead. Which is really sad, because it seems like a really cool place. There are a number of hotels in the area, so I'm not sure why more people don't go there. It appears that some places close pretty early too. I guess that's what happens in downtown locations.

Anyway, so we went to a place called Splitsville. It was a bowling alley, pool hall, and bar, all in one. The layout was quite weird, with the pool tables right BETWEEN the bowling lanes! We decided to shoot some pool and have a drink while we were there, before they got taken over by a private party. After that, we headed over to Hooters. Believe it or not, I've always wanted to try their buffalo wings. We got the boneless chicken, fried pickles, and a steak quesadilla. It was all pretty tasty, as was the mojito!

Enough for today. Tomorrow is another conference day, and hopefully a trolley and street car ride to Ybor City tomorrow night!

I have arrived!!

Quick post, since I am about to drop dead from tiredness! I did not get a lot of sleep on my flights here -- from Honolulu to Houston, then Houston to Tampa. We had a 4 hour layover in Houston, and we managed to get one hour of sleep there.

We arrived in Tampa at about 5 p.m. and are staying at the Westin Harbour Island. The weather was not good, as it was pouring on the ride over from the airport, so we decided to stick close to the hotel. Besides, we're all dead tired! We found a very nearby restaurant called Jackson's. At first it looked a little to frou-frou, based on the atmosphere, but it turned out to be a very good choice and not over the top at all.

I started with a wine flight (4 white wines) and had an entree consisting of grouper topped with lump crab meat, served atop a potato cake and some stir fried veggies. It rested on a bed of cream sauce that was wine-based, but I can't remember the name of the wine. Two of my friends had the shrimp & scallop linguine, and another friend had a chicken focaccia sandwich served with french fries.

Tomorrow begins our conference, but hopefully we'll be able to find something equally good to eat for dinner tomorrow!

Leaving for the airport!

Just a quick post to say I'm leaving for the airport soon! I arrive in Tampa late Sunday afternoon, Tampa time, which is 6 hours ahead of Hawaii right now. I got up early and stayed up in the hopes that I'll sleep on the plane and won't have too many problems getting adjusted, but we'll see. I always have a hard time flying directly to the East Coast!

Hope you all keep checking in...I am really going to make an effort to post something at least every couple of days!