Tampa
Just back from this year’s SuperComputing conference, which wasn’t as good as last year’s, but was still pretty good. Also, I thought I’d blog about being horribly jet-lagged and how unbearable it is to travel by plane, but after re-reading last year’s post, I really don’t have anything new to add!
So, instead, I’ll just make some short observations about Tampa, FL.
Firstly, Tampa is not like Seattle. Well, the buildings could probably have been transported from one to the other, brick by brick (if they weren’t all glass), and no-one would notice the difference. The street plan is a similar story, as there’s only so much you can do with a Cartesian grid.
On the other hand:
- No Starbucks! Absolutely none in the city centre and I only saw one (drive-through!) while on the bus to Busch Gardens. However, all the coffee places did “proudly brew Starbucks”.
- No McDonalds! Again, apart from one I saw while on the bus.
- In fact, there are very few shops in “downtown” Tampa at all. This might not be surprising, as it was 25 degrees in November, so its probably not a nice place to be in the summer. Everyone would rather be in the air-conditioned mega-mall(s?) in the suburbs.
- Plenty of homeless people, but they didn’t have the camping gear, like they did in Seattle. And fewer of them seemed to be totally crazy.
We had a little trip to Busch Gardens, which was pretty awesome. The rollercoasters there are pretty insane and scary – at least they were for me. There are also animals, but we went at night, so we didn’t see them. Also, Ybor City is worth a visit if you like bars, nightclubs or tattoos. It was clearly the centre of night-life in Tampa with lots of restaurants (Cuban, Colombian, even Greek), but its not in the “city centre”. According to our taxi driver, Thursday is the night to go, as all the students go out “half-naked and half-crocked”. So we did and had a few drinks, saw a fight get broken up by the police, but didn’t see an unusually large number of half-naked people. I guess thats what I see in a normal night out in the UK 
To be honest, I’m not sure I’d recommend Tampa for a holiday unless you were passing through for just day or two. The phrase “cultural wasteland” springs to mind, but I might be being unfair.
November 21st, 2006