Traveling Again: Tampa

For someone in my position (young with no money and no real job) I do a significant amount of traveling. Sometimes, it's purely for fun, like when I went to Tokyo, or various trips to Austin. Sometimes it's for school, like the trip to Tampa, a recent trip to San Diego, and a trip to pre-Ike Galveston back in April. I like traveling, for the most part.

This trip to Tampa was a little unique, in that I was traveling by myself. I am attending a conference on women and addiction.

On my first night, I ate alone in an Italian restaurant that had only one other table of customers. I recognize that to some of you who have small children, eating alone in a restaurant probably sounds pretty good, but when you're 27 and single, eating alone makes you feel like you should get a lot of cats, start wearing a bathrobe, and basically let the world know that you have given up. The food was pretty good, although my first choice would have been the sushi restaurant next door that was inexplicably closed on a Monday night.

Tampa Bay didn't sound that impressive, but I had forgotten that it is actually the home of an NFL team, an MLB team, AND an NHL team. As it turns out, the hockey arena is right across the street from where my conference was being held. Sadly, the first game of the preseason is not until Saturday. Had I thought about it when I booked my tickets, I might have tried to stay longer, just to go to an NHL game. Oh well. Here's a shot of the arena:

Instead of going to a hockey game, I finally saw Dark Knight. I try really hard not to do things on trips that I can do in Lubbock, so I paid extra money to watch it in the IMAX theater. A couple of things:

a) The movie was pretty disturbing, especially on the giant screen with the amazing sound.

b) It wasn't as disturbing as I was preparing myself for. Which was a little disturbing in and of itself. Maybe my life has hardened me to deeply disturbed people.

c) The movie was more disturbing because there were only about 5 other people in the theater with me, and when it was all over, I had to walk back to my car in downtown Tampa Bay in the twilight. So, yes, the thought did go through my head that the Joker might be waiting around the corner for me. Also, I have recurring dreams about gators, which are supposedly wandering around Florida. So I was relieved to find my car.

But I stopped to look at a lizard, and also to take another picture of the outside of St. Pete's Times Forum, where the Lightning Bolts play.

On my second night in Tampa, I went back to the sushi restaurant, hoping it would be open. I recently skimmed the book Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions, by Christian Lander. He writes as if he is explaining white Americans to people who are not white Americans, and he talks extensively about white Americans' obsessions with Japan, from Japanese women to Japan to sushi. He points out that Americans love to go to Japan so they can come back to America and talk about how much better Japanese food is in Japan. I'm trying not to be guilty of that. That said, I was pretty impressed by Yoko's Japanese Restaurant in Tampa Bay.

First of all, to get there, I drove along the coast at dusk, which was gorgeous. Then, when I got to the restaurant, all the servers were dressed in yukata and (I kid you not) flip flops with socks. Not tabi, but cotton socks with a separation between the toes. They gave me a hot, damp towel to wipe my hands with, just like in Japan. They did not have inari sushi, but, unlike the place I go to in Lubbock, at least the waitress at Yoko's knew what it was. The food I ordered was good, and, for dessert, I had tempura ice cream. It wasn't mochi, but it was pretty good.

Yes, it was also covered with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. I'm pretty lucky my heart didn't stop right there.

The rest of the trip was a quest to find a t-shirt that said Tampa Bay Lightning Bolts on it. Since AAMFT in Austin two years ago, I have collected college t-shirts from various places I have visited. In two years, I have gathered 10 shirts. And while every store I went to had t-shirts from various Florida colleges (some of which I have mixed feelings about), I decided I needed to get a Lightning Bolts shirt, as I'm rarely in cities with professional hockey teams.

Did you know the Tampa Bay Lightning Bolts won the Stanley Cup in 2004? No? Well, I'm pretty sure no one in Tampa Bay knows that either. I searched Target and Wal-Mart, and while they had college apparel, Buccaneer stuff, and Ray stuff (formerly Devil Ray stuff), I couldn't find one Lightning Bolts anything at either place.

I did, however, find a random Syracuse jersey in Target.


So, of course, I couldn't give up. I am my father's daughter, after all.


I went to a store in the mall and found a very limited supply of Lightning Bolts shirts, including a child's shirt that was on clearance that looked like it would fit me.

And, yes, there are three DIFFERENT styles of UT shirts. In Florida. Apparently, Floridians' appreciation of football extends far and wide. I'm not sure why they even have a hockey team.

To reward myself for my awesome find, I went to Waffle House.

I have wanted to eat at Waffle House since I was in Georgia interviewing a couple of years ago, and Tracy and Elliot wanted to take me there. The way Tracy described it, it was a little white trash, and all the employees were constantly yelling at each other. It sounded like the kind of thing I would enjoy exploring with them. At the last minute, they decided to take me somewhere else. In Tracy's words, "The food's pretty greasy, and we always feel kind of gross afterward." I appreciated that they were looking out for me, but it sparked in me a desire to see the place.

They are all over the South. Ironically, however, they are not in Lubbock. I'm not sure why-did Waffle House think Lubbock was an undesirable location, or does Lubbock think Waffle House is an undesirable franchise? Both alternatives are pretty appalling. There are some in Texas, and Stephanie, Layne, and I have had some discussions about visiting one, but we haven't yet. There's a weird dichotomy about Tampa: in some ways, it looks like Southern California, but, at the same time, it is definitely south of the Mason-Dixon line. Waffle House sort of proves that.

I was not disappointed. I had a lite waffle with strawberries and whipped cream. Yes, I recognize that putting whipped cream and strawberries undoes any good having a lite waffle would do, but I was celebrating. I began to wonder about the employees in Waffle House: how did they choose to work at Waffle House? How long had they been there? What were their lives like outside of Waffle House? I'm pretty sure I have never thought that much about people who have waited on me at a restaurant, but one of the employees changed into scrubs at the end of her shift, and it got me thinking. She was clearly going to school to do something in the medical field. It was kind of inspiring.

My favorite thing about Waffle House was its jukebox. There were songs I recognized. However, there were a lot of other songs about, well, Waffle House. Songs like, "Waffle House Stomp," and "There are Raisins in My Toast."

I didn't take any pictures of the inside of Waffle House because

a) I was afraid they would think I was from the board of health.

b) I didn't want to take a closer look at the place where I had just eaten lunch.

I really enjoyed Tampa. There aren't a lot of other places I have been where you can take a drive overlooking the waterfront, catch a hockey game, and eat at a Southern institution without leaving the city limits.