In which I complain about the cold in Florida
Today was a pretty great day, weather notwithstanding. (Seriously: cold snap in Florida. We got here on the 24th; It dropped 20 degrees F on Christmas day. It's going up 20 degrees tomorrow, just in time for us to leave.)
We spent three nights in Tom's very comfy guest-house in Tampa, hung out with him and had some really great food [1] and drink [2] and basically had a laid-back Christmas.
Yesterday, he drove us down to Sarasota, to our beach-front hotel, where we're spending two nights. Two gorgeous sunsets in a row. Wonderful white sand beach. Mid-40s temperature.
No kidding, it's going to be upper 70s Thursday and Friday. OK, I'm done complaining about the weather. (Except that: dan notes that the nightly lows aren't really different from home right now. Sigh. OK, now I'm really done).
Today we had breakfast at a Cafe recommended by Tom, packed with locals as well as tourists; I watched the waitress flirting with a regular as I tried to finish my home-fries. Then we caught a bus downtown to Sarasota; and decided to press onward to the Barnum and Bailey Museum, which was well recommended.
Sarasota used to be the wintering grounds for the Barnums, on a 28-acre homestead. Huge museum. There's a building just for the 1:30 scale model circus (covering some 2,000 square feet); also a building for life-size ephemera including Barnum's custom Pullman railcar (very pretty), and a truck/cannon for a Human Cannonball act; which might be the coolest thing we saw. There was the Barnum museum, which includes some great Renaissance works, and also a sculpture-garden with a replica bronze David (which just looked out of place). There were gardens with some great Banyan trees; There was also Barnum's house, which was so overwhelmingly big we didn't even go into it.
Back to the hotel for naps and relaxing; dinner was in Sarasota at a surprisingly cheap and tasty tex-mex restaurant. Then we wandered and got desert at a busy bar/cafe, where dan had a tart and I got a chocolate/nut meringue that made me happy.
Just now we took a taxi from downtown Sarasota back to Lido Key. The driver sounded like your basic laid-back Floridian; he was chilling with Voyage of the Dawn Treader when we showed up, and told us the story of how he inherited his ex's copy of the Narnia series and Bun-Bun the Rabbit.
Tomorrow, we have until mid-afternoon before we have to catch our flight from Sarasota airport. I'm curious how tiny this airport will be... and I'm looking forward to the rest of my vacation, at home, through the next week...
This, my friends, does not suck.
[1] Food: SideBerns restaurant; 7-course tasting menu. Yum. Details to follow, I hope, when I get around to looking at my photo of the menu. Favorite course: the deconstructed Creme Brûlée, based around a cold creamy layer that definitely wasn't ice-cream, and definitely wasn't Creme Brûlée. Also: dan cooked us a whole chicken and cranberry sauce and Tom grilled asparagus. Also: tapas at a local Spanish restaurant, which was just a little too much heavy stuff, but we persevered!
[2] Drink: this was a good holiday to not be driving. Cocktails and wine-pairings at SideBerns, followed by a chaser of Pine Liquour, tasting amazingly like a Christmas tree in a glass... We had egg-nog and wine at his place for Christmas day dinner; then a big pitcher of sangria at the tapas place. We've kept the drinking more low-key in Sarasota. :)
We spent three nights in Tom's very comfy guest-house in Tampa, hung out with him and had some really great food [1] and drink [2] and basically had a laid-back Christmas.
Yesterday, he drove us down to Sarasota, to our beach-front hotel, where we're spending two nights. Two gorgeous sunsets in a row. Wonderful white sand beach. Mid-40s temperature.
No kidding, it's going to be upper 70s Thursday and Friday. OK, I'm done complaining about the weather. (Except that: dan notes that the nightly lows aren't really different from home right now. Sigh. OK, now I'm really done).
Today we had breakfast at a Cafe recommended by Tom, packed with locals as well as tourists; I watched the waitress flirting with a regular as I tried to finish my home-fries. Then we caught a bus downtown to Sarasota; and decided to press onward to the Barnum and Bailey Museum, which was well recommended.
Sarasota used to be the wintering grounds for the Barnums, on a 28-acre homestead. Huge museum. There's a building just for the 1:30 scale model circus (covering some 2,000 square feet); also a building for life-size ephemera including Barnum's custom Pullman railcar (very pretty), and a truck/cannon for a Human Cannonball act; which might be the coolest thing we saw. There was the Barnum museum, which includes some great Renaissance works, and also a sculpture-garden with a replica bronze David (which just looked out of place). There were gardens with some great Banyan trees; There was also Barnum's house, which was so overwhelmingly big we didn't even go into it.
Back to the hotel for naps and relaxing; dinner was in Sarasota at a surprisingly cheap and tasty tex-mex restaurant. Then we wandered and got desert at a busy bar/cafe, where dan had a tart and I got a chocolate/nut meringue that made me happy.
Just now we took a taxi from downtown Sarasota back to Lido Key. The driver sounded like your basic laid-back Floridian; he was chilling with Voyage of the Dawn Treader when we showed up, and told us the story of how he inherited his ex's copy of the Narnia series and Bun-Bun the Rabbit.
Tomorrow, we have until mid-afternoon before we have to catch our flight from Sarasota airport. I'm curious how tiny this airport will be... and I'm looking forward to the rest of my vacation, at home, through the next week...
This, my friends, does not suck.
[1] Food: SideBerns restaurant; 7-course tasting menu. Yum. Details to follow, I hope, when I get around to looking at my photo of the menu. Favorite course: the deconstructed Creme Brûlée, based around a cold creamy layer that definitely wasn't ice-cream, and definitely wasn't Creme Brûlée. Also: dan cooked us a whole chicken and cranberry sauce and Tom grilled asparagus. Also: tapas at a local Spanish restaurant, which was just a little too much heavy stuff, but we persevered!
[2] Drink: this was a good holiday to not be driving. Cocktails and wine-pairings at SideBerns, followed by a chaser of Pine Liquour, tasting amazingly like a Christmas tree in a glass... We had egg-nog and wine at his place for Christmas day dinner; then a big pitcher of sangria at the tapas place. We've kept the drinking more low-key in Sarasota. :)