Colors of summer time

My first post for the new year and that too after a week's gap. Had a wonderful wonderfull time. Till my last post I had no fixed plans as to what I will do with my week long week. Plans were being made and unmade with friends backing off due to one reason or the other. Finally we had had enough. V and me decided to take off on our own. Made a rough plan, booked the car and hotels and on 27th night we were off to Florida!

Our first stop was Panama City. It was 12 hrs drive in all as per mapquest. Its a lovely small town with nice and peaceful beaches. The sunny weather after so much of snow and cold felt like a blessing. There weren't much crowd around so walking along the beach in the evening with the cool breeze on your face felt heavenly. It seems that this was one of the places hit by the Ivan tornado and we could see construction work going on here and there. We had awesome seafood. Apart from fish, shrimps and crab, tried oysters and scallops. I was skeptical about scallops, but it turned out to be quite tasty and not too nasty to look at.

The next day late morning we left for Tampa which is about 8hrs drive from Panama City. On the way lies the city of Gainesville which is the home of University of Florida. We saw an adv for Chutnee, the famous Indian restaurant chain. Stopped for lunch but unfortunately it was closed. Gainesville sounded very familiar when I suddenly realized one of my friend had recently taken admission to the Univ. Called her up and went to meet her. It felt so nice to meet an old friend. My first time since I came to US. We finally reached Tampa at 8pm checked into the hotel and had delicious Thai food for dinner.

The next day we went to Busch Gardens. Its an amusement park which looks like a cross between Disney's California Adventure Park and Animal Kingdom. Spent the whole day there. Highlight of the day was that V won a HUGE gorilla for me! Its even bigger than me! Poor V had to tug it along wherever we went. Anyone who saw us were smiling and saying this and that and the kids....the kids were so thrilled. The gorilla took up the whole back seat of the car. We were thankful we decided to rent a car and did not get V's Spyder instead :)

The next day on the 31st we went to the Clearwater Beach. Its supposed to be the most beautiful beach in that area and it is. The place is so lovely..even though it was a bit crowded the beach was awesome with its soft white sand. The bright sunny summery weather made it all the more better. Lazed around the beach the whole day and thanks to the sunscreen escaped getting tanned. This time too we had another round of yummy Thai cuisine.

In the evening we got ready and went to a place called Ybor City (pronounced Yeebor). This is supposed to be the 'happening' place in Tampa where the major New Yr celebration takes place. The place is lined with pubs and clubs and even has the famous Coyote Ugly pub. It seems every weekend the roads are blocked and people have big time party right there on the streets. Same happened that night too. It seemed like all the young people in the city were there. Music blaring from different clubs...the air was filled with festivity. We 'accidentally' went to this Greek restaurant for food. And we had hardly started browsing the menu when suddenly vigorous music with heavy beats started playing and out came the belly dancer. I have never seen anyone dance with so much energy before. The lady was awesome...danced continuously for about 2 hrs non-stop full of energy. It was fun and to top it the food was delicious. We were there in Ybor City till late night and returned the next year tired and sleepy.

We left for Columbus late that morning. The total driving was of 16hrs but with breaks and all we reached Columbus in 24hrs. During the week Columbus had pleasant weather so all the snow including our snowman had melted away. In the evening saw 'Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events'. Monday was a holiday for me so had a nice rest.

So thats the end of my holidays. How I wish we could take such vacations every once in a while. Life would have been much more lively :)