Okay, I’m taking this one day at a time.

We woke up fairly early on Saturday, and again we “hit” the gym followed by the Doubletree Breakfast Buffet.  The day before we had gone straight to breakfast in our workout clothes and today was the same.  We also had the same server, Jesus, who teased us about this, but seriously, it didn’t make sense to shower and change before eating.  Now, for the record:  since January I have been working with a personal trainer and have been on a very strict diet.  For this trip I had decided that I was going to eat basically what I wanted.  Oddly, it has been a real challenge, full of guilt and self-loathing!  I decided to stick to the basic diet for breakfast and lunch and really only “splurge” at dinner, but they did offer bacon on the breakfast buffet, so I might have taken a small piece of it.  Other added bonus:  unlimited coffee, plus Jesus brought us “to-go” cups so we could take it along, which was great.  In fact, we were really starting to get in the mood for cruising with his fantastic service.

After breakfast we drove across the bridge to St. Petersburg again.  This time a HUGE thunderstorm came through just as we started out, and the visibility was rotten.  The Kia doesn’t handle that well in bad weather either, so it was a little scary for a few minutes.  Our goal today:  visit the Salvador Dali Museum, then meet up with Ginny again.  Several years ago Chris and I spent a whole week on vacation in St. Petersburg, and our favorite place had been the museum, so we were looking forward to returning!

It took awhile for the rain to calm down enough to get to the museum, and we were a bit soaked by the time we walked in.  The museum was great!  Dali is such an interesting and crazy man.  We weren’t as impressed by the museum as we had been last time though–I think there must have been a more interesting traveling exhibit at that time.  This time it was about Dali’s work with the theatre.  All in all though, the museum is still fantastic.  They are in the process of constructing a new building which will be both larger and more hurricane proof, so it will only be better!  Evidently they have many more works of arts in storage at any given time, and with the new building will be able to have a larger exhibit.  We’ll have to return in a few years to check it out.

Afterwards we had a quick lunch at a place downtown called the Lucky Dill Deli.  They served gigantic sandwiches.  We then met up with Ginny.  Since the weather was still a bit ominous we decided to go to a movie.  We saw “Salt” with Angelina Jolie.  It was entertaining enough (the others liked it much better than I did) and then we went to dinner.  Ginny drove us out to St. Petersburg Beach to a seafood restaurant–Hurricane Seafood Restaurant (technically in Pass-a-Grille).  I had a stuffed flounder and it was delicious.  The pina coladas weren’t as good (in my opinion) as the previous night.  After dinner it was dark and we debated going to walk on the beach, but we decided we would have lots of beach time ahead, and frankly we were exhausted at this point.  We hung out with Ginny at her house a bit longer, then back to the hotel.  Tomorrow would be the big day!!!!

Okay, I will start my trip review!

Chris and I decided to cruise the Carnival Legend out of Tampa, Florida on August 22.  The easiest and cheapest way to get to Tampa was to fly Southwest, and we decided to go a few days early to sightsee and visit our friend Ginny who lives in St. Petersburg.

We used priceline to rent a car and get a hotel near the airport.  We got in Thursday night and were exhausted, so we just checked in and ate a nice dinner at the hotel (Doubletree Westshore).

The next day we worked out in the hotel gym (gotta keep it up!), ate at the hotel restaurant (really nice breakfast buffet)and went over the bridge to St. Petersburg, about a 20 minute drive.  We drove to “The Pier” and ate lunch at the Columbia restaurant there, a cuban restaurant.  It was tasty, and the views were very nice.  We met up with my friend after that and she showed us around a few other places.  We then drove out to Madeira Island and ate dinner at a seafood restaurant by the water.  I had the she-crab soup, which I had heard of but never eaten.  I had assumed that it was made from female crabs, but evidently the “she-” is simply an abbreviation for sherry.  The soup was creamy and delicious!  We also had a couple of excellent pina coladas, wanting to get the week off to a delightful tropical start.

I was thinking yesterday how lucky I am that I am able to go on a fun vacation every year.  Not everybody is able to get away for a week or two and do something different, and I am really appreciative that I can.  Sometimes I get a bit jealous of other people’s travels, but I am glad to be able to experience what I can.   It’s always good to put things in perspective in your mind, and be sure to appreciate what you have!

When I was a child, we traveled quite a bit in the summer as well–I have been to many of the 50 states and visited many National Parks, along with lots of SC and FL beaches.  I have many journals and scrapbooks from my childhood travels.  These days I blog instead of journaling 😉 and take pictures.

Additionally, I have friends and family who travel and bring me back nice souvenirs.  I was given a beautiful (yet a bit overwhelming!) blouse from China for my birthday.  I took a picture of it yesterday as I wanted to share this picture with the person who gave it to me.

I have been working hard the last week, both preparing for my upcoming cruise, and getting ready for the beginning of school.  I am gone until after school starts, which is fine as it’s nice for the kids to get accustomed to their new school schedule and then start violin lessons or classes.  It just means I will need to basically hit the ground running, or at least at a brisk jog.

I have mentioned my upcoming cruise several times in my blog.  Let me tell you more about the plans!  We are going out of Tampa on an “Exotic Western Caribbean” itinerary.  We will be visiting Georgetown, Grand Cayman; Cozumel, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; and Isla Roatan, Honduras.  In the Caymans (where I have been before!) we are planning to do a jet ski excursion where we will jet ski around the island, visit “Stingray City” where we will be able to pick up stingrays and “pet” them, and probably hit up a beach as well.  We should also have time to get lunch where I really want to get some conch fritters.  In Cozumel we are going to a beautiful beach resort for the day and might also do parasailing!  Belize we are going to Xunantunich Mayan Ruins, and in Roatan we have a private island tour booked.  Roatan seems to be the least built up of all the ports (though Carnival just built a gigantic complex on the beach there) so I am particularly looking forward to it!  We have several “excursions” that I booked through private companies versus paying a premium for the ship tours.  I haven’t done this before, but I read many many reviews online of various activities and feel pretty secure in my choices.

While in Tampa we will be visiting a good friend from when I lived in Cleveland, and spending a few days there as well.  Several years ago Chris and I spent a week in St. Petersburg, Florida, and one of our favorite places was the Salvador Dali Museum.  I think we might go back there!  On that previous visit we also went to several Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now just the Rays) games and the Holocaust Museum.  The Rays are out of town, and while I remember the Holocaust Museum being very good, it was of course very sad and depressing.  We’ll also see what our friend recommends to do, as she now lives there year round.

We got a great deal on the cruise since we are going after school starts up (it seemed the rates dropped then).  I used priceline to get a hotel and a rental car, and felt good about those rates as well.  Can you tell how excited I am?

I hope to be able to continue my half marathon training while on vacation.  I will get a little behind on the long runs, I think, but should hopefully be able to run 4 or 5 miles every day or two.  I plan to eat as much as possible though 🙂