Florida-Day 1

I woke up on Christmas morning at 2:20 am not to open presents, but to catch my first flight of the day, a 5:30 departure from O’Hare to Miami. I made myself a shake with 1% milk, peanut butter, a banana, and whey protein. Anything to avoid buying food in the airport. I dropped mom off at the terminal with the luggage and then I parked over at Blue Sky in Schiller Park. At 8 bucks a day, that saves me about 50 dollars vs. parking at the airport for five days.

I slept most of the Miami flight and since Mom offered to buy breakfast, I grabbed a bagel sandwich with egg whites, sausage, and cheddar cheese with an OJ. Of course, this is Miami, so they did things a little differently. First, the glass of OJ has ice cubes. Some drinks should never have ice and the first two I can think of are OJ and root beer. They used shredded cheddar cheese that wasn’t even melted. Finally, I expected a sausage patty; that’s standard on any bagel sandwich. Not here. They took two sausage links and cut them lengthwise. The sandwich was fine, but yeah, that Miami, is one quirky town. I was also a little disappointed that there were almost no Christmas decorations in the entire airport, unlike Chicago, which is well known for its Christmas scenes.

The flight from Miami to Tampa took about an hour. I spent most of reading it fruitlessly trying to solve Sudoku puzzles and reading That First Season about Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers in 1959. And I had to put my headphones on since right in front of me this woman with the overly thick Lawng Oiland (Long Island) accent was just going on and on about her divorce. I was just thankful she wasn’t on the Chicago-Miami flight.

So after an hour, we landed in Tampa. And I loved that first blast of warm air as I walked off the plane and onto the Jetbridge. Such a refreshing change from 15 degrees in Chicago. After claiming luggage, two bags for Mom and one for me, we took the shuttle to the offsite Sixt rental car agency. Take a second to Wikipedia that. I’d never heard of it either, apparently, it is German. Since I was the driver, I took care of the contract and I chatted with a cute Latina girl behind the counter. She gave me some places to check out in the area like the Blue Martini. Mom was convinced she was flirting with me, I definitely didn’t think so. I mean it’s not like I’m trying to pick a girl up at the rental car desk. But I expected a compact car and she gave me a black Chevrolet Captiva, which is a mid-sized SUV. I loved the features in this car: USB plug in for my Ipod, moonroof, the electronic tire pressure indicators, even the rear windshield wiper!

So I put on my sunglasses, I open the windows, and start her up. I start driving out on Cypress Road feeling like I’m on the top of the world. I look down at the display and saw the gas gauge. It was less than ¼ full. U-turn! It turns out this company doesn’t give a full tank of gas, but I wouldn’t have to fill it up before I returned it either. I’ve never seen a rental car company that operated that way, but no big deal.

We drove east to Ybor City, which is the happening area of Tampa. We went to Columbia, which is Florida’s big Cuban restaurant, for Christmas dinner. The place was absolutely packed, but we got a good spot near a wall, where Mom was able to charge her Iphone. We ordered the 1905 salad, a staple of any visit. It’s the simplest salad with iceberg lettuce, tomato, ham, green olives, Swiss cheese, turkey, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and a classic dressing with extra virgin olive oil. Somehow, all those flavors come together perfectly. And I have to get it with the shrimp al gambillo, a spicy Latin flavored grilled shrimp. It just puts the salad over the top. Oh, and they give each person a loaf of Cuban bread.

We also got a pitcher of sangria. The flavor of fruits and light red wine just cry Florida. For entrees, she ordered the paella which was fine. The scallops were great, the squid, not so much. I ordered the Joe y Marilyn salteado, which is a Chinese-inspired Cuban dish. Apparently many Chinese people came to Cuba in the 19^th century and this dish came from that. It’s like a Cuban stir-fry with chicken, tenderloin, pork, shrimp, chorizo, potatoes, peppers, onions, EVOO, garlic a splash of red wine…great stuff. And I did get a piece of key lime pie to go. I still believe in the sweeter taste, not the tart taste, by the way.

We drove towards the Courtyard in South Tampa, but I first stopped at Raymond James Stadium, where the Bucs play to take a few pictures. We checked into the hotel, which was pretty nice. I especially liked being on the first floor and we had a fridge in our room, which I think sort of kept food cold. After changing my clothes, I wound up napping for two hours. I grabbed a quick workout in the gym, then heated up the leftover salteado in the microwave. I came back to the room and watched some Jeff Dunham on Comedy Central before texting a certain friend in NJ for a few hours.