USA 2011 Chapter 6 – St Petersburg

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

St Petersburg (Florida version not Russian city) is part of the Tampa Bay area alongside the slightly larger city of Tampa, a zone probably most famous in the UK due to the NFL’s Glazer owned Tampa Bay Buccaneers, although the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team actually play in St Petersburg itself. I chose to stay in St Petersburg (or St Pete’s as everyone calls it) as it was meant to be a bit more relaxed than Tampa with a livelier nightlife so that sounded the best place in this part of Florida to visit en route to Miami. I ended up staying here 3 nights in all as I realised that leaving on Sunday morning as per my original plan probably wasn’t such a good idea; a decision made on the Saturday morning when feeling a little delicate really.

After arriving Friday afternoon and scouting out the city, I went on a huge bar crawl, starting at this great sports bar called Ferg’s, right by Tropicana Field where the MLB Tampa Bay Rays play. An old converted petrol station originally, this place is huge and I can imagine is very lively on match days. Met some new “buddies” there and had a great night moving all around St Pete’s, resulting in probably my biggest hangover of the trip yet. Also, saw some massive tropical storms on the same day that Glastonbury coincidentally (or not) started.

A cheery welcome from the local paper in St Petersburg, which I read in between some torrential downpours in the “sunshine state”

USA 2011 Chapter 8 – Boston: Red Sox and rum & coke

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

After a flight up from Miami with more turbulence than I can remember on any plane, which I found very entertaining and exciting although I don’t think this was shared by most of my fellow travellers, I landed safely in Boston. I’ll say up front that I really liked Boston as a city; I had more than a feeling that this would be the case and it was certainly true. Due to its historic status, it’s often stated that it feels more British/European than other US cities, which makes it much easier to navigate on foot although the street layouts are also more European so it can be harder to know exactly where you are – no grid systems as are more typical in the US.

“Let’s go Sox”. At the ballgame at Fenway Park in Boston

USA 2011 Chapter 11 – Baltimore: Omar Little fortunately not encountered

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

Probably the least visited city amongst those I am taking in on the USA’s East Coast, if I am being honest the main attraction of visiting Baltimore was the chance to visit the home of The Wire, and to also be the only person I know who has duly done so. Therefore, there are quite a few references and comments about The Wire below so if you’ve not seen the show, I accept these may not make sense. However, that said, if you haven’t seen The Wire, you are missing out on the greatest TV series ever made, so maybe it is time to watch it for yourself…

Baltimore Inner Harbor (US spelling)

USA 2011 Chapter 13 – Chicago: Man Utd v The Smurfs

As originally posted on my Tumblr site while travelling around the USA in 2011…

The last stop on my odyssey around the USA was to be Chicago, which I pulled into on a Friday morning after my overnight train from Washington: good fun but sadly no sighting of Eva Marie Saint or even Inspector Chisholm on board. Upon arriving, I was surprised to see some very overcast skies, which made a change from the beating sun that has been common in the US, which has been gripped by a heatwave all summer. I made it to my hotel and could fortunately check in early, just before the heavens opened with a deluge of cats, dogs, racoons and more. There was another huge downpour later that night and apparently Chicago experienced its most rain in a day ever (about 8 inches in total), with a fair bit of flooding to the south of the city. So some excellent timing from me there.

A very American sign at Wrigley Field