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”
No Longer Teenage Fan Club 