My NEW Fave Thing About Spring

One of the things I miss most about college is SPRING BREAK. In the adult world, you don't get spring break unless you create one for yourself. So that's just what C and I did! :)


You see, C is a major Phillies fan. Like, season ticket holder type fan. For the last oh, 6 years or so. However, he has never been to the Phillies Spring Training in Clearwater Florida. So for Christmas this year, I decided to buy him Spring Training tickets-- and we made a Spring Break vacay out of it!

Note: I have never bought tickets to any sporting event ever. Whenever I went, others bought the tickets. Plus, these tickets weren't on sale yet. I went through a different sale site in order to reserve the tickets, because I assumed they would be sold out immediately. And I was majorly ripped off. But that's a story for another day.


The game I got was Phillies vs. Braves on Thursday, March 15. I got us terrace "seats"- but it was pretty awesome. Just threw out our blanket and chilled in the grass, beer in one hand, glove in the other! We tried to get autographs before and after the game, but no luck. Actually wait- not true. I got an autograph...from some Australian minor league dressed up as a Phillie. Meh. But the Phillies won! Woot woot!

Friday we spent all day on the beach. BLISS. We caught some rays, I finished my book (review here), and we got a few seashells.


One of my pre-trip duties was to find fun stuff to do other than the game, especially great food. One place mentioned heavily was Eli's BBQ over in Dunedin, about 20 min from where we were staying. So we took a ride out there. Let's just say, it was not what we were expecting. It was basically a shack, with a few picnic tables on an otherwise empty lot!! We decided to keep going a bit farther into Tarpon Springs, the sponge capital of the world!

no seriously, it's the sponge capital of the world...did you think I was joking?!

Note 2: When I was telling my friend this, she called me a complete weirdo. "You're like one of those people who would drive out to see the biggest ball of string aren't you?" Yes, yes I am. It's the little things, people.


Tarpon Springs is a quaint little fishing sponging town with a large Greek population. We walked around all the little shops, I bought a sponge (um, obviously, though I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it), and we had a great dinner at my first Greek restaurant.

This old man was playing live Greek music for us.

And we got a *free* flaming cheese app... OPA!

Afterwards, thanks to Foursquare, we went across the street to a hookah lounge! The owner was a little strange, and it was pretty empty, but we got to pick the music, and have a beer and some hookah, which we haven't done since our India trip.


Saturday was St. Patty's Day! We were supposed to go to the Yuengling Brewery, but someone (not me!) was a bit tired. So instead we went to go see Winter from Dolphin Tale at the Clearwater Aquarium. I thought it would be fun, but it was actually quite depressing. I hadn't seen the movie, but apparently they put a prosthetic tail on her for 15 min about 4 times a day. (Dolphin skin regenerates every 2 hours...who knew?) The only redeeming quality of it was that she had a buddy in the tank with her. But still very sad.

Winter,... with her lil non-tail :(

this turtle was legit doing headstands for 15 min. Showoff!

Afterwards, we got some food, packed (we had to be at airport at 4am), and headed to the Knight's St. Patty's Day Parade in Tampa.

OH.EM.GEE. Do they know how to PARTY!

First off, you can drink in the streets. WHAT?! Second, did I mention the Knights parade was actually held at night?! AWESOME! And third, all the floats were blasting music and throwing out beads!! When the parade finished, I was wearing 35 strings of beads! It was would I would imagine Mardi Gras to be like!

the people in the parade were drankin too. some of the floats had a full bar and bartender aboard!

showin off my beadssss...obviously a lil tipsss

towards the end of the night (early morning?) I thought it was a fabulous idea to hang out with this weird guy who was chilllin on the sidewalk with his very deadly python. And C was nice enough to snap this pic instead of trying to steer me away. Thanks, love.

The only not so great parts were that there were no bagpipers, no River dancing, and no leprechauns. But other than that, it was so much fun!!!

What's your favorite thing about spring??