....not that I saw much of the bay while I was in Tampa, but I know it was there.I was at a government information conference and when we do one of these, we work!
Fortunately, though, we also know how to party and some of the local folks put on a really nice reception Sunday evening at this amazing building on the University of Tampa campus*. Since I didn't even know there was a University of Tampa, much less that they had this wonderful example of Gilded Age architectural finery, it was one of those neat surprises you get when you travel to random locations around the world.
Above is a picture of a section of Plant Hall, which used to be a hotel but now is part museum, part faculty office building, and part great place for a librarians' reception. The food was as nice as the surroundings, and the campus was just a pleasant few blocks' walk from our hotel. After
stuffing my self with Florida-themed buffet food (the mango/cheese empanadas were to die for) I walked around inside and outside of this fascinating structure for a while.Man, if I were visiting colleges and trying to decide where to go, having such a neat building on campus would go a long way toward selling me on the school.
On the left is a closer-up shot of the impressive dome-like element, under which was the room where our reception was held.
Except for a brief walk to lunch Monday, and a slightly longer after-lunch stroll on Tuesday, that's about all I saw of downtown Tampa. What I did see was nice, and I took a few more pictures of interesting buildings that I might find reasons to post down the road sometime. But I thought I'd close today with this interesting image that caught my eye from a window in the hotel near our meeting rooms. I thought the reflections (and not) of all those palm trees and buildings looked rather cool:
*Incidentally, since seeing their URL, I finally learn why our UT (University of Texas at Austin) isn't ut.edu. Always wondered about that. The Texas folks just weren't fast enough with ICANN, I guess.
2 comments:
Hmmm. I have family in Florida. Maybe I should add it to my list of "Possible Places to Move One Day When the Cold in England Gets the Better of Me".
Nice post!
Thanks! We didn't have as good an opinion of Florida after making a quick trip thru the state in 2007, but I think we just saw mainly suburbs along the highways. There are definitely some nice places there, and, it's warm for sure!
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