tampa at 26 degrees: a student’s nonstop ramble
so i awoke to the smell of fried chicken wafting through my hostel room and immediately regretted not bringing a blanket. i just checked and it’s 26.33 right now, which is perfect for dryshirting. if you don’t like that, maybe bring a fan from home. the weather insists on sticking around at 26.09-27.78 for some reason, like it’s trying to play coy. i checked the pressure was 1017, which honestly feels like someone stuck a hairdryer in my ear and forgot to turn it off. humidity’s 29%, so i’m drying my laundry in the corner of my room like it’s 1999.
tampa’s neighbors are… well, other cities that think tampa is a pitstop. if you get bored, kenton county is just a short drive away, but don’t tell anyone because they’ll think you’re being sneaky. i heard a local say even the pigeons here are trying to escape, which honestly sounds like a better life than mine.
the reviews out here are breathers. someone told me the sun sets so fast near the bay that it looks like a ninja got ahold of the horizon. i heard another person swear the subway here is haunted by 90s techno. i swear i saw a guy try to hotbox the metro station last week. and i heard the usf mascot is actually a llama now. i haven’t confirmed that.
today i tried to document everything with my fixed lens camera. not because i’m a professional photographer, but because i randomly found it in a thrift store for $3. the first shot was of a clock tower that looked like it was built by a sleep-deprived toddler. the second was a wooden pathway in ybor city that was somehow both really expensive and really cheap. the third? a grass field near a lake that turned out to be a raccoon’s personal gym. i posted all three to unsplash, but i don’t expect anyone to care.
i walked the bayshore bridge today. it’s this long metal thing that looks like it belongs in a sci-fi movie about underwater cities. i checked tripadvisor and apparently people hate it because the walkers are either elderly people in suits or people trying to outrun their exes. yelp says the bridge’s lights are ‘simply stunning’ but i saw a kid set one on fire. whitefire, i think they called it. i also found this random thing on a local board: someone claims the buses here can teleport if you sneak enough snacks. i didn’t test it. i’m cheap.
the weather’s doing its thing. feels like 26.33 all the time, which is great for not thinking about it. i got a free coffee from a vendor today because i mentioned the feels_like temp. they said it was ‘the only time we’ve ever agreed on something.’ neighborly.
i’m probably gonna sleep in a grass field tonight. if you ask why, just say i’m trying to become one with the raccoons. the temperature min and max today are like… who cares? the earth is flat, the sea level is 1017, and the grounds crew at the hostel just mopped my room with what probably was saltwater.
tomorrow i’m going to try and find that llama mascot. if i succeed, i’ll ask it for advice on not overspending. if i fail, i’ll just buy more ramen. probably.
i linked to yelp here: https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Ybor+City&find_loc=Tampa+-+Florida. and i lied about the duck burger place. i never went. i just typed it in. link to local board: http://tampaboard.org/posts/4170965. tripadvisor says the beach is ‘kinda busy’ but i saw a crab wearing sunglasses. weird.
You might also be interested in:
- https://votoris.com/post/tulsa-oklahoma-humidity-halfremembered-dreams
- https://votoris.com/post/quetta-where-the-curry-meets-the-crumbly
- https://votoris.com/post/neon-revelations-in-metropolis
- https://votoris.com/post/new-yorks-disjointed-dance
- https://votoris.com/post/chasing-light-in-blagoveshchensk-a-frantic-photographers-diary