In and around St Pete

Some of the places you should hit (or miss) if you're in the St Petersburg, FL area for a race or otherwise.

Restaurants

• Meze - Great Mediterranean themed vegetarian bistro.   Alek and I shared a few dishes.  Everything was delicious, especially the bourekas!  Definitely stop in here for a quick lunch.
• The Moon Under Water - Alek thought his Chicken Tikha Masala was ok.  I found the Vegetarian Shepherds Pie to be too vinegary.  Pass on this place if you visit St Pete.
• Columbia Restaurant - A spanish restaurant on the 4th floor of the Pier building.  Not only did we have an excellent view but the food and drinks were quite good.   The vegetarian selection was small but I enjoyed the Eggplant Riojana.  Also, the Café con Leche was the best coffee we had during the trip.
• My Yogurt Cafe - Self-serve frozen yogurt.  The peanut butter was tasty.
• Paciugo - Gelato and coffee.  Apparently the best gelato in the Tampa Bay although its the only one we tasted.  The gelato was good, coffee was meh.  Again, I went for peanut butter (maybe I'm biased). Alek had the mint chocolate chip with the amaretto and really liked both. Make sure to ask for their free samples before ordering.

Recreation

• Vinoy Park - A waterfront park where you can do lots of bird watching.  We saw a bird catch a fish in its claws and fly away with it.  Very cool (poor fish).   We also saw a large raptor just flying around. 

• Clearwater Marine Aquarium - Home of Winter the dolphin!  The aquarium was small but fun.  All of the resident animals are unreleasable due to injures.  We went on the Behind the Scenes tour and got to see some turtles that would eventually be released.  We also learned that most of Dolphin Tale was fiction.  Winter never wore the prosthetic during our visit.  During her presentation they said that her trainer stretches her peduncle and she has some physical therapy exercises to manage the side to side motion that allows her to swim.  This was an interesting place to visit with lots of cute marine animals!

Winter the Dolphin!

• St Petersburg Museum of History - A fun little museum where you can learn about the history of St Pete and get a glimpse of the future.  It took about an hour to go through.