Saturday, 16
January, 2016 Tampa, Ybor City
After breakfast, we
grabbed an Uber to downtown Tampa, where we followed the river walk
along the Hillsborough River to the city. A great view of the city,
the University of South Florida as well as the TV station, newspaper,
and many buildings with great architecture. At the end of the walk,
we grabbed the Ybor City Tram to the terminal and started our tour of
Ybor City walking back toward Tampa. Ybor City is the original
Spanish town founded on cigar making and is still the mainstay along
with tourism of the economy. The architecture is reminiscent of New
Orleans.
O
f
course, as in any trip, there is something left behind, which in this
case was Ted's sunglasses. We stopped in a souvenir shop and sensing
an accent from the hot salesclerk, found out her name was Luda and
she was from Lviv, now married to an American and living in Tampa.
After discussions about where relatives were from, she said she
thought that I was from Lviv myself – so, not only hot, but smart!
We asked her for some dining suggestions for a light lunch and picked
Carmine's where we had a Cuban sandwich and salad. After wandering
around, attending a presentation on the history of the city and its
founding peoples – Spanish, Cuban and Italian. Skilled cigar
makers, be they black, male, female, were all earning the same wages,
there was no discrimination. These cigar makers were earning $20 per
week in the early nineteen hundreds when others were earning $5.
Each ethnic group had social clubs, not only providing entertainment
but medical facilities where employers provided interest free
mortgages for houses. The tour ended as any tour should by having a
gelato at Christopher's.
f
course, as in any trip, there is something left behind, which in this
case was Ted's sunglasses. We stopped in a souvenir shop and sensing
an accent from the hot salesclerk, found out her name was Luda and
she was from Lviv, now married to an American and living in Tampa.
After discussions about where relatives were from, she said she
thought that I was from Lviv myself – so, not only hot, but smart!
We asked her for some dining suggestions for a light lunch and picked
Carmine's where we had a Cuban sandwich and salad. After wandering
around, attending a presentation on the history of the city and its
founding peoples – Spanish, Cuban and Italian. Skilled cigar
makers, be they black, male, female, were all earning the same wages,
there was no discrimination. These cigar makers were earning $20 per
week in the early nineteen hundreds when others were earning $5.
Each ethnic group had social clubs, not only providing entertainment
but medical facilities where employers provided interest free
mortgages for houses. The tour ended as any tour should by having a
gelato at Christopher's.
For dinner, we went
to Carrabba's, an Italian restaurant a few blocks from our hotel
where I had Cinoppina an excellent spicy seafood stew and Gail had
the seafood linguini. Remember, Florida is surrounded by the sea!
No comments:
Post a Comment