St. Patrick's Day Afternoon in St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg, Florida is named for Saint Petersburg, Russia, where the city's founder spent much of his youth -- a city I hope to visit some day.There are occasional hints of a Baltic influence, but St. Petersburg looks much like the Sunbelt city that it is, priding itself on 360 days of sunshine a year.I've noticed a lot of Greek names in the news, and there is a Greek Orthodox church here, Saint Stefanos, still on my list of places to see.

This year, we knew where we were going and stopped at Vinoy Park, where park benches are strategically placed in the shadow of a row of palm trees. Large crawfish (or at least that I think they were) crawled quite energetically on the sandy bottom. Fish jumped. A small ray swam back and forth in the plankton and algae. Some manatees floated close to shore, much to the delight of passers-by and beachboard paddlers.

Hunger drew us to the bayfront area and we parked near Vladimir's, a collectibles shop that looked intriguing, but not today. We had fish & chips for lunch at Bella Brava, where the server split our shared meal into two large plates. We sat at a high table looking out at a busy sidewalk.

After lunch we walked a few blocks to the St. Patrick's Day celebrations, which could have used some Irish music rather than a rock band!

A fun afternoon. Unfortunately, sunscreen doesn't seem to keep my skin from developing a sun rash. I'm sitting on the balcony on Sunday morning before church, with a long sleeved shirt on. Seems wrong!