st. pete things

day one 

our story always begins with an unexpectedly deceiving airbnb (oof, why does this always happen to me). the photos of the airbnb looked super cozy on the website, (even dubbed as a super host with outstanding reviews!!) but when we checked it out irl it was to total opposite of cozy. it was mucky and felt haunted. definitely did not feel comfortable spending two nights there. we looked around the airbnb for a good 7 mins, sat on the stained couch googling affordable hotels near by, and immediately headed out. this just proves that  from now on daniel is in charge of booking our stays... because our hotel was iight as well. 

after we dropped our things off at our hotel room, we headed to the St. Pete Pier, which was beautiful and just the fresh air we needed after an annoying start to our trip lol. the Pier was newly renovated and overlooked St. Pete as the sun was setting. 

we had dinner at a local spot just a walk away from the pier then headed back to the hotel to end the night. 

day two 

our only full day spent at St. Pete! we started it off by checking out a local bagel shop joycie stumbled upon on tiktok called Pete's General. they had the best sea salt chocolate chip cookie that brought me back to cookies i had growing up in our mall in NY. i'm not much of a bagel person so i grabbed an acai from next door instead! 

we brought our breakfast back to the hotel so we can catch the latest episode of WandaVision, which we watched over and over again about 4 times that day, along with easter egg videos on youtube. once we needed a break from the episode, we walked over to the Dali Museum to check out the new Van Gogh exhibit. 

daniel and i checked out a similar exhibit when we were on our honeymoon in Paris (pre-covid, sigh), so we tried not to set expectations. my sister says we were spoiled because we've already seen a Van Gogh exhibit, in Paris out of all places, BUT it was still a beautifully done exhibit! i mean, how can you beat an art exhibit, in Paris? especially since the artist himself spent most of his career there? the scale was much larger in the Paris exhibit, and the artwork was also projected on the floor as well. but what i did love about this exhibit though was the display of Van Gogh's diary entries relating to his paintings. i tried to read every word of his entries as they were being projected onto the screens, as well as pay attention to his use of colors, strokes, and textures connecting to those entries. i felt like the exhibit did so well in connecting the viewers to the artist which i absolutely appreciated! i felt like i understood the why behind his medium.

after the exhibit we grabbed chinese food, headed back to the hotel to watch WandaVision again for probably the first 5th time, took a nap, and then headed out to look for dinner! we checked out one strip in downtown St. Pete called The Edge. it was tooo night-life for us, haha. but luckily we found a cool tapas style bar/restaurant called Tropez. 

day three 

woke up mad early to catch the sunrise at the pier, only to be disappointed with cloudy skies instead when we got there. the sun was rising, peeking its way behind some clouds, but the clouds won and blocked the sun out completely. sigh. atleast we were able to enjoy it the day before. 

on this last day we still enjoyed the pier by hoping the sun would make its way onto the horizon and by watching pelicans dive into the water for some fish. we then headed back to the hotel to pack up, check out, and by the time we were done you can find most of St. Pete covered by a fog. such a gloomy morning. 

then before heading back home, i got my bangs cut (!!!), made our way to one of my favorite restaurants, Oxford Exchange, hoping to get a reservation only remembering that the Super Bowl was happening in Tampa the very next day and it was crazy busy to even consider eating brunch there, and instead found a cute little Greek inspired restaurant called Psami, instead. their bread is made behind their restaurant daily, and it is so yummy. after lunch, we grabbed some jollibee for our family and drove our way back to good old central florida.  

st. pete florida, i will be coming back to you when the weather is warmer so we can hit up your beaches! you owe me a sunrise!