Tampa – First look

It has been 11 days since I landed in Tampa for a project work. On 3^rd morning 1:00 AM I landed in Tampa. The flight from Miami to Tampa was delayed by couple of hours due to bad weather in Tampa. The first little experience of Tampa came to me when I was in Miami only that is before even landing in Tampa. The airlines guys were announcing that due to storm the flight has been delayed, I was thinking the weather in Tampa would be cool with winds, storms, rains and everything. But my assumption was totally wrong, the weather in Tampa is hot, humid and always sunny. The weather is hotter than Bangalore weather.

The office work space is almost similar to what we have in India except the space. In India there would be 4 people sitting in a cubicle. Here the cubicle system is not there. It is just compartments, to be more generic  one cubicle in Tampa’s office would be roughly equal to 3 cubicles in India. Apart from space we have vending machines in pantries which we would not be having in India. But here we do not have mugs to drink anything. We have to get our own mugs for coffee, tea or any other drinks. Back in India we would be having plenty of paper cups for drinking anything. Here without our own bottle/mug it is difficult to drink water also. We have drinking water fountain available which is very difficult to drink.

When it comes to food, it is not what I was expecting. Here we only get taco-bell, chipotle, burritos, burgers, sandwiches etc. In general we get breads/buns in different shapes and stuffed with different things. I was eating burgers, pizzas, sandwiches etc in India, but never eaten them as a regular food. Once in a while they taste good. If we eat them daily from breakfast to dinner we tend to start repelling from breads.  The hotel I am staying allows me to cook. It has microwave, refrigerator and small electric stove inside room. I bought some stuffs and have cooked couple of times. When I move to an apartment I will cook daily no matter what. I cannot eat breads and buns anymore.

One good thing I observed over here is people’s attitude. People are more friendlier than in India. If we make an eye contact with anyone they smile back and say ‘hi’ and greet us. We have grown up in an environment where we are thought not to talk to strangers, not to take anything from strangers. Here the case is different. This is one of the biggest change I observed in people. I have traveled few times in local transportation here and people thank the driver while getting down. People greet the driver while coming in. In India we never talk to drivers or conductors  casually. We interact with conductors only while getting the tickets, while getting the change or while inquiring about our stops.

In 11 days I have seen few differences, few places in Tampa. Now one of my team mates is coming to Tampa and I have stayed long enough to go to airport to pick him up.