The first big trip of this year’s summer break is to St. Pete (our St. Pete, not the other one) for some IB training so that I can teach senior IB classes eventually. The IB folks put us up at Tradewinds on the beach, and it’s on the district’s dime.

“They” neglected to tell me there was a tropical storm scheduled to come through these parts during the conference. Driving in was fun: clear skies alternating with curtains of rain so heavy that you couldn’t see more than 20 yards ahead. Well, maybe you could, but I couldn’t. Thankfully, the GPS let me anticipate some of the twists and turns in the road. I was proud, normally TomTom doesn’t come through for me in the heavy rain.

The room’s pretty nice (click to embiggen pics):

The view’s kind of grey for now, but hopefully it’ll clear up a bit tomorrow. Here’s my view of the Gulf of Mexico under Debby’s thrall:

Gigi’s down the street served a decent veal saltimbocca. I have yet to try the cannoli. For six bucks it better be good. I’ll report back.

[June 27, 9:24PM] The cannoli was pedestrian.