Almost Empty

It's taken a couple of days but Tampa is beginning to feel like its old self again.  I don't get strange looks in Target anymore, and I can complain about the "cold" without some Steelers fan laughing at me.  The best part though is the traffic - it's almost back from impossible to insane, nice.  For the past week I've felt like I've been living in a studio rather than a city.  As someone in my communications class said, "I feel like we've had our sense of community taken away for the past week."  My classmate was right, Tampa hasn't been Tampa, and I think we've all missed it.  

TBO published an article that commented on how well Tampa was received by all of the visitors.  They created a grading system, and we mostly got A's and B's with a few C's.  It's funny though, a lot of the complaints were about the traffic, and I have to laugh since they brought it with them.  Some of the people that I met who were here for the game were great, like my Irish friends, but some other people made a week seem like an eternity.  I'm just glad that it's over.  To give you an idea of the madness, 32,000 people flew out of TPA yesterday, and 6,000 rental cars were returned.  That's a lot of people!  It's quieting down though and downtown is clearing out.  Maybe by tonight I'll live in Tampa again.  Until then, I'll be in class or catching up on some reading in my apartment so I should be able to avoid what's left of the Super Bowl.  Oh yeah, it looks like it could be back in 2014 or 2015.  If it is, I'm either going to visit family in Tn or maybe some new friends in Dublin, but I won't be here.  I feel like it should be Saturday, and it's only Tuesday.  I hope you don't feel the same.