IIFA Awards 2014 - Day 5 - Tampa, FL

Dear Readers,

I hope you enjoyed the previous posts of IIFA Awards from Day 1 to Day 4!! I tried to give you my entire experience with few pictures here and there.  I hope it didn't bore you and you enjoyed reading it!!  Well, the IIFA festivities were over but the fun was far from being over :).  As I said in my previous post that my friend and I slept around 7/7:30 am in the morning, as much as we would have loved to sleep in, we had to wake up by 11 am to check out of our room :(.  We just can't catch a break!!!  Thankfully, my friend, V had her room for another day, so we grabbed everything from our room, dumped it in the bag and rushed to her room to drop it all off.  Checking the room one last time, returned the keys at the front desk and went back to V's room to relax for a bit.  Sunday wasn't really planned at all since it was going to be a relaxing day (nothing related to IIFA) and hanging out with friends.  V and I decided to call our friend K and planned to have lunch together.  On the other hand, Ka had her flight booked for the evening, so she had to make sure she packed everything before we left the room.  All 4 of us left to go to Hilton to pick up my friend K.  Little did we know, we ran into couple more celebrities at the hotel :).  We saw Ankit Tiwari again (singer), and also clicked few pics with Sonu Sood and music composer Ehsaan (from Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy trio).  It was fun!  We also caught Priyanka leaving the hotel.  I asked for a picture but it seemed she was in a rush to get to the airport, so she just shook hands with me.  Finally, after a round of celebrities leaving the hotel, we decided to give ourselves a break and get something to eat.

We went to an Indian store but it was closed so ended up going to the Taco Bus which is a great alternative anytime of the day!! It has vegetarian and vegan Mexican food options.  Food is definitely great! If you're ever in the area near Taco Bus, give it a try.  I am sure you will not be disappointed!  We sat down, chatted, had our food, and then decided to go to the famous Clearwater beach in Tampa.  In between, Ka decided to postpone her flight to the next day since we all were having good time so she decided to stay back with us and hang out.

We got to the Clearwater beach and it was beautiful!! I would recommend that whoever is in Tampa, do stop by this beach as you will enjoy thoroughly.  It's a beautiful beach with white sand and has great sunset as well!  We hung out at the beach until sunset and then headed back to my hotel to pick up my rental car and return it at the airport.  Even though I was staying until Monday morning, my friend was going to drop me off at the airport, so I had kept the rental only until Sunday night to avoid last minute rush to the airport.

Clearwater beach, Tampa, FL

We decided on an Italian restaurant for dinner and headed there which was kind of in the downtown area.  I forgot the name of the place but the food was good.  The weather was great so we sat outside in their porch area and had great coversation with the dinner.  Time really flies when you're having good time and it was already closed to midnight when we got out of there.  Ka, who had postponed her flight, booked a room in the same Hilton on the same 17th floor where the celebrities were staying.  She was able to get a room there for a good rate since almost everyone was gone by Sunday night.  It was our luck that she got her room right across from Ranveer Singh's room and then it was a hide & seek game for us to make sure that we pay close attention to when he comes and goes :P.  We were literally peeking through her room's peephole to keep a close eye on his room to see him and keeping a close attention to any noise made which indicated that he was coming or going....haha...it was crazy fun!!  Unfortunately we didn't get to see him from front, but I did see him from the back when he went in the room and when I went close to his room, his door was not closed all the way.  I was soooo tempted to go and knock on his door but couldn't do it :(.  For the rest of the night, in the hope of seeing him, we waited but that didn't happen.  Finally, we gave up at 2:30 am!!  I said bye to my friends, V, S, and Ka and headed to K's home and it was already 3 am.  I had an early morning flight where I had to wake up in 2 hours, so just got a short nap and K came to drop me off at the airport.

That was the end of my IIFA weekend!! Exciting, Amazing, Unpredictable, Unbelievable, and FUN FUN FUN!! It was an experience of lifetime which I will never forget and it'll always be memorable!!  I can't thank enough to my friend K for convincing me to come to IIFA and helping out with everything....now I am back to normal routine, but the IIFA fever had not gone down until after a month of IIFA event.  I guess it has that effect on everyone who was part of it.

I hope you enjoyed this journey of IIFA with me as I was writing it after a month.  I got a chance to re-live the moments as I was penning it down on these posts :)

Hope you all have a great day!!  Enjoy :)