The Cleveland slideshow — goofy captions and all — is up at flickr, dear reader! Enjoy!
It was a hurried trip, landing at noon on Friday and departing at noon on Saturday. But I got to sample a little of the nightlife and took a ton of pix in the morning. The city is trying to rejuvenate its downtown area, but I don’t know what factors are at play in determining its success. When my hostess mentioned “University Drive,” it struck me that I couldn’t think of any universities in Cleveland. There’s an arts scene, but I’m not sure how that gets sustained without college kids everywhere.
Anyway, there were, of course, weird moments:
- The woman across the aisle on the flight to Cleveland trying to hit on me despite my lack of interest, my wedding ring, and my oversized Bose noise-canceling headphones. It was the latter that really should’ve dissuaded her.
- The van that passed me on 480 W, in which the driver brandished a crude cross at me; he did the same thing with the next car he passed, so he was either trying to convert us or he was afraid that there was a plague of daywalkers.
- The 18-wheeler beside me that had to brake suddenly, filling my car with the smell of burnt rubber as it fishtailed and nearly smacked my rental into another lane of traffic.
- The number of youngish women who wore evening gowns to the hipster restaurant where my host & I went for dinner.
- And finally, an example of missingthepoint.com: a brand-new Ford Expedition sporting the bumper sticker, “Don’t let the car fool you, my treasure is in heaven.”
In all, I had a good time, but my sleep has been so erratic lately that I’ve been running on coffee and experiencing tension headaches that feel like my occipital lobe is trying to escape my skull.
no universities in Cleveland????
isn’t Case Western U in Cleveland? or am I confused?
and anyway, who needs a univeristy when you have the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame! (or am I still confused?)
CWU may be in Cleveland, but the fact that neither of us are sure sorta proves my point; not much U life in the city, as opposed to other major cities for which you can think of a dozen colleges pretty easily.
I didn’t get a chance to stop by the HoF. It would’ve been closed on Saturday morning anyway. They had a gift shop for it in the airport, but I didn’t see anything that would’ve been good for the nieces.
Cleveland (and indeed, my entire midwest experience) really freaked me out. I was seriously starting to question what the hell a vegetarian girl and an obviously gay boy were doing there. The Cleveland greyhound terminal is the most depressing place in the world. We had the choice of catching the bus back from Sandusky and spending 6 hours in Cleveland while we waited for our plane, or dropping $70 of our dwindling travel funds on a cab….It was a no-brainer.
Hey! You still owe me $60 from that trip!
Seriously, I can understand why you and Paul were pretty weirded out. I mean, maybe it wasn’t EXACTLY a Priscilla, Queen of the Desert scene, but still…
Sandusky was worse. I’ve never been to an amusement park that has a sign out front saying ‘no weapons, no gang colours’ before. We sure knew we weren’t in Brisbane anymore…And everyone was looking at us suspiciously. I was waiting for someone to say to Paul “You ain’t from around here are you boy?” If that had happened I would’ve died of fright right there.
We still owe you for the bus tickets right? How embarrassing! Oh crap. That sucks…I can’t believe we didn’t sort that out the two times we met up. D’oh!
Is that why you’re holding the gun show shirt hostage?
Send me an email and we’ll work out some kind of transfer.