You should go ride the bull

Hola, duckies.

Cleveland, Cleveland, what can I say. We were your biggest fans - but you have let us down. I'm not mad at you.... just, disappointed.

Yesterday, as well as the early evening, was great, but then something seemed to go terribly wrong and we ended up in the ugliest frat boy bar scene since that one time I accidentally went to Sally's. "Do you two want to go home with me and we can take a shower and stuff?" was the general tone as well as an actual question we received last night. Gross, ish & yuck.

But, I think I'm going to chose to forget the end of the night and remember Cleveland for the "friendliest place on earth" vibe we were riding up until spring break '06 broke out. We started the day at the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame, which was interesting and an impressive display of artifacts and memorabilia. It was good; not great, but good. I think because we had just come from Memphis - the living, beating heart of rock and roll and music as this country knows it - the R&RHOF, in all its glassed-in shiny & newness, could only be .... meh.

There were some things that stood out as just pretty awesome: John Lennon's Sgt. Pepper's jacket, Roy Orbison's handwritten lyrics (and his shades), Bjork's kimono from Homogenic, things like that. There was quite the impressive collection for the big Bob Dylan exhibit - two floors and then some. For a big Dylan fan, it would be amazing.

We went over to Little Italy and had a really great pepperoni/mushroom/onion pie and some decent house sangria. It was really cute over there, as Little Italies always are. We drove around the campus of Case Western a bit (beautiful) and then headed back downtown to Jacobs Field for the ball game. We couldn't find any good music on the radio, so Shorty popped a mix cd of mine, cleverly named "very, very guilty pleasures," and we car-danced the whole way. Little moments like that - sunroof, sunshine, smokes & singing along to (loud, very loud) Britney Spears music - well, those can be some of the best times, no matter where you are.

We went to the crazy-packed sports bar across from the field and made more friends. It was crazy scene (think Hubert's before and after a Vikings game), but still fun. The game was pretty dull, but that stadium is *gorgeous.* I loved it and am very excited for 2010 and the return to outdoor baseball at home. We left in the 7th and went back to the something-Parrot sports bar and hung out with our new best friends for a bit before heading over to the Tremont area, where in is more hipster scene. This is where things went wrong. Tremont was quite cool, just what we would have been looking for, except we were in more of a party-party/meet people mode. It just didn't work, so we left right away and headed back to the Warehouse district - the frat boy scene mentioned above - and then everything fell apart.

It completely sucked and I don't even want to talk about it.

Overall - Cleveland: good.

We're off to our last stop (I cannot believe that! This week and a half has just flown right away from me), Milwaukee. Fun.

Ciao, buddies.
-Nina