Good Advice

Last week, my girlfriend received an e-mail from Cleveland+ about the opportunity to explore Cleveland with the chance of even winning tickets to go there. This seemed so inviting we decided to actually see this city of Cleveland we had heard so much about. On the advice of Cleveland+ we packed our Saturday full of Cleveland activities.

On Saturday morning we decided to do the Bridge and Subway Tour on the Veterans Memorial Bridge, which is only a few blocks from my house. This free tour allows people to explore the old streetcar routes in Cleveland. You start out by going underground to see the old subway stops, watch a historical movie on streetcars in Cleveland, and then walk all the way across the bridge to the other side of Superior on the lower level-the same route the streetcars used to take. As you can imagine the views of the city were spectacular, and a little scary as you are walking over the Cuyahoga River on a thin grate with a piece of plywood. I have a "small" fear of heights, so needless to say there were a few points where I was holding on for dear life. One of the guides told me it was completely safe, and that he would know because he worked in the Cuyahoga County Engineers office, which relieved me until he told me he worked in accounting. After exiting the bridge on Superior and West 9th we realized we needed water and batteries. Being the complete tourists, we had the digital camera in full swing so we had already run through our first set of batteries. Even though I wanted to get batteries at the porn store on West 9th to get the full feel of Cleveland, we headed to Constantines Market, where we were asked if we were from Cleveland because of the camera hanging by its strap around Julie's neck. We laughed thinking we actually looked like we won a trip to Cleveland (thanks again Cleveland+).

After refilling on batteries, espresso and water, we headed down to explore the flats. I was amazed by how the flats looked like a ghost town on the east bank. Other than Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, there was one bar left and a hair salon.

At points,we were the only people on the whole east bank of the flats and it was the weirdest feeling, however it did give us a lot of room to take fun pictures of the river, the bridges and the scenery surrounding the flats, including the panoramic picture above. We explored the west bank which was much more populated before heading home. We crashed so hard after walking around in the sun in Cleveland for four hours, but we knew we had to re-group because the roller derby was just hours away.

Saturday night we made our monthly trek to the North Olmsted Indoor Soccer Complex to meet up with some friends and catch the Burning River Roller Girls in action. Good times and Pabst Blue Ribbon in a tall can were had by all (except Julie who made thundersticks out of her plastic Bud Light bottles).

By Sunday I was exhausted, but I will never forget what a great day I had in Cleveland+, and I would recommend visiting this city to all my friends.