But Cleveland was also my Can't-Believe-it's-not-Detroit - a city also part of America's Rust Belt so I could experience the ugliness of America to balance out the beauty. It all can't be Yellowstone and the Rocky Mountains!
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| The ugly side of Cleveland. |
Fortunately for me my hosts in Cleveland were fucking awesome, two chill dudes living in a nice area just outside of Cleveland Proper. Nathan and Nick were part of a fraternity during their university years (which I had lots of questions about), one played ice hockey semi-seriously and both were into fantasy football.
Both were some of the nicest people I met in America and definitely some the easiest people to get along with I'd ever meet in the country. Nathan was also into RJD2, one of my favourite artists, which is significant to me seeing how obscure that DJ is. Nick had the most hilarious "Thug Life" tattoo on his arm, a running dare from one of his friends that went too far.
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| The pretty side of Cleveland. |
They obviously had a big night out the previous night, so we just chilled for a while watching the NFL. I quite enjoy the NFL, sure it's pretty stop-start and nowhere near as brutal as the Rugby Union, Rugby League and AFL in Australia, but it has interesting tactics to watch. It's also so damn well produced, the camera angles and commentators can make it pretty fun.
Next we all hoped in the car to go and see the city of Cleveland. As you drive across the elevated freeways towards the city you can definitely see how ugly the place can look. It just looks run-down and industrial. But when we arrived in the park near the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, the city did seem to look a lot prettier.
We looked at the guitar sculptures outside of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, and walked up to see the giant stamp featured in the video above. I actually quite like it, mind you I'm pretty fond of a lot of sculptures around Canberra that are unpopular to the general public
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| Guitar sculptures outside the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. |
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| The (in)famous sculpture from the video. |
Much to my host's confusion, I requested that we drive out to the "dodgy" areas of Cleveland so I could see some real American ghettos. I had to take this opportunity to exploit the use of a car, as there was no way I was going to do this on a motorcycle.
Yeah the ghettos look pretty bad, lots of abandoned buildings and shady looking people. Since it was unwise to stop most of my photos were from the moving car - so a lot of them didn't turn out too well. However I managed to get some photos that weren't too blurry. Plus I really didn't want to take photos of the people, I'd have no idea what their reaction would be like.
As the car progressed down this road heading away from the City, the neighbourhood got worse and worse. When we reached a point where my hosts did not feel safe to go any further, we turned around and headed back for dinner.
Nathan, Nick and I had dinner at a famous grilled cheese place featured on Man vs Food. I ate one of the largest sandwiches I've ever seen and drank some very good local beer. It was fucking amazing food, highly recommended if you pass through Cleveland.
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| This was Nick's grilled cheese, looked way more epic than mine. |
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| Nick, Me and Nathan. |
Afterwards we all had a semi-early night as Nathan and Nick had to work the next day. Nick was also starting his new job.
In the morning dicked around working out where I was going to stay for the next few nights. I hadn't had anything booked. Originally I was going to stay in Buffalo and then drive up to Niagara Falls the next day, but in the end I decided to head straight there and stay in a hotel. In the early afternoon I headed up to Canada.
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