Day Tripping in Cleveland

After the beautiful wedding on Saturday, we did a tour of Cleveland with Michael, my parents and my sister.

Michael drove us around to show us his high school before brunch.  It was very pretty.

After brunch, we saw Case Western campus and leafy parts of Martin Luther King Drive, Little Italy, the famous Lake View cemetery (we also saw the Garfield monument), and parts of downtown, before we dropped off my parents and sister on their early evening flight back to New York.

We saw the Gehry building for the business school at Case Western.  It's a pretty cool looking building, but I hear it leaks terribly.

 We then checked out Little Italy, a quaint and fun area in Cleveland with amazing food.

 It was a beautiful and hot day, sunny and bright.

 My sister and I love tomatoes, so we had to pause and pay our respects to this tomato stand.

 We salivated so much at the smell of tomatoes and garlic that we ordered a pizza from Mia Bella to go.  We wanted a pie from Mama Santo's (its door alone attests to its priorities) but they were closed.

 Lake View cemetery is beautiful, however, I couldn't help but think that it was such a waste of land and space and resources, and all for the dead who are no longer able to enjoy any of it.

We climbed up to the top of the Garfield monument for a beautiful view of downtown.

My parents took a selfie down below.

Here are some shots of downtown Cleveland, as we drove around and pointed out various buildings to my parents.

My dad got this fun shot of a reflection in the bank:

But then we also had to deal with this (eep):

We finished our tour by the water, near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, before heading to the airport.  I think we timed it really well.

After all that, Michael and I then began our drive back to New York, stopping off in some indistinct Pennsylvania town around 9 or 9:30 pm, where Michael collapsed into a deep stupor.

While he was driving, I was napping, which was really good because from the moment we entered the hotel until midnight, I was turning a document for work (yep, the less said about this, the better).  Other than waking up briefly at 3:30 am in a panic to check my phone, I slept relatively soundly until 6:30 am, when Michael roused me and we headed back out onto the road.

We were in the car and on I-80 by 6:45 am, where we listened to a few podcasts (This American Life had a great one recently), talked about the law, racism, politics, life... you know, the good stuff.  We arrived at my parent's house around noon, dropped off bags, grabbed a quick lunch, then headed into the city to run some errands and get administrative stuff done before offices closed at 5 pm.

And so it goes - it's really nice to be back in the U.S., but it's always a bit overwhelming and action packed!