Goodbye, Cinci

We sent in our last data shipment yesterday and are waiting on approval to move on to St. Louis. We got ourselves a little cottage in the Central West End, which is about 4 miles west of the Arch. There's a deck and a backyard, so we're looking forward to that. St. Louis also has what has been called a State-of-the-Art public transportation system, so that should be nice. It's called the MetroLink and looks similar to the Metro in DC. Hopefully we'll have better luck with that than we've had with the Cincinnati bus system.

Anyways, Cincinnati has treated me well. I've spent a lot of time with old friends from school and have gotten to re-experience and introduce to Emily, a lot of Cincinnati staples, like Skyline Chili (delicious!). We also were able to hit up Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, where some good 'ole German beer day drinking occurred. We ate bratwurst and listened to German music and saw lots of lederhosen, which are those short shorts the men wear. We have made our way across the river to Newport (where there is a great view of the Cincinnati skyline) and Covington, Ky to see more bluegrass music. I'm not really sure what we're going to do in St. Louis because I'm pretty sure there's not going to be places playing bluegrass every night of the week there!
We've also visited some other artsy places like the Contemporary Arts Center, which was much larger than I expected. There were 3 featured artists there, including one that designed a large linear piece that was installed on the outer walls of a parking garage, plus two floors of permanent collections. The Fiber Arts Gallery was also worth checking out. There were installations there by the same artist that owns that farm in Blue Ash. Lastly, we went to what is called Final Friday, which occurs in Over-the-Rhine on Main St. on the last Friday of every month. There are tons of galleries there and they stay open late for viewings and cheese and wine offerings. I've liked all of the art I've been seeing so much that I've even started my own little art project. I'm trying to recreate all of the places we've lived in so far using colored pencils. We'll see how that turns out!

What else... we've become big fans of the Findlay Market and have tried to do as much of our grocery shopping there as possible. We were also taken to a Burlesque show in an old church that has been turned into a venue of sorts. There were lots of different acts and a magician-type masochist who had people throw darts at him and staple money to his chest. Very interesting to say the least. Moving on, the Midpoint Music Fest took place downtown last weekend - it is the largest Independent Music Fest in the Midwest. We got wristbands for $10 and were able to go from venue to venue checking out all of the different acts.

Of course, we've done our share visiting different parks and gardens. We've been down to International Park and Bicentennial Park, which are both on the Ohio Riverfront. Bicentennial Park has two of the best playgrounds I've ever seen and a geological timeline that runs parallel to the river. International Park is broken down by continent using artist-influence from that region and also tries to connect the regions using Cincinnati's various Sister Cities (more information on Sister Cities can be found at our favorite website, www.wikipedia.com). Today, we visited Krohn Conservatory which had different rooms, including the Tropical Room, Desert Room, Orchid Room, and Bonsai collection. Well that's my tourism heavy life I'm living right now - in between driving around these cities, getting to know them better than there own residents.

We should be leaving on Friday. We're going to leave early (granted we get the ok from the company) and head down to Red River Gorge. I've been there once before during college, but it's beautiful and Emily keeps hearing about it and I'd love to go back. There are natural bridges and cliffs and it should be beautiful this time of year. We're going to do some hiking Friday and Saturday and then head on over to Louisville for Saturday night. For some reason, I've always wanted to check out Louisville. Then it's on to St. Louis. See pics above of Cinci. Hope everyone is doing grand.