the 'nati, aka eastmost point, aka cape del awesome

this morning we got up in nashville tennessee on central time and tonight we'll be going to be in cincinnati, ohio, on eastern time. we were in the south - now we're in the north/midwest/allthosestatesinbetweennewyorkandchicago. to be honest i don't know how to classify cincinnati. it's literally a hop, skip and a jump away from kentucky still, and yet somehow (underground railroad?) it became part of the North instead of the sort of backward, wayward South.

but i'm getting ahead of myself.

we left tennesee for kentucky by noon. one thing i never knew about tennessee and kentucky, by the way, is that they are GORGEOUS. lots of verdant trees and grass, pretty farmlands, and gently rolling hills. it's like they are these beautiful places that because of some strange twist of fate became southern, and like i said, somewhat backwards. kentucky was largely full of people who if they weren't hicks in the strictest sense of the word, certainly sounded like it due to their thick accents (like i said - why do people in KY have accents while people from OH talk normally?). we wanted to get out of there as soon as possible but obviously we had a long road ahead of us.

our first real stop was at our first white castle. well, my first white castle. i'm sure to dan it was like coming home, but i was wary. all i could think about was the frozen white castles that my uncle once had and how creepy they looked - like doll hamburgers, and just as inedible. we pulled up and dan asked me how many i wanted and all i could say was, "however many normal people eat." we ordered ten. why on earth did someone think it was a good idea to make tiny hamburgers? you get like 1/16 of an ounce of actual meat and i'm sure that's an overestimate, and they're so greasy that the buns get soggy, and then they don't put any actual veggies on there, just little cheap imitations of grilled onions (the boxes call them "tidbits") and one pathetically small pickle which is as far as i am concerned the ONLY saving grace on the whole thing. anyway, we ordered 10 of these little buggers. i ate two and a half. dan ate seven.

the other thing i don't understand about white castles, while i'm on the subject, is why they all come in cardboard boxes. it must be a huge waste of paper (although really i think the whole hamburger is a waste - why not just combine them all into one big hamburger with real onions and more than one pickle?? so much energy spent making smaller ones - like dave barry and the cell phones, really) - much more than normal fast food wrappings.

i digress, however. i just think it's important to document strange cultural phenomena such as white castle burgers. i'm venturing into the unexplored and un-understood (is there a word for that?) east side of the country, and like any good anthropologist/sociologist/observer of interesting shit, i have to look at the food people are eating.

after "lunch," and i use the term loosely, we hit up the mammoth caves in kentucky. who would think that there would be a huge underground cave system in the middle of pretty, hilly, green kentucky? apparently there is, sort of hidden in a green national park with "overlooks" (to see what, exactly?). we got to the visitor center where there was no information about anything but overpriced tours led by rangers. trying to avoid that, we went into the "historic" entrance of the caves to try to see them for ourselves.

unfortunately the area we went was pretty small and didn't go that deep in, because you have to go to different entrances or pay for a tour to see all the really mammoth stuff. it was, however, kind of cool to see anyway. as soon as you get near the cave entrance, you are blasted with a gust of cold wind, a welcome respite from the hot and humid air above ground. and underneath the caves really are damn big (um, obviously) and apparently there are miles and miles of tunnels. fun fact: in the 19th century a doctor decided to start a tuberculosis hospital in the caves, thinking that the atmosphere would be good for patients. weird.

after the quick jaunt underground we were on our way again. to get out of the park you have to take a strange country road through the weirdest town ever, cave city KY. it's a town full of lame attractions like "dinosaur town" and mini-golf courses. if it's not something like that, then it's an antiques dealer or a "craft" shop... all the signs are faded and the paint is peeling off and it feels like you've wandered into the early 1900s or something, but then as soon as the road meets the interstate modern civilization returns with mcdonalds and shell stations and all that corporate stuff. kentucky is a weird place.

we pretty much high-tailed it out of there after that and got to cincinnati around 6. we had dinner at a vietnamese restaurant (mmmm pho, so good after all the crappy fast food) and then matt, dan's bro, took us on a tour of the university of cincinnati. we got to see all the design studios in his school (not all of them but several of them) which was fun and i asked him if the fashion majors are just as hated at DAAP (the design school at the univ.) as they are at otis.

on the way back from the university we stopped at urban outfitters which is inside an old church - very strange. they still have the holy water thing at the entrance only it's a drinking fountain. (i wonder if they are open on sundays...) true to my nature i got sucked into buying stuff but had forgotten my wallet in the car and so in a horrible, rock-bottom moment had to borrow dan's credit card to pay for it. i am just not even going to think about it anymore but he has the receipt and his ultimate scorn/amusement to keep for memory's sake.

the best part about the city really is matt's apartment though. it's kind of ginormous and there is a lot of space, single bedrooms and a good collegey feel to it. i have major apartment envy/love since i am still homeless and can't wait to start setting up my place. this apartment is super fun because it has that very rough-and-tumble, slapped-together feeling. there are several clocks made out of hubcaps (or my favorite, a rear view mirror) by matt's roommate, and they stole a wayfinding tree from campus which is decorated with christmas lights. they have a nintendo which dan immediately started playing also, and a "guitar room" with about 10 guitars since three of the guys play. the house is called the "casa del awesome" which is also excellent - all houses should have names of course. i also like visiting people's places because you get sort of assaulted immediately by a mass of personalities that you don't understand and have no context for. matt's three roommates - i have no idea where they are from, what they do, or anything about them, but it's clear from the house that they're fun people who get along well and have a fun time living here. also an excellent record collection if i do say so myself.

matt's girlfriend sarah (who reminds me off anne jaskot for those who know her, if anne grew up, which she did, but i mean we don't know her anymore) was making bread when we got here, so after dinner we ate it with coffee. matt has this ridiculously awesome coffee maker that is very counterintuitive (he has pics and i will try to get them to post). you put the coffee in the top and the water in the bottom, and the water heats up and then shoots up into the top part where it brews for a little bit before dumping back down into the bottom part. apparently it's vacuum controlled. all i know is that when matt started the coffee maker, all four roommates, two girlfriends, dan and i were all mesmerized by it. in a house with tv, nintendo, music, foosball, wireless internet, and all the conveniences of modern life, we were actually all fascinated by WATER BOILING.

i mock myself, but also i have to say that the coffeemaker was one of the coolest things i've seen in a while. definitely the coolest kitchen appliance i've ever seen. (sara, i'm sorry to say that it beat out that soda can crusher which until the coffeemaker was the most unexpected and strange appliance i'd seen i think.)

we were planning on going to see some strange crude sketch comedy thing (apparently, i don't really know what it was), so we left to get some ice cream beforehand. i forget the name of the place - i think it's exclusive to the 'nati or maybe to ohio, but it was REALLY good. we had strawberry chip ice cream (aka strawberry ice cream with chocolate chips in it). we'd brought our road map in with us to show matt and sarah, and while we were buying the ice cream, matt's three roommates and one of their girlfriends came in because they'd seen us through the window. this was the first time we'd shown our map to anyone, and also the first time we'd ever really talked in detail about the trip to people who aren't reading the blog all the time or something like that. it was REALLY cool and weird. it was like none of us had ever seen a map before and they were asking about places like arizona and west texas that seemed so old hat to me on a certain level. it was fun though, to have a random conversation about random places (and questions like "what makes a state part of new england?") with random people. OUR AGE. such a relief.

after the ice cream we tried the sketch comedy place (shadowbox cabaret i think it's called) but couldn't get tickets so instead we went to game works. seriously such a good idea, businesswise and funwise. bar + arcade = great adult fun, and probably also makes tons of money from drunk people playing arcade games badly and then going back for more booze and more tokens (rather, time) to play. i saw so many people dressed up hardcore for like clubbing or something, playing DDR and stuff like that. dan and his brother played a shooting game and it was disturbing because not only were they really good at it, but the way the game works is that you stand and face the screen and hold a gun in your hands which is the control - and ALSO whenever they accidentally hit one of their own men in the game, they both laughed at the exact same time in the exact same way. oh those anthony brothers.

incidentally, the game works was actually across the river and therefore back in kentucky. it's very strange to me, the configuration of these states. mississippi, for example, which i realize is far away from ohio now, is actually really pretty, as are TN and KY. but because of the strange course of history in this country, those states are "southern" both in our conception of them and in the literal way that they are - accents, lingering racism, trucks, and so on. and then you cross a river and you are in ohio. and i have to say that cincinnati is not what i expected from it either - although i didn't really know what to expect. the skyline here is really pretty (i guess that's why they named chili after it? ha) and there's something really charming about a city on a giant river. (not sure if that's relevant.) i think it's very strange, the kind of understanding that you can have about a place before going there. when i used to think of cincinnati i thought of a neighborhood. with treelined streets and sort of colonial architecture. why? i have no idea, but it's some strange inheritance of books or imagination or california snobbishness/ignorance.

i learned something interesting tonight back at the house. otter pops are not called otter pops out here - they are called flavor ice. and there are no "zippy personalities" like isaac lime or alexander the grape. i had to bust out the wireless to show that there even ARE personalities for otter pops. only i would do something this insane, but in doing so i found that there are otter pop tshirts/products and now i want them (shopaholic alert).

now dan & i, not surprisingly, are the last ones up in the house. i'd say we have an excuse cause we're on a different time zone but that hardly means anything when it's only an hour, and besides, everyone here has been asleep for a while already.

tomorrow (after lunch with bergy!) begins what i think of as the homeward stretch. it's a very long stretch with lots of stalling in illinois and wisconsin, but we're heading back west. hence the "cape del awesome" - only instead of a southernmost cape, this is the easternmost. onwards and westward.