Blogs from Cleveland, Ohio, United States, North America

We spent a great day in Cleveland with Mike. His mum stuffed us with an awesome "Death by Chocoalte". In the afternoon we arrived in Chicago, met Fairouz's Highschool Friend Nathalie, went to a great Jazz Bar.... read more

Hello all you faithful blog readers! I have finally made it back home and for the first time in a long time, I have no flights or trips booked. To wrap up my year of traveling and blogging I figured I would make the last entry an epic three part series that tell the stats, questions I'm asked, and what I learned and could teach others! So if you have any questions please message me and I will do my best to answer them. Now for some of the good stuff, and before you ask, all of these stats are as accurate as I could get them and true... ENJOY! Continents visited: 5 of 7 Continents visited three times on this trip: 2 (Asia & Europe) Countries visited: 29 Countries visited for the first time: 25 ... read more

Goals Completed - Ride an elephant in Thailand (05/11/11; Chiang Mai, Thailand) - Swim naked and/or a nude beach (05/24/11; 05/29/11 and several more, turns out I kinda like it) - Ride a Vespa and/or Segway (04/12/11; Beijing, China) - Give up my seat (06/21/11; Plane to Lisbon; got upgraded to 1st class because I did) - Do something that gets me truly scared (07/08/11 ; Running of the bulls, Spain) - Do the running of the bulls (07/08/11 ; Pamplona, Spain) - If injured by bull, have a clip of it make Tosh.0 (N/A ; Sorry) - See a sunrise and sunset on the same day (07/17/11 ; Santorini, Greece) - Hitchhike somewhere (12/15/11 ; La Paz, Bolivia) (09/28/11 ; Waitomo, N... read more

I think I may need rehab. I feel like the teat has been ripped away from me and I am just expected to hunt on my own. I was hoping for a weaning process or at least a very slow transition from sea to land. But by my own doing, I threw myself from one extreme to the next. So I find myself sitting here with 2 layers of socks, 4 shirts and wool sweatpants; staring out my Dad’s back door at a dreary, cloud covered winters day in Cleveland, Ohio. I couldn’t tell you if it were noon or midnight as the natural lighting gives no indication to there being a difference. And I wonder to myself, “Tahiti for this?” I knew this debacle would invade my thoughts. I was almost ready to deal with ... read more

Airports are both my favorite place and my least favorite. Went through some terrible lines today. It is so much less frustrating to have my friends tapping their toes along with me, along with the occasional drunk falling into our group for a laugh. My friends supply some respite from frustration as we can laugh and talk rather than being so focused on the lines going nowhere and the people not thinking. The usual excitement that comes with travel seems dull this time around. I am excited to be here with literally ALL the friends I am closest to but the actual travel doesn’t give me the usual feeling of nerves and excitement. Perhaps they go hand in hand. My past trips I have been so much more alone going into it. In 2008 I was ... read more

Today is my day in the first official C of Ohio, Cleveland. The city has the popular reputation of an industrial mess. Much of this dates to one event in 1969. At the time, the city was an industrial powerhouse, and all those factories dumped their waste in the Cuyahoga River. One day, the river caught fire. Residents point out that other rivers caught fire before this, including previous fires on the Cuyahoga. This fire had the misfortune of occurring during the early years of the environmental movement, who made it a cause célèbre. The resulting campaign made the city a symbol of environmental wreckage, which it has never truly shed. (Sports fan... read more

We arrived at San Francisco domestic airport and checked in our bags. "Where to?" the check-in man asked. "Cleveland" we said "???" he responded "Clevelaaaand??" "Why y'all going ta Clevelaaaannd?" "A wedding" we said. "Oh" replied the check-in man "Cause Clevelaaand aint whatcha call an international hot spot" "Very diplomatic" I said... The flight from San Francisco to Cleveland is 4 hours, 30 minutes but as we travel from US Pacific Time to US Eastern Time, we arrived 7 hours, 30 minutes after we left. We'd been advised by the Bride, Lisa, that the quickest way from the airport to the hotel was on the RTA Rapid Transit Rail system but she, as a Cleveland local had also told us 'in the spirit of full disclosure' (her words) that the RTA doesnt travel through the best ... read more