Cincinnati Tourist

The dorm mom who was here for the first three-week session told me that there's not much to do around here, and that she spent her time watching Netflix and occasionally ventured out to the grocery store. Oh, honey! This city is hemorrhaging things to do! They pour from every seam. Every block, every neighborhood is riddled with incredible architecture. You try out one hip restaurant and another one pops up on your radar. The longer I'm here, the more the city opens up to me.

Over-the-Rhine is the revitalized area close to downtown where all the fun eateries are. In the heart of it is the famous Music Hall. Did I get emotional when I walked in there? Of course.

Scott and I were messaging old pictures back and forth one night.

My hair is so fluffy here! I never have a bad hair day! This was during my nightly Firefly viewing session, from 9-9:30 in front of the dorm. Fireflies are magical.

One of the dancers wanted to go to mass Sunday night, but the others had gone that morning. They're not allowed to go anywhere alone, so I went with her. Xavier, where we're staying, is a Catholic university. The church is adjacent to our dorm. The service was incredibly inspiring. First of all, it was ONE hour long. The meeting opened with a WOMAN getting up to make an announcement that the "I stand with immigrants and refugees" t-shirts would be available after church. These are my people! People of action and compassion. Then the pastor asked us all to turn to the people around us and say hello, or "Peace be until you." I loved that because immediately, nobody was there alone. We were all there together.

There was a lot of singing. There was a mission group with a violin, a flute, a couple of guitars, some percussion, etc. The music was happy and borderline raucous. People were smiling big smiles. The sermon was brief, delivered with zeal and received with enthusiasm. For the sacrament, we all filled up to the front, row by row, singing along with the instrumentalists as we went! The sight of all of us filing up with our infirmities, some visible, some not, to receive the sacrament, everyone with a look of peace as they sang, it gave me a sense of unity with humanity, all of us on equal footing and doing just fine.

I left this the first day for the dancers.

Lunch with my college roommate Stacie Modesitt Schmidt and her daughter Mara at Taft's Alehouse. So fun!

Running errands for dancers. I got to know the owner of Cincinnati Dancewear, Mary Beth.

Sam's Club runs!

Got a little carried away decorating for movie night. You can't leave me alone with scissors and tape and an assignment to set up movie night.

I watched a class at the ballet center. Freestone looked great!

A couple of the weekends, the cafeteria didn't work for our schedule, so I set up lunch for the dancers.

Graeter's ice cream is famous here. It was National Ice Cream day one day and we went for $1.47 cones.

I explored the waterfront and went to the Underground Railroad museum.

Over-the-Rhine

It was burger week here. This was Ladder 19.

I hit the zoo on $1.00 day. I got there early. It's a great zoo. The baby hippo's, Fiona, is a major celebrity here.

9 am and I can get so many different beers at the zoo. Ha ha! This is not Utah!