A Deo et Rege

After visiting the winery and signing the lease for the new place, we went into downtown Cleveland to see the city. Getting into downtown Cleveland was surprisingly easy, but navigating it was frustratingly difficult. It seems that few streets in Cleveland run in a straight line and making left turns is almost always forbidden. Needless to say I spent more than a few minutes trying to find a way to come upon the Hyatt from the left. When we finally arrived, I was grateful to be in Cleveland, but somewhat annoyed by the city design.

Each of our hotel rooms was beautiful, situated in the historic arcade of the Hyatt Regency. It’s fascinating to open your room onto a balcony and see the plethora of shops and restaurants. We just sat down and cracked open a bottle of Ferrante chardonnay and watched the news. After my Cleveland driving frustration, I needed to just relax.

After awhile we decided to go out and look for a place to eat as well as see downtown Cleveland. I was a bit shocked to be honest. Downtown Cleveland was full of people, many of them doing little more than loitering. I was a little shocked that this kind of thing is allowed. There were large numbers of homeless and beggars as well, quite a sad and unfortunate sight. We didn’t feel terribly safe walking downtown Cleveland at night, so we went into another arcade and found the local Hard Rock Cafe and ate there. After that we went back to our hotel rooms and collapsed.

The next day, we got up early to see Cleveland during the day when we hoped we could feel safer walking around. We started the morning with Starbucks and then took a walk downtown. We saw the beautiful fountain, the park area, the Cleveland Browns stadium and the lake. Then we walked around a bit more and visited the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. It was beautiful and we did our morning prayer within its walls. Then we returned to the Hyatt and checked out.

After that we went to the Cleveland Museum of Art, which was under construction and only had a handful of items on display. That was incredibly annoying and we also had to pay double the parking rate because an attendant was not on hand at the garage. That ticked me off. We left Cleveland and ate at one of my favorites, Buca Di Beppo. After that we drove home saying goodbye to Cleveland…for now anyway.