Like I said, we arrived on Thursday, July 5. That night was the bachelor party, so I had Jenna drop me off in downtown Cleveland on the way to the hotel. Seeing as how it was a bachelor party, I will keep the details to myself. We had a fun time, I got to meet some new peeps who I enjoyed, and it wasn't too crazy. Jenna enjoyed a night off from being a mommy by getting in comfy clothes, grabbing a bag of licorice, and reading a book in our hotel room. Oh, the crazy life we live.
On Friday, the rehearsal was at 3 followed by a rehearsal dinner. So we had some time to kill before and we went about exploring downtown Cleveland. I had become somewhat familiar with it the night before, so I took to showing Jenna the highlights. We rocked right by the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame and I pointed out the Browns Stadium, which are both right on the water (Cleveland sits on Lake Erie for those who didn't know). The stadium is open air and I imagine that it is a beast during December games. Of course, none of us would know that because no one outside of Cleveland watches late season Browns games (see the above tortured sports history comment). Anyway, it was a really cool looking stadium. We also walked past a Civil War monument that was pretty neat and a building in which a scene from the Avengers was shot. We also strolled past the building that was the department store in A Christmas Story (the Christmas movie with the kid who wears big glasses and wants a Red Ryder BB gun) and is now a brand new casino. I happened to have been in the casino the night before. For anyone who is curious, I would rate it above Oklahoma casinos and below Las Vegas casinos for whatever that is worth.
Finally, we ended up in a little district known as East 4th Street. The city has shut down part of a street (surprise--the street is East 4th Street) and it is a brick-lined pedestrian walkway with a bunch of bars and restaurants. It was a cool little area. We ate lunch there at a restaurant called Lola. As some of you may or may not know, Jenna and I have become Food Network dorks after the last few years. It has gotten to the point where all of my TV is almost exclusively sports or Food Network. I got hooked on it when I was living in New York and I got Jenna hooked on it after we got married and she moved up there. What hooked me was a show called the Next Iron Chef. The winner that season was a guy named Michael Symon. Well, Michael Symon is from Cleveland and his restaurant is Lola. The food was awesome. My favorite part of the meal actually was a sauce to dip my fries called Lola Ketchup. This sauce is so damn good. I wanted to just smear it on my face. So we asked the waitress what was in it. The ingredients the cooks shared with her--roasted red peppers, cayenne pepper, coffee, and cinnamon. Interesting, but delicious. Anyway, if you ever make it to Cleveland, we highly recommend Lola and make sure to get the Lola Ketchup with your fries. Here are some pics of East 4th Street and Lola.
After lunch, we went ahead and headed out to the rehearsal. The wedding was at a golf course on the 14th tee, so we got to drive golf carts out to the rehearsal. I enjoyed that. The rehearsal dinner was a laid back affair at Will's high school (the prestigious University School). After the dinner, Will had organized a basketball game at the school, so Jenna caught a ride back to the hotel with some girls we went to law school with and I stuck around to play some hoops. Although we are all grossly out of shape compared to years past, we had a good time and Will got to spend his last night of bachelordom pretending to be Mark Price. After we all showered we met up at a local frozen custard place. Jenna came with us and enjoyed her first taste of frozen custard. I had a local favorite called the Buckeye Concrete. It was really good. Anyway, it was a nice touch to try a local ice cream place.
On Saturday I didn't have to be at the wedding site until 4, so we had some more time to kill. We originally planned to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but we didn't have quite enough time to do it. Instead, we went downtown again to check out the West Side Market. Again, our food geekiness came out. The West Side Market is home to over 100 vendors selling a range of ethnic foods. It was really fun to walk around and check out the different foods on sale and stare at the fresh produce (the fruit was really pretty to look at at). Here are a few pictures from our trip there:
After our visit to the West Side Market, we went to eat lunch at a local restaurant called Melt (yes, we saw this on the Food Network too). Melt's thing is that they make gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches. It is truly awesome. I had a sandwich called The Dude Abides (bonus points for the Big Lebowski reference), which had a meatball and fried mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce in the middle of a grilled cheese sandwich. It was so delicious and filling. Jenna had the Rising Sun Melt, which had shrimp, thai chili aiolo, and kimiche pickles in the middle of a grilled cheese sandwich. This was even better than mine. The portions were huge, though, and we couldn't finish. I highly recommend this if you are in Cleveland.
So in the late afternoon we made our way out to the Fowler Mills Golf Club for the wedding. Like I said, it was an outdoor wedding and hot, but there was plenty of bottled water and everyone survived. The ceremony was nice and the reception was a lot of fun. It was really special to be a part of the big day for Will and Lisa. The next morning, we had brunch with the happy couple and caught our flight back to Dallas. It was a great trip. Here are a few pictures from the wedding:
No comments:
Post a Comment