Cleveland

I haven't had a chance yet to write about the Cleveland trip! I swear all of the trips that Tara and I take are guided by fate, because we always end up at a place or meeting a person by some crazy stroke of luck.

We got on the road right around 6:30pm from Tara's house. We had a fun drive, listening to music and hanging out with "Mongolia" (some guy who we decided looked like he was from Mongolia who was driving behind us the whole way and kept passing all the same cars I did). We had a paper with a list of places and addresses that I had obtained by a Google search before leaving ("salsa clubs in Cleveland" was the search). We decided to GPS ourselves to those places to find a hotel for the night nearby so we could walk.

Well we ended up in the scariest, crummiest neighborhood I'd ever seen. The places we found either didn't exist at all or were scary bars with solid steel doors and no windows. Sure, there were a few latinos around the neighborhood, but this was no place we wanted to stay. And every place on the list that Google gave me was in this neighborhood.

Tara also did a Google search and remembered one name that wasn't on my list: Sunset Lounge. We called 411 to get the address and found it was in the very nice Warehouse District, along with a ton of other bars and restaurants. So we stopped the car, Tara ran out to talk to some random street guy about where we could find a hotel. He pointed us in a certain direction, and we found a Hampton Inn for only $99 for the night.

What's more, a very nice lady named Temperance was the one who checked us in. We parked (free!), went up to our room, got prettied up for dancing, and headed downstairs. Temperance was there, along with the valet guy, and another guy who was just leaving. They asked where we were headed, and we said we were going to go find dinner and then go dancing. Well as it happened, this guy who was just about to leave used to do tours of Cleveland and knew every corner of the city. He offered to give us a free ride over to where we wanted to go.

Not only was this a ride, but it was a tour of the entire area of the city. He told us about every restaurant, every club, every bar we passed. We finally said we were just looking for a cheaper restaurant, and that we wanted to salsa so we were going to go to Sunset Lounge. He took us to a corner with two restaurants: one called Waterstreet Grill, and another I can't remember, and said these were his favorite place in the area to eat.

We decided on Waterstreet Grill since it was way more chill, and wasn't dark with techno music pumping out of it (sorry Tiago). Our waiter was an adorable gay man who got insanely excited that we were going dancing. We mentioned Sunset Lounge and he said he heard it really sucked, but that a place nearby called Cadillac Ranch was AWESOMEOOSOMOSME OMGZ?!!!!!111?!11 (that's how excited he was). He said it had 9 bars and a ton of separate rooms, lots of cute single (straight) guys, etc. So we figured we'd go there, since he told us Sunset was such a bust. Another waiter passing by even texted his friend who worked at Cadillac Ranch and said that he could hook us up with a lot of free drinks.

So off we went with the intention of going to this new place in the direction that they sent us. We saw Sunset Lounge, but then we passed this other building. Alas, a shady building with solid metal doors and no windows. Tara and I stopped dead in our tracks. What was that sound pumping out of the walls? It was SALSA. The place was called Club Shadows. We looked at each other and immediately raced to the door where we found the bouncer. "Is this place awesome?"
"Yeah it gets pretty packed."
"Big latino crowd?"
"Yeah, all latinos."
"And they play latin music all night?"
"Oh yeah."

In we went. Only a $5 cover, and $4 Bacardi&Cokes. Nobody was dancing yet, so we took the floor ourselves and danced with each other. :) Some creeper kept staring, but I ignored him. We spent the night talking to random people, dancing like crazy, and just having a general blast. Creeper kept following, and finally when we were seated at the very back bar, he came to talk. I angrily asked him in Spanish what he wanted, and he said, "I don't understand you, I'm sorry." My immediate thought was, okay, my Spanish is not as good as I thought it was. :) So I asked him more clearly what he wanted.
"I don't understand."
"Oh, so you don't speak Spanish." This was more of an accusation because I was convinced he was lying.
"No."
"Where are you from then?"
"Iraq."
Then my tough vibes melted and I gave him a hug. "Awww... I'm Arab, too."
Switch to (limited) Arabic: we chatted a bit. Turns out he was still a creeper. So that was that. Admittedly it does make me happy that someone in a sea of latinos who all thought I was Puerto Rican actually followed me around all night because he knew from my face that I was Arab.

Seriously, 5 or 6 people flat out asked me, "Are you Puerto Rican?" One even asked where in Puerto Rico I was from without even asking if I was from there at all.

At the end of the night we ended up outside the club. Tara was upset over her boyfriend and was tipsily crying to some random venezolano, and his very white friend started talking to me. The guy was speaking Spanish and didn't sound at all gringo, so I figured he was just a fluke (like a blonde-haired blue-eyed Arab). He asked in Spanish, "So, you're Puerto Rican?"
"I'm just curious, but why do you think I'm Puerto Rican? So many people have asked me that tonight."
"Because you have a Puerto Rican accent in Spanish." (Sorry boricuas, but I really don't know if I can take that as a compliment).
"Well, I am not Puerto Rican. In fact I am not latina at all."
"So what are you?"
"Palestinian."
His face lit up and he started speaking to me in Arabic! Granted it was standard Arabic (which I have trouble understanding) and not at all colloquial, but I kept up for a little while.

As it turned out.. his dad was from Israel. And he was a half-Israeli with a thing for Palestinian girls. Go figure.

Anyway we left and had a fun walk home. We played pranks on some guys at a bus stop (we really should be dead by now by all statistics - the people we talk to on the street never look safe). They were cool though and we ended up sitting around there for a while talking to the street people. Two of them even walked us to our hotel (one was just a creepy who was following, but the one was actually being nice and just didn't want us walking alone; he didn't try to come up or anything creepy like that).

We had the best sleep of our lives. Next day (Sunday) we watched a few episodes of Golden Girls and then got on the drive back to the 'Burgh. The drive was uneventful.

That night we went to salsa night (again) and had a blast. Well, I did.. Tara was still having a rough time. I was off Monday and spent the day shopping and bumming around, and not doing anything productive. :) It felt grrrreat.

And here we are on Friday. I need to do some work this weekend because it's backing up. Since our new release, work is non-stop, so there's no time for my own projects, etc. Hopefully I can put in a solid 5 hour block or so this weekend and just get everything done. We shall see. My brother's home so I'm not counting on it too hard.

Hugs to Praha. :)