Cincinna-TEA

Well, it was a joyous train ride to Cincy: 11:10am til 1:30am. Woo. I didn't like it too much because it was all mountains and woodland and it all seemed very sort of wild and isolated. The lady checking our tickets said she liked the way we said Cincinnati, because we, in our English way, said Cincinn-atty, not Cincinnahhddy.

We didn't have anywhere to stay that night so we hung out in the station until 6:30am, when we got a taxi to the Travelodge, who let us check in early at about 8:15 (they were meant to charge us $20 to check in early, but they didn't - not sure if they forgot or what but I'm not complaining). So we fell into bed and slept until 1, when we wandered over the bridge - the Travelodge was across the river Ohio so technically in Kentucky, not Ohio as the rest of Cincinnati is - to get some lunch and see what there was to see. Turns out, not too much, but that was ok because everyone was super nice to us (especially the man at the AAA, where we wanted a map/bus info), and though when we strayed from the central part of the city things did look a bit worn down, the centre was rather nice. We got a bus to Mount Adams, a suburb with a free conservatory on a hill. It was very lovely, a little perverse going into basically a greenhouse on a really hot day, but we saw some cool plants and bought souvenirs and wandered around the park it was in too (more because we were lost than anything else). Everything shut at about 5 which was a bit of a shame, so we didn't have time to go to the zoo - apparently the sexiest zoo in the USA as it has the highest success rate for animals mating. Macy's was still open though, so we looked in there and I ended up getting a belt and a bag and purse that matched. Oz bought the bag and belt as my birthday present, but let me have them early =) We found a burrito dinner in Newport (the semi-suburb over the river where the Travelodge was) then watched Cartoon Network and the end of The Truman Show. Sometimes it's nice to just bum about!

The next day, we hung about in Newport. We watched the new Starwars movie then spent some time in the arcade and had freaky smoothies. The smoothies all had dodgy stuff added like soy protein and carbohydrate something-or-other. Then we had lunch in a seafood place, picked up our bags from the Travelodge and got a bus to the station, which is less a station and more the Museum Center, with a children's museum, a natural history museum (which was actually quite devoid of natural history, apart from one skeleton) and a museum about the history of Cincinnati. We got lucky as that Friday it was free museum day, which apparently happens once a month, so we saved some $$. We also went to the Imax theatre there to see a film about the human body at 9pm - as our train wasn't until 1am, we wanted to keep ourselves amused.

After the film, we got really lucky. In the station is a 4000-pipe organ, which is only played very rarely. But this being the age of electronical wonderment that it is, there were "recordings" of the organ being played which, when played back, made the pipes play themselves so it was just like the real thing. When we were there, one of the station employees was showing off the organ to some other people, so we got to listen too. It was really impressive as there was nobody else around, and the station is huge with an arching roof, so it sounded amazing. Although it was completely a case of being in the right place at the right time, we felt extremely lucky, and it made me glad we were travelling. Sometimes it's not just the things you see when you're there, but the things you see along the way.