Last week, I completed my first trip around Lake Michigan on the motorcycle. I can't believe that I haven't had an opportunity to complete this ride yet, but here we are. It was a great trip with the MEWS riders.
Last weekend Megan and I headed up to Detroit and we had one of the best weekends we probably ever have had. Detroit was hosting the Movement music festival, an electronic music fest in the heart of the birthplace of Techno. This year, my favorite band, Orbital, was performing. They almost never come to the US and the opportunity to see them in the midwest was something I couldn't pass up.
Let me first start off this blog post to say that Detroit was amazing. We have all seen in the news how Detroit has has really gone through some rough times the past decade or two. I obviously didn't see all of the city, but it does seem like the city is starting to bounce back. There is a rejuvenation of the restaurant and shopping scene, at least in the Corktown neighborhood and it seems that much of the blight from abandoned buildings has been cleaned up. Several of the older factories and other industrial buildings appeared as if they were going through a renovation into residential and commercial.
Megan and I had a discussion with one of the shop owners on Saturday and she was describing to us how Ford has been investing heavily in the tech sector, trying to brand itself not as a car company, but as a transportation technology company, and that they were bringing in a lot of young software developers and engineers. It really made the city feel vibrant and it seems like the city is trying to position itself with a music and arts refocus.
We left Chicago Friday afternoon, around 1:30 PM. Traffic was pretty horrendous and it took us about two hours to make it through Indiana on I-80. We were hoping to swing by Grand Rapids on the way to Detroit to visit Hollander's. It is a store specializing in paper and book making. We didn't make it there on Friday and unfortunately we didn't get into Detroit until almost 8:30. Our hotel was the very artsy Trumball & Porter Hotel. Very hip and they have murals all over the outside, and a great courtyard with bags, a fire pit and a stage. They also had a really excellent bar and restaurant called the Red Dunn Kitchen (more on that later). We ordered a few drinks before heading to dinner.
Thankfully we did plan ahead for our late arrival and we made dinner reservations for 9:15 at Lady of the House. It was only two blocks from our hotel and was a very hipster place to eat. The interior was decorated with an almost french farmhouse style. The food was fantastic. Unfortunately it was incredibly dark inside. We almost couldn't even read the menus.
Saturday was the day. The music fest was kicking off around 4:00 PM that afternoon. We had some time to kill during the day, but we didn't want to burn ourselves out. We knew it was going to be a long night. First up was breakfast at the aforementioned Red Dunn Kitchen. Wow, it surprised us.
The Corktown neighborhood nearby had a couple of cool shops that we wanted to check out. We hit up the Eldorado General Store, George Gregory and Brightly Twisted. We also spent a good hour in Hello Records and bought have a dozen records there.
We headed out to the show around 4:00 and walked. It was about a mile. About three blocks from the festival though a major thunderstorm hit that had us scrambled for cover in an office building. It was so bad that they actually evacuated the festival. As a bit of bonus karma, we did discover a very cool building called the Union Trust Building.
Once we got to the festival, the show was fantastic. I'll just let the videos and photos speak for themselves.
Some great acts at the show. Big surprises for us were Josh Wink and Amelie Lens. They made fans out of both of us and of course Orbital was amazing. We didn't get back to the hotel until about 2:00 am at which point we ordered a pizza from Dominos, as it was the only thing still open and we proceeded to wait almost an hour and a half for the pizza to arrive. We got out pizza though around 3:00 am and then finally crashed. The drive back to Chicago on Sunday was uneventful.
Detroit, we had a great time and I would love to go back to Movement next year.
Back in June and July Megan and I visited Italy for my brother's wedding. The trip was a two week adventure visiting Milan, Bergamo, Verona and Lake Maggiore. The idea was to vacation with our family the week prior to the wedding and then spend about a week in Lake Maggiore for the wedding itself.
This year's big end of summer motorcycle trip was perhaps the longest trip I have ever taken. 2,750 miles start to finish and we traveled through at least seven states and two providences of Canada.
Let's see how that trip went.
Day three of the cruise, and Megan and I were doing some more tours. This time we were doing two tours for the day. The first was to a cigar factory and the second was to the Old Havana Rum museum. When we arrived back at the main square to meet up with our tour group we found out that we were the only ones in our tour. Our tour guide this time was not nearly as good as Mercedes from the day before. She unfortunately did not speak very good english.
We took a cab to the cigar factory, which was located pretty deep into the city. Our cab driver was actually much more friendly and talkative than our tour guide.
Day 2, July 4th, we arrived in Cuba. Megan and I both got up early and watched the ship pull into the Havana port.
Cruise day started out great. We got up early and then had breakfast an a small empanada restaurant near the hotel. We grabbed our bags and then called an Uber to take us to the port. Once we arrived at the port we had to go through the long line of checking in, which took almost an hour. I was a bit nervous about the whole process because I wasn't quite sure how the visa process for Cuba was supposed to work. Some of the travel documentation stated we needed to obtain the visa 70 days prior, but thankfully it was all taken care of by the cruise company.
We got our visas and then got onto the ship, or at least we were supposed. We ended up sitting in the terminal for another hour or two and the crowds of people just kept pouring in. At the time we didn't know what was going on and Megan's hangry monster was beginning to show up. We later found out that the port authority had discovered drugs aboard the ship. We don't know if they were from the crew or former passengers.
The ship finally cast off around 5:30 pm. A little bit late, but everything was good.
We didn't do much else that night except hang around the ship, goto a few shows and have some dinner.
Megan and I just returned this past Friday from Cuba. Yes, that Cuba!!!!
We left Chicago on July 2nd to fly into Miami. We flew into our cruise the night before this time, because if you remember our last cruise adventure, we missed our flight and almost missed the cruise. No mistakes this time.
We arrived in Miami late that night, around 8:00 pm. There wasn't much to do, but go grab some dinner. We ate at CVI.CHE 105, which as you may guess, is ceviche! The food was amazing and we of course ordered too much. Megan and I both agreed that we should try and spend some more time in Miami at some point.
About two weeks ago I had the opportunity to do another great summer trip on my motorcycle with some friends from MEWS. Last year we went to the southeast and hit up the Tail of the Dragon, among other roads. This year we went west and went to the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Rocky Mountain National Park and more. The weather was unpredictable ranging from 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit to 40 degrees and raining.
So, let's see how the trip went.
Alright, we are rested and refreshed any ready to take out a full day of Berlin. Breakfast at our hotel was nice and got us going for the day.
Our first trip for the day was to walk the Eastside Gallerry, which is a section of the Berlin Wall, which was still up. From there we followed the wall route to the heart of the city where we checked out Check Point Charlie and some other attractions. Even by 9:00 am the heat was almost unbearable. I just couldn't believe how hot it was outside and being in the sun for any extended periods was really uncomfortable.
It was on our walk of the wall that we came across a section of Berlin that we really felt uncomfortable in. I am unsure if it is a section of gypsies, refugees or just a poor area of foreigners, but we walked upon a two block area that appear to have some slum apartments. Lined up and down the street were RV's, just tons of them with people living in them. As we walked by there were two men on a bench who said "English". We continued on our way out of that area without lingering.
We then made it to Check Point Charlie before continuing onto the Topographie des Terrors. I was surprised at how much a tourist trap the checkpoint was. The crowds were intense for a street that was still opened to traffic and there were actors dressed as American soldiers standing around the checkpoint who were willing to take a photo and "stamp your passport" for $5 or so. Sort of disappointed with that.
The Topographie des Terrors though was something entirely different. A free museum, it is built upon the site where the SS headquarters used to be. A portion of the old foundation is excavated outside the building and with it were story boards explaining the rise of the Nazi party. Inside the museum there is a chronicle, in no hesitation, of the horrors that the Nazi party committed during their reign. It was an impressive museum and fairly sobering.
After the downtown area we hopped on the subway and headed across the city to visit the Charlottenburg Palace. Another impressive estate from German royalty. Unfortunately our camera died part way through the tour. We hit up lunch across the street at an Italian cafe for some pasta before heading back to explore the palace grounds.
Our last major stop for the day was to head up to the Olympic stadium from the 1932 Olympics. It is the last major piece of Nazi architecture that has survived in the city. A major storm hit right when we arrived, but we were able to get some good photos in between the downpours.
And that is it. We finished up the day back near our hotel. We grabbed some burgers on the street and watched one of the UEFA cup games on TV's set out on the sidewalk. Megan bailed on me when I needed her translation skills for the shop vendor. He was middle-eastern and was speaking german to me. My bill was $15.08 and I could not understand that I needed eight cents for him.
There was also an uncomfortable incident next to us where a drunk man sat down next to some ladies on the sidewalk while watching the game and he was very loud. The staff pushed him away. Good burgers though.
The next day we left Berlin. Our trip back to the US took almost 24 hours. Our flight to Newark was delayed five hours from Berlin. Our flight then from Newark to Chicago was also delayed almost two hours. We arrived back in Chicago at 1:30 AM the next day, which was Monday. Brutal couldn't even begin to describe that flight. Overall a great trip though.