Kentucky! No, Ohio! No, Kentucky! No, Ohio!
Back from Cincinnati again, and this time I can say I saw more of the city. Including, perhaps, the most insane supermarket I have ever seen.
This is Jungle Jim’s, perhaps the only supermarket to think “I know, let’s jam another supermarket on to the end of the original one and go crazy!”
Yes, that’s Robin Hood standing over the British foods section. There’s also an island, a boat, a fire engine, singing cereal mascots…and…look, I can’t do it justice. It even imports Tesco and Sainsbury products, for goodness sake and somehow manages to get proper Cadbury chocolate (don’t ask me how, given the Hershey clampdown). It is almost every American shopping stereotype brought to life…complete wi th a monorail out front. Simply wonderful.
Somewhat late to the party, I finished watching the first series of Detectorists this week as well. I had given it a wide berth because of Crook, and I was totally wrong. It turned out to be exactly the gentle comedy that I never thought could come from somebody involved with The Office. And I’ll confess that at times it even made me a little homesick. It might be nice to go home one year when it isn’t Winter.
One thing that has been nice about travelling so far this year is that I’m going to places where I actually know people (okay, so not Nashville or Atlanta, but my hit-rate is much better this year)! This time I got to meet up with Tammy to see where she’ll hopefully end up living in a couple of weeks’ time. While it’s technically in Kentucky, you can literally walk in a straight line for half-an-hour, go over a bridge and you’re back in Ohio. I could entertain myself for a fair portion of the afternoon simply by walking across states. I have issues.
Whilst you wouldn’t normally put ‘hipster’ and Cincinnati together, it is a decent-sized city and that means that they are present.
It’s a converted post office that is now a restaurant selling fried chicken! Surrounding it: high-end pet shop, hipster shops selling homewares, and of course the bars spilling out into the street and the Sunday sun. So yes, Over-The-Rhine is trés hipster. But, you know what? It felt inclusive in a sense that you don’t often get in Durham. Plus the lunch at The Eagle cost less than half than what you’d pay here in the Triangle.
Oh, and the beer cellar where we played board games also has this shop for all your lederhosen needs. What more could you possibly want from a city?