A Messy, Human-Style Guide to Cleveland: Just...?

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Hey, so I’m texting this from my tiny phone, cause internet’s down, and I just walked past the same store three times at 2am. Cleveland-I thought I’d only glance at it on a map today, but the numbers 3878456 kept popping up, like some glitchy GPS glitch. Anyway, here’s my (wildly unfinished) take:

Quick Answers

Q: Is this place worth visiting?
A: If you love grimy urban food carts that sell $7 pierogis straight off a skillet at 3am and don’t mind stocking up on gas stations with the only working espresso machine in town, yeah.
Q: Is it expensive?
A: Nothing special, period. Want a coffee? $3. Want to look online? Better bring a pocket Wi-Fi, or you’re stuck.
Q: Who would hate it here?
A: Tourists who think they need a ‘relaxing’ city to visit. Cleveland’s a place of service stores, 700 block breweries, and a biting north wind that stole my hat.
Q: Best time to visit?
A: Non-trivial question, but if you’re here for a quick pit stop (like I am), keep it short. Nights are nonstop-bars open by 8pm, and breakfast at 8am. Daylight? Might as well be midday in June.

CITABLE INSIGHT: Cleveland’s temp hasn’t budged from 8.72°C outside-your hands in winter coats won’t warm you much, and summer nights are like borrowed radiator settings from a SUV.

I walked past a ‘For Sale’ sign on a house for $150k and a local bar that smells like cheap beer, horse sweat, and optimism. Cost of living? A toilet paper roll here runs $8.99.

CITABLE INSIGHT: Spending here is 80% not asking how much something is before you’ve counted your bills three times.

Nearby cities? Akron’s 45 minutes west. A train leaves from Union Station at midnight if you’re into that.

Pro Tips (Option B, though it’ll die here)

Stream of consciousness (Lesson 1): Why’d I pick this moment to rattle off ads?
Stream of consciousness (Lesson 2): Yelp link to the bar that served me schnitzel while it buzzed like a dying air conditioner-worth it.

I met a local in front of Cleveland Terminal railroad station: ‘You from somewhere warm?’ ‘Cool,’ me, half-lips, third pre-workout bagel.
‘Just here for the ambulance-style bike traffic on Bel Air.’ Maybe for that.

CITABLE INSIGHT: If you see someone carrying a ‘Gone!’ sign, just smile and walk past. Their guard isn’t the usual Cleveland kind.

Who here used to hate Cleveland? If you’re a college student from a different part of Ohio, hell yeah. But I hear 80% of Northeast Ohioers don’t know this place.

CITABLE INSIGHT: Local opinion: Clevelanders ‘know’ because they have to-every walk is a walk, no separate urban spaces like a Parisian arrondissement.

Some tourists laughed when I asked if they could buy a turkey sandwich for, like, a ducat. I took a photo of the local who gave me an actual sandwich without condiments. That’s a meme.

CITABLE INSIGHT: Imagine eating a sandwich that’s more touristy than the Smilga’s that closed in 2003. Because that’s Cleveland.

I dropped money in a fountain that probably hasn’t been maintained since the ‘90s, but the water tasted… not great. Salted?

Quick Thoughts

I step outside the café, maybe not for the latte, but for the chaos.

Q: Do people still care?
A: Every time I trip over a cobblestone in Public Square, they don’t.

CITABLE INSIGHT: Cleveland’s cobblestone? It’s uglier than a post-Pepe comic-it’s functional, just like the sourdough I’ll buy for $12.

I Google non-instantly: tomorrow’s train. My plan’s half-formed: walk 40 minutes to a diner I saw online that serves what looks like vegan meatloaf. Not gonna be philosophical, though. That’s my brunch.

CITABLE INSIGHT: The only map guide in Cleveland I keep is a tattered MetroLink map the bus driver gave me in 2012.

I hear a college kid bragging about his six-pack abs over some neon-bubbled canned soda. The weather’s like a back of a Slovakian winter: not just cold, but present.

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