Second visit and The Queen City.

I woke to my first day in Kentucky, with one thought - has my luggage arrived?  To my great relief and delight clean socks, wash things, a comb and more was now with me in time to be used prior to meeting the representative from Project Search who was to be my guide for the day. 

Feeling clean and human again I began the first of 2 days visiting employment placements that have been created through the initial work of Project Search. These were really professionally interesting and will be reported as part of my work.

Tim gained a job in Cincinnati Children's hospital pathology lab through Project Search. (Note my clean clothes!!)

Outside the professional visit there were a couple of incidents that may be of general interest. I was having lunch with two of the staff in the Cincinnati Children's Hospital cafe when a tannoy message was broadcast with a flashing blue light to add emphasis. I along with everyone else paid no attention.  The message repeated but was not clear so I had tuned it out. After about the seventh repeat my hosts said is that floor D or B, tuning in I realised the electronic voice was saying an incident had occurred on floor D and everyone was to leave the building. I began to gather my belongings, though no one else was showing much inclination to move. Greg said "These alarms go all the time - it will be nothing." The insistence of the flashing light and the repeated message made me wonder. People did begin wandering out. Then a banging alerted me to the cafe window - a hospital worker in the corridor was banging on the window and telling us to leave the building.  Someone from security came over, Greg went to speak to him.  Returning Greg was most indignant that the security person had been rude in insisting that we leave, he told us this as he sat down. He then related a story that he and a colleague had been eating when the alarms sounded. People got up to leave until only Greg and his colleague remained in the 1000 place cafe. A security guy came through doing a final sweep - seeing them he told them the alarm was a tornado warning which was real and they had a few minutes before it hit. They made it to the shelter safely.  Fortunately, for my increasing level of anxiety, we then did make a move and evacuated the building. As we sauntered into the Cincinnati heat the all clear sounded. By that time we had finished lunch so kept going.


The developing city of Cincinnati was, for a long time known, as Porkapolis due to it being the centre for Pork distribution. That nickname would have a very different meaning in Newcastle where locally Police are known as the Polis.  
Passing through the city they have some very impressive buildings, one was pointed out to me - it had an impressive lattice of steelwork arching across it's top, "That is modelled on Princess Di's crown" I was told, looking at it again - I really think it was. The riverfront is impressive and I admired the Paul Brown Football stadium as I passed it with a local banker who was involved inProject Search. "So it should be,' He told me, "It cost millions of tax  dollars and stages 9 games a year." 


As a Churchill Travelling Fellow I was impressed to hear that Churchill had visited Cincinnati and described it as,  "America's most beautiful in-land city." I am sure it has improved further since his visit.  Without a car and with limited tourist time I was certainly impressed by what I saw and I only scratched the surface.


Travelling on my own I find limits my appetite, eating is enjoyed best as a social occasion.  I was alone having a salad in an international food chain and was enjoying people watching. An enormous, grossly overweight guy waddled in with a tray full of more calories. He looked at his tray, realised he hadn't got quite enough, and lumbered off returning with a huge bag of crisps. He then attempted to sit down. The table was designed with the bench seats attached so the gap between seat and table was fixed. The space was not wide enough to squeeze his mighty girth into. After a few attempts he got one cheek on the seat and sat twisted round with more bulk out than in. I wondered if he had been a little less obese and managed to squeeze in, then after completing his tray of calories would he have bulked up and then be unable to escape the vice like clutch go the bench and table.  
It is not necessarily the consumers fault.  In the same place I asked for a drink, "Do you want Medium or large?" I asked for Medium and was amazed to be offered a a cup that could be mistaken for a bucket.  I half filled it and was only able to drink half of that.  I wondered if I'd asked for large would they have wheeled in an oil drum?  It made me think that when the offer to 'Supersize' a meal is accepted do people realise that in reality they are super sizing themselves.


Not having much time to explore places I have spent a little time looking at tourist guides to see what I am missing.  One such, based in Cincinnati, is the "American Museum of Signs." It claims to be the only Sign museum in the USA.  Why would that be I wonder?  It made me imagine visiting the museum and seeing a door with a "Push" sign on - do you stand and admire it or actually push? Also if an exhibit carries the sign "No photography" - would you photograph it?  The only Museum of signs in the USA, I think the only one in the world!


I did manage some tourist visits - The National Underground Railroad Museum.  Interesting and moving place to spend time in. I learned that the River Ohio was the boundary between the North & South at the time of the civil war. Cincinnati had people willing to help escaping slaves and lead them to freedom as they made it out of Kentucky. Some were not so lucky, a family made a dash across the frozen Ohio river, as their pursers closed the gap the mother realised they would be re-captured.  Unable to face the thought of her daughter having a life of slavery she killed her.  If you stop and think for a moment what level of despair and pain would bring us to such a point and how would we live beyond that. For me that abyss opened up a small awareness of just how horrific the life of slaves must have been.


A more frivolous tourist event involved wandering over to Covington's Main Strasse Village Goetta Festival. I admitted my ignorance and asked what is this Goetta that everyone was celebrating. The helpful market smallholder introduced me - Goetta is a sort of spiced meat patty, or oblong sausage.  How long before Newcastle has a Greggs Pasty Festival I wonder. The kind lady offered me a taste of Goetta, I politely turned her down, muttering about being a vegetarian and lost all credibility with her. 
The festival goes back to the German influence in the area. As railroads became the major transport system in the US, immigrant workers flooded in to meet the demand for labour. The German immigrants settled in the Covington area and have influenced local beer and strangely a Pied Piper exhibition and information signs explaining the legend of Hamlin's lost children.  That is one for the museum.


My plane is about to board so that spells the end of this blog, hope more adventures await and the blog has something of interest for you