Start with what you know: Cincinnati

Next up on my "Start With What You Know" series: Cincinnati, Ohio.  I moved here in 2009 after finishing nursing school and quickly discovered that I love this city. Here's briefly why...

A gorgeous skyline
Coming around the corner on northbound 71/75 from CVG airport you get the most fantastic view of Covington, KY and the Cincinnati skyline.  Everyone here raves about it.  But my favorite view of the city is driving down Columbia Parkway, parallel to the Ohio River: as you approach the city it suddenly appears from behind an outcropping of rock and a thick lot of trees before disappearing again until you're right in the middle of it.

Pig butt medal!
The other side has the pig's
face, but this is way cooler.

The city of seven hills, just like Rome...only completely different.

Making it perfect for runners who are in to challenging themselves and kicking ass-phalt!  Inclines of all heights and degrees abound, and you are always rewarded with sweeping vistas of the river, the skyline, parks...and other hills.  We celebrate our sadistic love of punishing ourselves over long distances with The Flying Pig every spring, which has been continually rated as one of the best marathons for first timers and offering one of the best medals. 

This little piggy had pork ribs and this little piggy said "wee wee wee" all over the city

We have a little bit of a love affair with pigs.  In addition to The Flying Pig, and numerous pig statues around the city, we also boast the best pork ribs in the United States, as found at Montgomery Inn which also happens to be one of my favorite restaurants.  Choose the location downtown and take a stroll along the river before or after dinner.  The path right outside the restaurant will lead you to one of my favorite spots in the city: a playground under the BigMac/GoldenArches bridge.

We're at the crossroads of the North

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
A part of the Smithsonian Institution Affiliations Program

During the years before and during the Civil War, The Ohio River was the most well-known border: it was the easiest to prove you had actually crossed over into the free states, but also the hardest to make it across.  Regardless, if you made it to Cincinnati, you were free!  In honor of that, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center was built here.  It's an incredible building full of artifacts from the time of the Underground Railroad and I found the most powerful part to be the experiential theater where they show the immersive video "Brothers of the Borderland.  There are also temporary exhibits now and then about slavery in other places around the globe that still persist today.

Oh yeah, we're also
radical about free coffee

Fittingly, Crossroads is the name of the church I now claim as my own.  I say fittingly because we are heavily involved in ending sex slavery in Mumbai and Kolkata, India, and we are radical about freedom in all senses of the word.
To detail all the reasons I love Crossroads (GoCincinnati, the Awaited Christmas show, dancing turkeys at the Thanksgiving food drive, the Game Change campaign, original songs written by the Crossroad's band, our senior pastor's crazy antics, the friend's I've made and lesson's I've learned on trips to New Orleans and South Africa) would take an additional post all on its own, so just visit the Crossroads youtube channel instead.



More than just piggies

Above: Me completing an item on my bucket list
that I didn't even know I wanted!

I would completely amiss if I didn't talk about the Cincinnati Zoo.  One of the oldest and largest zoos in the country, it's beautiful and hard to see everything in one day without rushing.  In the summer you can watch the elephants play with (read: HULK SMASH) watermelons.  In the early morning I can hear hear the loud calls of the gibbons on my way to my car (the perks of working near a zoo, I guess).  I've hand fed a giraffe and experienced seeing a cheetah at full speed (make sure your camera has a burst mode, holy cow!!)  I had a pass one year and I still haven't seen everything, though that is just because I spend too much time with the adorably sleepy red pandas and my beloved bats in the night hunter's exhibit....


For more Cincinnati awesomeness see We Love Cincinnati and 365 Things to Do in Cincinnati (which has to be up to at least a thousand by now).