Other priorities

So for anyone who may have actually been reading this, I started school at UC and suddenly got really busy. I also started writing for The Cincinnati Man when I have the time, with a different focus than just informative. I may come back to this when things die down, but regardless, check out Cincinnati Man.

Greater Cincinnati Independents Restaurant Week

Similar to the downtown Cincinnati restaurant week last month, this week (Sep 14-20) is The Greater Cincinnati Independents Restaurant Week. 33 Restaurants in the Cincinnati area are offer fixed menu 3 course meals or 2 meals for $26.09. The downtown restaurants include Washington Platform and Nicholson's.

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati

Eat, drink, and be merry with 500,000 of your closest friends at the country's largest Oktoberfest this weekend in downtown Cincinnati. 5th street between Race and Broadway will be blocked off to make room for tents filled with food and beer available for purchase on the street. There's a large variety of each, with food varying in price while domestic beer is $4 for a regular, $10 for a large souvenir cup, and $6 for a large refill.

There will be plenty of music throughout the festival as well. The food and beer part of the event runs from 11 am to midnight on Saturday and 11 to 10 pm on Sunday.

Add a dollar to each of those for Premium. There will also be wine, "twisted tea," and soft drinks.

New this year will be the "partyzelt," a sports tent and beer garden in the parking lot next to the Millennium Hotel on 5th & Race. There's also the runner of the Weiners, a dachshund race, at Fountain Square at noon on Friday.

*Photos from the official Oktoberfest Zinzinnati Newsroom

Weekend Shenanigans

This is a weekly installment a friend of mine sends out to let people know about different events going on over the weekend. I'm going to start including them on here. They should be every Friday, around noon.

Today:
- DERF Happy Hour at Pavilion at 5:30 pm. $10 includes your choice of 10 Bud Lights - or - 6 Three Olives cocktails – no cover.
- Casual Friday Wine Tasting by the Art of Entertaining in O’Bryonville from 5:30-8:30 pm. $22 for 6 wines and finger foods
- Reggae on the River on the Purple People Bridge from 7-11 pm. $10 at the gate, but tickets bought in advance come with 2 free drink tickets: http://www.givebackcincinnati.org/v3/reggae.asp
- Karaoke at the West Chester Bar & Grill at 9 pm.
- Lodge honors Hometown Heroes today. $2 Miller drafts, $2 Coors drafts, $5 Bubble bombs

Saturday:
- ACO Turfway Park Cornhole Tournaments in Florence at 11:30 am. $10-$50 entry fee – you can win up to $800. http://www.americancornhole.com/

Other:
- GCI Restaurant week is next week from the 14th-20th. 33 locally owned restaurants from around the city will offer a three-course prix-fixe dinner menu for only $26.09. In addition, some casual themed restaurants are offering dinner for 2 for $26.09. http://www.gcindependents.com/
- Tailgating and football weekend – games galore

Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions!

Cincinnati Beerfest

Cincinnati Beerfest starts today at 5 on Fountain Square. Different local brewies and national chains will be there, where you can trade tickets (10 for $10) for 3 ounces of beer. There will also be Mexican food and wings, as well as live music.

The food, drink, and music should last until sometime around 11.

Best view in Cincinnati - Devou Park

I've decided it would be fun to try and determine the best view of the area here in Cincy. It doesn't necessarily have the be a view of downtown, it could just be any good lookout point. I'll go to a location, snap a few photos, and post them on here. I'm going to keep searching for good lookouts, and if anyone thinks they have a good place, please let me know and I'll check it out.

To kick off the "Best view" series, I went to Devou Park across the river in Kentucky. These pictures are the view from the grass near Drees Pavilion.

The western edge of downtown, North of Devou Park

Directly East of Devou Park, looking at Covington

North-east, a different part of Covington

And the best part, North-east of Devou Park looking at Downtown Cincinnati

The same direction from the park, zoomed out to see a more comprehensive view.

Good view? Bad view? Ideas for a better view? Again, not necessarily the city, just good general overlooks.

Riverfest

I checked out both the rubber duck regatta and the fireworks this past weekend.

The regatta, honestly, was a bit disappointing. I wasn't expecting a nail biter race or anything, but I thought it'd be funny to watch the ducks float along the river and pretend to get overly dramatic about the ending. Instead, the regatta did a very poor job of engaging the spectators.

There was a duckie mascot walking around, but about half the time it just got in the way instead. In terms of trying to see the actual duckies, the spectators were kept about 15 feet away from the end of the water, and the finish line was right against the Serpentine wall, making the finish impossible to see.

The regatta itself just seemed like a formality with very little enjoyment. Most of the actual "race" along the serpentine wall actually consisted of the rubber duckies being towed to about 15 feet from the finish line, then let loose.


At least the sight of 100,000 rubber duckies was still pretty funny to see:



The fireworks that night were awesome, though. We got to Sawyer Point a bit late, finding a seat at about 9:00, so we had a somewhat obstructed view by a tree, but it was still a great fireworks show.


If that picture's not patriotic, I don't know what is. Maybe if I could get a little better lighting on the flag.

The show lasted somewhere between half an hour and 45 minutes, I think. I found it much easier to get an unobstructed view last minute in Kentucky last year, on the hill East of the Purple People Bridge. We decided to try the Cincinnati side this year, but I'd probably go back over the river for next year's fireworks.