Day 18: Cincinnati, Ohio: "Mama! Ooooooo!"

I honestly expected my first night in Cincinnati to be a let down. We weren't staying in Cincinnati proper. We were deep in the suburbs. This meant the only interesting thing to do would be to walk to a bar, and, being under 21, this meant I'd probably just spend a lot of my night sipping water.

Oh. Oh how wrong I was.

For one thing our host here is a trained chef, so the food was absurd. For example, for breakfast this morning there was an omelet bar. Eggs? Veggies? ACTUAL CHOICE?! I could hardly handle it.

After last night's equally awesome meal I decided it was better to sip water in a bar with friends than mope in the church so I meandered over to Sydni's Saloon with the rest of the gang. The look on the bouncer's face was one of terror and amazement. Out of no where 30 hip, young college aged kids were invading this small time bar. We all got what we needed and, to our tremendous excitement, found that the bar had an exquisite karaoke machine with a very enthusiastic DJ.

Jesse kicked it off with Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road". I soon followed, upon insistence from the team, to sing "Man Of Constant Sorrow" because there's a line about being from Kentucky. This was my first ever karaoke performance and, I have to say, I rocked the house, but really out did myself when I belted out "Statesboro Blues" about 10 songs later. Seeing the other Jesse do Devo's "Whip It" was a hilarious highlight, as well as Dave doing "Big Papa" and Sharif doing "Short Skirt, Long Jacket". The very best, though, was a tie between the team doing "God Bless the USA" (screaming "from sea to shining sea"), or about 6 of us practically chewing on the mic while we sang Guns 'n' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine".

After much ruckus was raised in the quiet outskirts of Cinci the team mosey'd back home and enjoyed a sleep-in 'til 6:45. Today was our Build Day, and it was super fun. We worked on three houses in one of the oldest neighborhoods in town, and this time the team was all at one site. I spent the majority of the day monkeying up and down a bunch of scaffolding, constructing a 30+ foot tower and muscling huge pieces of metal up with rope as I balanced over wooden floorboards about a foot wide.

I'm such a man.

And after building was one of the biggest highlights of the trip. My sweet, wonderful mother came to visit, and brought a batch of her Kitchen Sink Cookies, 2% milk, and general motherly love for the entire team. We had a wonderful visit and I got to show off all my wonderful new friends to her. They, in turn, were so overwhelemed with her awesomeness that they gave her an enormous group hug before she left.

I really have an amazing Mom. And Dad. And Little Bro.

5am wake-up tomorrow. Off to Indiana. New day, new state, new adventures on the horizon once again.