Last week was the annual Sweet Adeline convention, which was displaced to Detroit this year from New Orleans. We enjoyed our time in Motown. I expected the city to look somewhat like Pittsburgh, however, they are not similar at all. I thought, well, they are both industrial riverside cities that are no longer producing as they used to. They both proclaim a "downtown renaissance". However, Pittsburgh is an older town, and the coal industry has an longer history than the car industry of Detroit. Downtown Detroit had a more urbane, modern architectural feel to it. Neither city really convinced me that they are having much of a downtown rebirth.

We stayed in the most confusing building I have ever encountered, the Renaissance Center. It is the world headquarters for General Motors, and there is a Marriott hotel within. It's quite beautiful, with many tubular towers rising high over the riverbank. Inside, the towers are made up of concentric circular hallways. You can be walking on a hallway that opens up to a central atrium, and see a Starbucks on a floor that seems to be half a floor above you. To get that cup of coffee turned out to be often quite impossible. Sometimes I never could navigate to the "crossover" path that linked the various floors and hallways.



The first night there we had quite a few martinis, and stumbling along that circular hallway to find my room was an experience. I've felt the room rotate before, but this time, I swear it really did. The view down to the river from the 62nd floor was perhaps the cause of the vertigo.

We had a great time wandering around. In all of the buildings lobby areas, there were cars to ogle. And of course, the music was the best part. If only Razzcals had won!

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