“Detroit hustles harder”, so they say in the motor city.

There’s a lot of good shit that’s come out of Detroit from mo-town to techno, Fords, Chevrolet, Eminem and Kid Rock…..well maybe not the latter. But it seems the most we hear about Detroit nowadays is how broken it is. So we decided to spend a week there post Toronto to see if we could scratch the surface of what has become a bit of a mystical city.

Arriving late in the arvo via Windsor and taking the bridge back into the US we navigated our way to our 3rd airbnb stay in Corktown, just north west of the city centre. Turns out Corktown is the old Irish area from back in the day but in its current form is pretty sketchy with lots of vacant blocks and sporadic homes with a little stretch of hipsterville on the main drag (if you could call it that).

We had decided to do a room share this time as there wasn’t much accommodation left in Detroit due to the Movement Festival on that weekend. Our host, Tony was a bit of a quirky guy who turned out to be a bit of a Detroit die hard who only seemed to want to talk about the city. Things started off OK but just got more awkward throughout the week where it seemed like he was our Dad waiting down stairs and we were trying to sneak out to avoid talking to him. So we decided that was the last time we would be doing that. We even checked out a day early and bailed while he was out things got that awkward. Cheers Tones.

But that aside, Detroit turned out to to be damn interesting, you really do need a car to get around – it’s the Motor City after all – and was designed for driving, lots of it. Locals were genuinely happy to have a chat and inquisitive as to why we were actually there but we learnt a lot to the history of the city and why it seems to be coming back from the dead. Plus it’s foodie heaven! Since arriving in North America we had become a bit addicted to a show called Diners, Drive-ins and Dives where this dude called Guy Fieri cruises around America eating at said establishments, good thing is you can look up where he’s eaten and we ended up eating at some sweet spots (mainly due to not wanting to be around Tonemeister at home). Slows BBQ  for lots of slow roasted BBQ like it says on the box, Traffic Jam & Snug for more meat this time in sandwiches, Vinsetta Garage for burgers and beers and Astro coffee for a bang on flat white. We also got in some more baseball action, this time the Tigers vs the Houston Astros but didn’t even make it to the end as it was so bitterly cold despite being in the company of Kid Rock who was also in attendance. We arrived back to find Tony dancing around the lounge room to Polish music (weird factor increasing even more).

Driving around the city is surreal, there’s just so much space! Some areas have no houses, just trees, long grass and streets with homes being demolished due to being in such bad shape. Others have notices of intent to demolish adjacent to a cluster of homes that are inhabited. Large buildings lie abandon and the overall vibe is strange at first, but then you get used to it and start to enjoy and just go exploring. There’s also a lot of roads with not too many cars to add to the feeling of space, lots of space.

Movement Festival began on the Friday of the Memorial Day weekend. It’s a rather large techno festival with well over 100 artists crammed into Harts Plaza on the riverfront overlooking Canada. I’ve always wanted to go so was excited about it but turns out that I think I’ve moved on from such festivals. 30,000 people crammed into a tight space for 3 days can get a bit much. The first 2 days were good fun but by the 3rd we were over it and went and watched Mad Max at the cinema next door. Hard core!

A week staying with Tone-Loc was a bit too much but we will be back to the ‘D’ for sure if not just to stuff our faces some more.

J & T