Beware any town where carriage rides are the best idea people can come up with for a good time.
However, I must say that Naptown is an unfair nickname. A nap is just a short snooze after which you get up and do things. Indianapolis is more like Slumbertown. No, that’s unfair too. Endless-Sleeptown or maybe Dirt-Naptown is more like it.
Have you ever seen an Indianapolis Colts game on Monday (or now Sunday) Night Football? You know those “bumper” shots they show going into and coming out of the commercials? They’re usually aerial shots and for most places there are a nice variety of interesting and attractive local sights. For Indianapolis they use the same three shots over and over again (only they try and trick you by using different angles). It’s the only three things they can find to show. (1) The Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Monument Circle, (2) the State Capitol and (3), the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. All three boring as all-the-fuck get-out, which represents Indianapolis perfectly.
I can understand showing Monument Circle, I guess. It’s kinda cool… if you’re from a small Hoosier town out in the sticks and have never seen a road that goes around in a circle before. The State Capitol is as attractive as any other drab, average-looking State Capitol building, but come on… if you have to show a capitol building as a beauty shot then that’s pretty slim pickings! As for the IMS, there is absolutely less-than-nothing to see there unless there is a race being held. Even then it is pretty lame.
There are places to drink in Indianapolis. That’s one highlight, I guess. But the people you run into out at those places aren’t very interesting. The interesting people got the hell outta Dodge as soon as they could.
There are places to eat, I suppose, but most of them aren’t very good–unless you like Applebee’s. There is a steakhouse downtown called St. Elmo’s. It’s the only restaurant that anyone from out of town ever goes to or has ever heard of (unless they don’t know any better… or they like Applebee’s).
Broad Ripple is the main “nightlife” district along with small parts of downtown. The large parts of downtown are closed shortly after 5 o’clock when most of the white people get in their SUV’s and drive about 35 miles to their comfy and boring suburbs. (Most of the black people that have SUV’s do the same thing.) Anyway, back to what people from Bum-Fuck would call “nightlife”.
A previous poster suggested downtown over Broad Ripple for the nightlife. But they’re really the same except that Broad Ripple has more people from the boonies because those folks are afraid to go downtown. Thing is, the people from the city are just as hayseed as the people from the sticks so there’s really no difference anyway. But… I will say that a lot of the bars–in Ripple especially–aren’t so incredibly bad as long as you don’t go out on a Friday or Saturday night. THAT’s when the uber-middle America folks join the professional drinkers and make it extra horrible for everyone.
Still, what are you going to do? Drinking is about all there is to do unless you like drinking and bowling. But I suppose that’s just like any other small town in Red State America.
Except that Indianapolis has a population of about 780,000 people. It’s the biggest little Podunk hamlet in the world! That should be their tourism slogan!
But they’ve got a MUCH better one instead (or at least they used to).
I’ll share it with you. But then the cat will be out of the bag. Then you’ll know that I’ve just been joshing you this whole time! You’ll know that the TRUTH is that Indy is actually one of the most cultured, vibrant and alive cities in the entire world! Perhaps Paris or maybe Rome can come close, but there is certainly no other city --not one-- in the USA that can match Indianapolis for pure cosmopolitan excitement.
Stand by for world-class slogany goodness… here it comes…
"Move Over New York, Apple is Our Middle Name!"
Get it?
Have a fun trip!
