The first place I ran across on my way over to the arts district to shop at a real art store, was the North Market, a lively farmers market of sorts with every time of food, deli and chocolate dipped treat one could imagine.  It combined the hustle of Boston's Faneuil Hall with the laid back atmosphere of Austin's Wheatsville Coop.  I breezed through the shops and drooled over the delis, but stayed the course to pick up my supplies. 

After I picked up some supplies, Dad headed back to the hotel to rest up for the big game, and I wandered through downtown, camera in hand for the little presents that Columbus had left out for me.  The little city didn't disappoint at all:

Two black men openly laughed at me for taking a picture of this sign.  "A Deli.  He's taking a picture of 'A Deli'.  Ha Ha Ha...
 

I always have thought a run down, used downtown with a sense of lost souls floating through the atmosphere was a good sign for a city.  Columbus definitely has some ghosts downtown.  It's refreshing to see a landscape mixed with elements of pollution, urban decay and vitality all wrapped up in a package so real and pulse quickening that you would never find it in a Walmart ever.

For the record, I've always have been torn on being buried when I die, but I think I'd rather have some graffiti or an old fashioned sign painted on the side of a building in old cities that have old souls hanging around - like Kansas City, East Austin, Schenectady.  Of course, I wouldn't expect these memorials to last long, as a Starbucks or worse - a drive through bank (like the one built on the plot of land that housed the Ship in KC for eighty years) would be built so rich, suburban yuppies would have a place to chill on shopping trips 'to the city'.