The Unknown Florida

One of the very popular destinations once a month in Tallahassee is the First Friday at the Railroad Square Art Park. First Friday is basically a big outdoor party with food, live music, street art and open galleries. During peak months, when students are in town and it is not too hot (in spring, late fall and winter) there is typically a very big crowd. During the summer it is a bit more laid-back and very sweaty, and often thunderstorms pose an additional problem which cannot be solved by a pint of beer. Anyway, it is always a lot of fun. And it does not matter if you come by bicycle or car; it is very enjoyable either way. However, sometimes it is not easy to find a parking spot nearby, so coming by bike has its advantages. You also do not have to worry about drinking too much, as at First Friday there are countless opportunities to enjoy a pint or two. This is, of course, very important in the summertime when it is often still in the 90s in the early evening, with dew-points not much below that. That is, surprise surprise, summers are typically hot and humid in Florida.

Our first stop at First Friday is typically the Crum Box where Pete, the owner and chef, prepares very good sausages. As we are German, we are suckers for bratwurst, sauerkraut and beer. The Crum Box comes very close to a German beer-garden, if you do not mind that the beer comes in cans (in Germany the beer is always on tap). Most of the time there is also live music with an enthusiastic and sometimes dancing audience. A regular band there are the Intoxicators, a local band playing very good surf-rock.

There are also a couple of food trucks for those who do not like bratwurst and beer, even if that is hard to imagine.

After the brats and beers we often end up at Flippin’ Great Pinball, an old-school arcade with pinball machines and some Pac-Man and Donkey-Kong video games. We actually started to go there during the first year of the pandemic when we needed reservations to hang out and play pinball there; with the pandemic reservations we had the entire arcade to ourselves for an hour. We are old enough to consider non-digital games fun! Bicycling, beer, brats and pinball; what can go wrong?