Picksburgh Recap

I'm not sure if the navel-gazing gets any more inward than the travelogue of a 36-hour trip to Pittsburgh but hey, it's what I did last weekend, you're gonna hear about it.  My observations:

Southwest Airlines certainly has something going on but the whole 'pick your own seat' thing is only good if you're among the first sixty people on the plane, after that it's 'big guy in a middle seat' which sucked on the way   out but the flight's only an hour, so it could've been worse.  I guess if you check in online up to 24 hours before your flight you can get a better letter/number combination but as a first-timer, I got stuck with B-33 both ways, which is like drawing A-1 in the draft. Lesson learned. Bottom line, it was either pay $638 for the cheapest equivalent non-Southwest flight (US Airways) or $150 for Southwest, that's a no brainer. Onto the actual trip.

I found Pittsburghers to be either overwhelmingly accomodating or incomparably rude.  Upon arrival, I got my suitcase and made my way to the bus.  I knew the bus ride was exactly $2.60 but only had $3, so I went back inside to get change from one of the airport shops.  Problem was, the cashier had already begun to ring up the purchase (and therefore couldn't open her cash drawer) of a man who was completely oblivious to the presence of other human beings and literally (and I mean literally) spent four minutes preparing two hot dogs and a cup of coffee.  Four minutes.  After about three minutes, the cashier opened up her own purse and managed to scrape up enough to   change my dollar.  I got back to the bus stop with about a minute to spare and through a Pitt professor's help, was able to clairfy which stop I should exit to be closest to where I was staying.  I finally got to Jeff's suite around 9PM Thursday and we promptly made our way to the Oakland neighborhood for some decent Mexican food.  My streak of kind people continued when we met two nice Pitt co-eds sat who down next to us.  They were there for the half-price food which began at 11PM.  I guess when I was in college waiting til 11PM for half price food wouldn't seem that unusual but at our age, we were happy to have finished eating and had three huge margs in our system by 11 but we did stick around for another drink or two.  We found a bar in the basement of an Indian restaurant that was hopping due to it being karaoke night.  When you're easily a decade older than anyone in the bar and know you will never see any of those people again, karaoke seems like the right thing to do, so we did.  I did my standard "Surrender", which I nailed and then watched Jeff attempt a Duran Duran song which was decent, then shaky, so I had to step in and finish it for him.  By 2:30AM, bed seemed like a good idea.

We actually made it up by 9AM Friday and had some sublime pancakes at Pamela's before getting our tourist hats on.  First stop, the Andy Warhol Museum.  Born in Pittsburgh, Warhol is certainly worthy of having a museum named after him even if Andy's arguably most famous work hangs in other museums.  The museum's definitely worth a trip, especially for Andy's time capsules and the collection of ephemera from his association with the Velvet Underground. There are also enough art pieces to keep the Andy fan happy as well as a stuffed Great Dane and a stuffed lion that were both mainstays at Andy's Factory Studios.  There are also a few galleries dedicated to other non-Warhol works both contemporaries of Warhol and current artists as well.

Well, I mentioned it before leaving, so I had to visit at least one of the two funiculars Pittsburgh has to offer. And it was at this point in the trip that we experienced two of the most unpleasant people Pittsburgh had to offer.  After a stop by PNC Park to purchase our Pirates tickets for that night, we set off walking across the Roberto Clemente Bridge hoping to reach the Duquesne Incline on foot.  That's actually impossible to do without crossing a major four-lane highway, so we hailed a cab.  The problem with cabs in Pittsburgh is that unless you're going to the airport--which is an automatic $50 fare--nobody wants to take you anywhere else.  After getting in the taxi and asking the driver a simple "How you doin'?", we were subjected to a profanity-laced tirade that would've made two sailors proud.  The above picture was taken moments after our bitter cab ride.  Prepared to shake off the brief ugliness of the cab we attempted to provide the necessary fare to ride the train up the mountain.  The fare is $2 each way but we didn't know was you were expected to pay for the round trip ahead of time, so when we each deposited $2 each into the fare box, we were soundly accused by the fare collector of ripping him off.  Had he simply said, "Please pay for the entire fare here", he could've avoided the yelling.  To make matters worse, neither Jeff nor I had less than a $20, so I now had $16 in Sacagawea dollars in my pocket.  I will say the view atop Mount Washington is remarkable.

After a trip to Carnegie-Mellon to visit Jeff's campus and have a cheesesteak (I know, wrong city) we were off to PNC Park for a Pirates/Braves game, which also happened to be Willie Stargell Bobblehead Giveaway Day.  I've heard nothing but good things about PNC Park and must say, I was not disappointed.  The layout is quite similar to the re-vamped U.S. Cellular Field but with a far superior view: the Pittsburgh skyline and the Roberto Clemente Bridge.  Despite a fairly constant mist throughout the game we enjoyed a picher's duel for the first six innings including future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, now back with the Braves.  This wasn't   the most happening sporting event in P'burgh that night though as the Pens were facing off against the intrastate rival Flyers in Game 1 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals, so score updates were met with applause and sighs throughout the night.  The crosstrown vibes must've made their way to PNC Park as the Bucs pulled out a 2-out 9th inning victory; Willie Stargell would've been so proud. As we were leaving the park and crossing the Clemente bridge, someone got a text that confirmed that the Penguins had defeated the Flyers, resulting in cheers and a spectacular fireworks display we could see at Mellon Arena a mile up the hill.

All in all it was great to see Jeff--who I hadn't seen in a few years--and see a city I likely wouldn't have even seen otherwise. How was your weekend?

Comments

[Jeff]

It was great having you! I got to see a lot of Picksburgh that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise - and we certainly met some characters... BTW it's been freezing and raining since you left so good thing we got out when we did!

[Jeff]

It was great having you! I got to see a lot of Picksburgh that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise - and we certainly met some characters... BTW it's been freezing and raining since you left so good thing we got out when we did!

[Carly]

Brad's brother used to be a chef at Mad Mex. We've eaten there before. What I've found about the Pitt is that it takes forever to get anywhere because the streets are so old and narrow and there is so much traffic.

[Jeff]

Ah we didn't have a car, so we were groovin' in the bus lane. We found it quite easy to get from where I am (Oakland) to the city center and ball park...

I'm hitting Mad Mex again this week - 1/2 price food from 11 onwards which makes it very appealing for my fellow students...

[Brad]

Carly is already one step ahead of me - actually my brother Chris worked for the restaraunt group that owns Mad Mex. He was head chef at couple of their other places in the 'burgh.
Chris now works at Carnegie Mellon Inst.
As for your observations about the city - I lived there for several months - it's still an old city, and a bitch to get around.