So over Christmas I had a discussion with Jenna, a dear high school friend, about how she now lives near WVU. She's been only about 1.5 hours away for two years, and yet we've never visited. Preposterous! So a while ago I heard about an Ingrid Michaelson concert and figured that'd be the perfect opportunity to get her up here. Turns out the timing was incredibly fortuitous for a few more reasons!
But first, she drove up Friday, we got some drinks and nachos at Rock Bottom, and then walked to the Homestead library to see Ingrid Michaelson. The library has a concert hall attached, and also a pool and some other cool sections. We bought wine near the kid's section and they had commemorative adult sippy cups you could get as well so you could bring it into the concert. How cool is that?! The concert hall had no A/C, which was a real sweaty drag, but the concert was AWESOME and the opener (Scars on 45) was even excellent, although their British accents resulted in a lot of blank stares ("what was the joke again?"). A very good start to the weekend.
Despite staying up late playing videogames and thus getting a little slower start, Saturday was chock full of things. I knew I wanted to walk around the Strip, but my normal parking place is closed...but then we drove by the Wigle whiskey place (of previous SWE and Steve visit fame) and I knew we had to stop. We got extremely lucky and they had two walk-in spots due to cancellations, so I went on my third tour! That was awesome. Then we were able to leave the car there (free parking woo) and walk around, get some delicious tiny donuts, and sniff a lot in Penzeys.
We also stopped by Church Brew to have a little platter of perogies and just show Jenna what the place was about. I then decided that we didn't have quite enough time to do the incline that moment, but enough to do some driving around downtown. She liked PPG Plaza (gotham city is always impressive) and we tried to find the old-timey wooden escalator I'd seen before, but it had since been closed off to the public. Booo! The car also acquired some interesting drips from driving around, and it was due for a wash anyway, so to add to the neighborhoods Jenna was due to see we headed towards Lawrenceville (which is where the wash was). Going through autowashes with other people always reminds me of being a kid in the car with my Pop-pop, so that was fun. On the way back home we drove through a huge cemetery that I've been wanting to see - it's gigantic, the entrance looks like a castle, and as it turns out, it hosts some graves from the 1840s! It was a gorgeous day so it was perfect weather to do a drive-by look at all the interesting designs.
Then it was time to change and head towards campus. This past semester I took a Photography Since WWII class, and the professor is also a curator at the Museum of Art. She had been working on a new Impressionism exhibition, and invited all the students to join the gallery opening. On the way, though, we had to have dinner, and it was the last night of the Greek fest - perfect! Super delicious. Then we got to pretend to be fancy people, listen to talks and a bit from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and walk around the gallery. I didn't get terribly much out of the photos and paintings themselves, other than it was cool for Steiglitz to be on the same walls as Monet, but we did get free food and even finagled our way to some pink champagne. Pretty neat!
We then finally drove down Carson and did the incline. On the way up, we saw a few fireworks being shot off the boats to celebrate something the Pirates were doing, which was really exciting! Of course I wasn't fast enough to get it on camera, but you'll just have to believe me. :)
After another late night of fun conversation, we did some leisurely waking up and got a delicious Giant Eagle sub and margherita pizza this morning. The whole incline/geagle sub thing worked well for when Steve visited, so I figured I'd repeat it. I have no complaints any time I get to have a fancy sub! And it's a convenient end to great visits. So glad she was able to visit! We will have to do this again real soon.
(as of now, also, the blog is fully up to date! for the first time in seven-ish months! woo hoooooooo!)
But first, she drove up Friday, we got some drinks and nachos at Rock Bottom, and then walked to the Homestead library to see Ingrid Michaelson. The library has a concert hall attached, and also a pool and some other cool sections. We bought wine near the kid's section and they had commemorative adult sippy cups you could get as well so you could bring it into the concert. How cool is that?! The concert hall had no A/C, which was a real sweaty drag, but the concert was AWESOME and the opener (Scars on 45) was even excellent, although their British accents resulted in a lot of blank stares ("what was the joke again?"). A very good start to the weekend.
Despite staying up late playing videogames and thus getting a little slower start, Saturday was chock full of things. I knew I wanted to walk around the Strip, but my normal parking place is closed...but then we drove by the Wigle whiskey place (of previous SWE and Steve visit fame) and I knew we had to stop. We got extremely lucky and they had two walk-in spots due to cancellations, so I went on my third tour! That was awesome. Then we were able to leave the car there (free parking woo) and walk around, get some delicious tiny donuts, and sniff a lot in Penzeys.
We also stopped by Church Brew to have a little platter of perogies and just show Jenna what the place was about. I then decided that we didn't have quite enough time to do the incline that moment, but enough to do some driving around downtown. She liked PPG Plaza (gotham city is always impressive) and we tried to find the old-timey wooden escalator I'd seen before, but it had since been closed off to the public. Booo! The car also acquired some interesting drips from driving around, and it was due for a wash anyway, so to add to the neighborhoods Jenna was due to see we headed towards Lawrenceville (which is where the wash was). Going through autowashes with other people always reminds me of being a kid in the car with my Pop-pop, so that was fun. On the way back home we drove through a huge cemetery that I've been wanting to see - it's gigantic, the entrance looks like a castle, and as it turns out, it hosts some graves from the 1840s! It was a gorgeous day so it was perfect weather to do a drive-by look at all the interesting designs.
Then it was time to change and head towards campus. This past semester I took a Photography Since WWII class, and the professor is also a curator at the Museum of Art. She had been working on a new Impressionism exhibition, and invited all the students to join the gallery opening. On the way, though, we had to have dinner, and it was the last night of the Greek fest - perfect! Super delicious. Then we got to pretend to be fancy people, listen to talks and a bit from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and walk around the gallery. I didn't get terribly much out of the photos and paintings themselves, other than it was cool for Steiglitz to be on the same walls as Monet, but we did get free food and even finagled our way to some pink champagne. Pretty neat!
We then finally drove down Carson and did the incline. On the way up, we saw a few fireworks being shot off the boats to celebrate something the Pirates were doing, which was really exciting! Of course I wasn't fast enough to get it on camera, but you'll just have to believe me. :)
After another late night of fun conversation, we did some leisurely waking up and got a delicious Giant Eagle sub and margherita pizza this morning. The whole incline/geagle sub thing worked well for when Steve visited, so I figured I'd repeat it. I have no complaints any time I get to have a fancy sub! And it's a convenient end to great visits. So glad she was able to visit! We will have to do this again real soon.
(as of now, also, the blog is fully up to date! for the first time in seven-ish months! woo hoooooooo!)
