They Don't Have Pie?!

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2007-01-28T03:06:00.000-08:00

Briefest of the brief 2 day update:

Thurs: Not a lot, then out in SOuthside - went to Locker Room which I didn't like then Jack's and Bar 11 - score on both fronts - ropey dives the pair of them, suited me down to the ground:

Friday - Bought a variety of Penguins merchandise for various people. Picked up a Ben Rothlisberger steelers jersey for 31 bucks - was the only player I recognised there, Polamalu was in the Macy's across town. Rothlisberger is a good player but apparently is a bit of an arse. 31 bucks I ain't complaining! Will wear it SuperBowl Sunday, right now leaning towards the Colts but will see how much I get insulted for it ;)

Also went to Carnegie Sports Science museum - was for kids but was fun. Went up mount washington for awesomest of awesome city views - pics to follow.

Went to Warhol museum, spent about 2-3 hours just on the eugenics installation. Powerful and delicately presented stuff (not the hamfisted horror show they could have done). Finally we ate at Brew House - a converted church that is a resataurant (amazing Pizza!) and in place of an altar there is a Micro Brewery. If only other churches would follow this fine tradition!

All flights were good, Nick got his Zune. We spent half an hour or so sending songs across the wireless just cos we could. Then he had to go home and do grown up things with kitchen tiles.

Proper updates once I transfer the photos on to this machine etc. Prob later in the week, I know I need to be in work a few hours early tomorrow and Tuesday just to catch up and get some things done - I did a bad thing and peeked at my work email on Friday morning. I know, I was still on holiday! However it did give me a heads up so I will be prepared for the morning!

OK, my brain says it's 6am which puts me just a little before the 24 hours awake boundary. It's going to be fun trying to stay awake til this evening!

2 days to go :(

2007-01-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

I know there are no pics, they are on the way I just need to build up the patience to cope with bloggers ridiculous upload rate!

Meanwhile, I am off to mount Washington in a bit then down to Southside this evening for some light libation at Mario's. Or at least that's the plan, I also have only 2 days left to get my Primanti Bros sandwich and I have a feeling that its going to take considerable alcohol levels for me to even be able to work out how to consume one.

I have a feeling the rest of the pictures will have to wait until when I am back in the UK, but might do some drunken uploading later ;)

[Edit]Information received suggests that Mario's etc. may not be my kind of place on a Thursday - My ability to keep my gob shut my not extend to what are affectionately termed by one party as 'Meatheads' and another as 'Douche bags'. I've received other advice as to possible alternative drinking holes, I will check with the Maja later to see if she has alternate suggestions! [/Edit]

Cathedral Pics Placeholder

2007-01-23T16:09:00.000-08:00

I have the Cathedral of Learning interior pics but Maria is putting me to work in the kitchen. I've barely been able to escape her salt mines this last week but she has promised me 5 minutes of sunlight tomorrow so long as I cook a chili*.

So I'll be uploading some pics later from the cathedral, I have to apologise though as I was wandering around taking pics of every special room I could, some of them aren't the best but it should give you a good flavour of what its like. What is really cool is that they are actually used as classrooms, but this does mean you can't alwas get in to see them. As a result I missed a couple, but I'll cover that later. I was most put out to discover that there was an Irish, Scottish and English room but no Welsh room. According to the pamphlet there is one planned though so it has escaped any Meirion Glyndwr style reprisals. Pics soon.

*All Matt stories should be served with pinches of salt to taste.

Cathedral

2007-01-23T07:44:00.000-08:00

You've seen pics of the outside, the inside is awesome. I went there yesterday, they have 'Nationaloty Rooms'. They ran out of money before finishing the lower 3 doors so they asked different communities to donate money, in return they got to desigh a room of their own (or something like that). Pics later today I am off to a diner then gonna try and work out a way to get to the Mattress Factory. I realy will do pics to I promise! I know this is becoming just a stream of text!

Sleepless in Pittsburgh

2007-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

So we went to Philly this weekend, arrived at the hotel around midnight so I stopped for some drinks at the bar, the barman was an arse and pretty sure he over charged us in between complaining about how he should have made a billion dollars inn tips that night.

Anyway, I chose this point in my trip to sleep past noon, I have no idea why this is the case - Bushmills Whiskey not withstanding. Anyway, we went into Philadelphia in the afternoon and drove around to get ur bearings. We managed to spend some time in the Independence centre which was actually quite cool. I have some pics of an area we later found out we weren't meant to take pictures of, it was actually pretty cool inside but will pro do a post on it or just fail to bore you with it entirely. Obviously we swung by the Rocky steps too!

I managed to prop up the hotel bar with a few more bar flys and a far cooler bar tender for the duration of the evening. We would have gone out somewhere in Philly but 'Hotel in Philadelphia' can mean anything up to hour out of the city!

Next day, I managed once again to sleep in thought considering the quantities of Bushmills I was consuming this is less surprising. The barman hardly charged me for any of my drinks and the measures he wsa giving me were ludicrous, I don't normaqlly drink whiskey striaght but Bushmills is really nice.

Anyway we went back to the Philadelphia Museum of Art which is mind blowing, they had so much cool stuff there. I don't know how many of you saw my picture of 'Boy with Duck' in my Carnegie Museum of Art adventure,but here they had 'Boy with Rooster'. I am now convinced they is one of these in every American museum. On top of that they had Picasso (Sunflowers and others), Degas, Constable, Pollack, Turner and hundreds of others. We were there most of the afternoon, I didn't get to see it all. I have lots of pics but a lot are rubbish. Again there was a section where I was inexplicably not alowed to take photos 'Hey! No photos sir! this is a special exhibition!'. 'Are you quite sure? It looks like some has just dropped a neon sign here'.

Don't worry, I was able to keep my mouth shut when yelled at by the uniformed troglodyte! I only got pissed off because there was no explanation as to why or indeed any signs explaining that photos weren't allowed in the Bar Sign room. It would appear that I am back tp my waking up at the crack of dawn self. Philadelphia, along with being the City of Brotherly love, would also appear to be a sedative.

Anyways pics later.

Update

2007-01-19T07:56:00.000-08:00

OK, so what have bee up to? I can tell you are all on the edge of your seats.

So Wednesday I did absolutely nothing, which in one respect is bad but in another that's what I see the point of a 2 week holiday is. You pretty much do the stuff you'd do in a one week hooilday only you do it at a more leisurely pace. Anyway, I went to the Hookah Bar with Maria, later joined by Stefan. It was a relly cool place, something really different. I have a couple pics on Maria's camera but she is still snoozin after last night's festivities - more on that later ;)

That's pretty much all i did on Wednesday, unless you ount losing at Uno all night. In fact, statiscally, I had more chance of contracting leprosy than losing Uno so many times at the Hookah bar. I managed to lose every single game. I was very proud.

Yesterday i wen tto the Phipps Conservatory which was quite pleasant, then a bit of a stroll then I went to the Fuel and Fettle bar. I had a pint or two reading USA Today then Maria came a little later. I got quite drunk and ate bacon and pankcakes with syrup. Just a quick note on American Beer - as has been reported by a few of my friends, it's pretty good so long as you avoid the name brand shit that tastes of soda water.

Some of it is really weird like a cross between lager and ale, as a result in many ways it is more flavourful than European lagers. Granted sometimes it tastes like crap, but that's true of European beers too. Anyway I ha d acouple pints of some local beer called Rude Brew which was pretty tasty, then made the mistake of moving on to Jack Daniels.

Most of my pics are up on Ringo now, I am going to be uploading some to the blog too but it takes an age for some reason so here are a couple of the outside of the Cathedral of Learning and a few shots from the Art Museum.

The last one is my favourite, I've not explored the place yet, next week Bilal and I will be havoing a mooch around an dhopefully getting right up the top. It'll be interesting cos i am terrified of heights.

I'll update this post later with some pics from the gallery, just thought I would publish it 'as is' for the time being. Off to Philly later, so may not be here for a few days - thouhgt Maja is tempting me to take the lappy with me. My inner geek is crying at me to do so.

Matt Jones - Super Tourist!

2007-01-16T19:37:00.000-08:00

OK, So today I am loving everything I did and everyone who spoke to me. I left this morning for the Carnegie Art Museum which must be some kind of secret because it was virtually empty. I also did the natural history museum but I was underwhelmed by that purely as I liked the Art gallery so much, and the fact they have closed a whole load of it off while they expand the Dinosaur exhibit - it was mostly animals you see on Discovery. It was still cool though, it's just I liked the art place.

What I really liked is that it wasn't all paintings and sculptures, they put furniture in there too which I think added a fair amount. It went from early American and European art right through to the modern day. There was also some African art, some Asian etc. That was a little haphazrd, almost an afterthought but they have some cool stuff.

I was particularly interested in the Rembrandt display they had on, I'd seen a couple of original etchings of 'Christ Between two Thieves' at the British Museum - State 3 and State 4 I think. They only had State 4 here, but they had a whole load more of his etchings that were pretty interesting to see.

I ntook a lot of pictures, most of them lame but I'll upload some tomorrow for you to see, I was pleased to see some Pittsburgh homegrown pieces in there too. All the museum people were awesome and friendly and really enthusiastic about the building, it's a proper gem.

Halfway through the Museum Stefan called me (Maria loned me her phone for the day) saying we should queue for Pens tickets. I got back to Maria's place around 3pm, and immediately got a call from April and a message from Pedr back home. Some guy called Kevin at Cincinatti had been going through my contacts calling everyone asking them to get me to call him so he could get my phone to me. The guy is a legend,he must've called a whole bunch of people before the message got to me but he persisited and he's let me know how I can get the phone back.

Queued for Pens tickets - a couple of the team stars (Maxim Talbot was one) came out an handed out Pizza to the queueing crowd, I was kinda keeping my head down, I didn't want to steal the thunder of uys who actually know who they are! Still, it was anice touch. Then the news crews were abound, I know I ended up in the background of a 5 o'clock news broadcast, thanks to a timely shove from Stefan. Thankfully the new s guy didn't end up talking to the one guy in the queue without any idea of what was going on.

Anyway, Stefan and I took a bunch of pics and Stefan caught some film footage too, so I'll upload that when i get the chance. An absolute peach of a steward took our picture at the end, and made sure to get the score board in the frame so that's definitely one that's getting printed off.

So after a slow start I have become some kind of living embodiment of a tourist. Go me. Anyway, pics and links tomorrow.

I'm stepping outside, I may be sometime...

2007-01-16T07:05:00.000-08:00

It's snowing here and I have just checked mapquest and found out just how close the carnegie Museum of Art is. I am a dummy. I am going to brave the weather and be a proper tourist.

Piccies later!

Ok, so now I have a plan

2007-01-15T15:20:00.000-08:00

Firstly, a few pics from last night.

Me and Stefan at Spice bar, I am holding my hands in the Dick Emery 'Camper than a feather boa' pose.

Me and Maja - again I've gone for the 'Gayer than a very gay thing' look. Also my head is fatter than I remember - it must be a wide-screen camera.

This is Stefan's friend Kataline (dunno the spelling lol!)

Maja's friend Bilal turned up later and we all went for a curry upstairs, was wicked and I managed to try a Yeungling's ale. Not as nice as Iron City I have to say, which is a good thing cos I have a case of that stuff sat here while I type!

Anyways, today maja and Stefan got out of bed pretty late and the weather kinda sucked. Also everywhere worth going appeared to be closed, except Phipps conservatory which it got a bit late for. What was cool though, was that in between experiements Maria took me round the city in her car and I was able to see how easy to get at stuff was. There is a load of stuff right near the University where she works, I'm really looking forward to the Cathedral of Learning - I've refrained from photographing it until I can go look at it properly. It looks awesome.

The houses here are great, it's like no two are alike and the style is totally different between areas. I'll be doind another tour next week ad I will take some pics.

We are off to Philly at the weekend to see some stuff and maybe catch up with one of Maria's friends, it'll be pretty cool just to have a look at somewhere else.

This week i am gonna try do at least the Phipps and the Carnegie Museum of Art, and totally got to do the Warhol museum, they have some awesome stuf in there. I think last night and today my brain has properly kicked in - I don't htink I'd ever take a 1 week trip this far.

Anyway, more later ;)

Spice Bar

2007-01-15T08:12:00.000-08:00

At some point today or tomorrow I am hoping to go to one of the Carnegie museums, not sure what the situation with opening times is today though as it's Martin Luthor King day.

Went to Spice Bar last night which is beneath the India Garden restaurant, I really liked the bar as it kind of looked like a pub. For reasons best know to themselves they serve Newcastle Brown Ale on tap. I stuck to Mr Daniels, though I plan an Iron City session soon as my body gets used to the time zone.

Should be some pics later, we met up with a couple of guys who are friends of maja and Stefan. The pics are on maja's camera and have to wait for her to get her lazy arse out of bed lol!

More later, hope to get some more interesting pics up soon as I actually start the tourist thing!

Just For Nick - Very dull for the rest of you

2007-01-15T07:06:00.000-08:00

OK so as I said before, maja was working some yesterday so took the opportunity to gadget buy. This post is for Nick, its cruel I know but I'm afraid the unboxing has to be done matey!

So here they are, with their premium headphones. Bless their brown little hearts!

Anyway, on with the show. I know you've seen all this before, but this one is actually mine and in my hand :p

Awww, bless! ta very much.

They hid the manuals and CD in a little flappy thing. Satisfying the manly desire to find hidden stuff. 'Course these 'Instructions' aren't for clever people like us, it's kind of like additional packaging. If it doesn't do what we want, I think the 'Instructions' are for doodling one while we work out the best approach.

I do love that all MP3 players seem to come with crappy little pouches that no one in their right mind would ever use!

Ok, on the inside. Hey! where's all my headphones and stuff!

There we go. Sneaky swine.

Installing Zune software, tooka while as it needed some updates.

You can see a little box there, thats got the headphones in it, it's pretty cool and the premium headphones work pretty well.
Also I chose to combine my first Zune experience with my first Iron City beer.

The radio is pretty cool, and allows you to switch between US, Europe and Japan. It's pretty good at picking up the station and track info, though the real test of it will be when I get to the media blackout area that is Surrey.

I'll end the torture now, yours will be with you shortly. Take solice in the fact that I still can't hook up my external hard drvie as I don't have a US cable, so I am stuck with the pre-loaded content for the time bein!

Imminent Zune-ness

2007-01-14T09:26:00.000-08:00

Maria is working til 6 ish, so poor old Stefan has been volenteered to take me gadget shopping. He's picking me up from Maria's lab in a bit and we can go Zune shopping, w00t! This works out well asi will have an opportunity to get the gadget buying and playing out of the way while she is at work. We are all off out to some bars later tonight. [Edit]*cough!*Chicago*cough!*[/Edit] 49ers are on and Pedr is a massive fan, which means by default I have to want them to win.

I'll have some pics of Maria trying to look like she knows what she's doing a bit later, I don't have th cable with me. Luckily she also has a pocket cam so I won't have to take the monstrosity with me later, we can just use hers, huzzah! I am gonna pick somewhere out of the list Julie sent for the bar. Either that or I saw a place called 'Peter's Pub' on the way here. Depends how lazy I feel.

More soon. You're on the edge of your seat aren't you?

[Edit] I just had a big argument with Pedr on MSN. He said 'dude, the 9ers totally aren't on tonight'. As I am stateside for some reason I took his meaning of 'They aren't on' to be 'They aren't going to win', as opposed to the more accurate 'They aren't in the play-offs dickhead'. It's Chicacgo not San Francisco who are playing. Who said University education is a waste?[/Edit]

Day 1 (ish!)

2007-01-14T07:10:00.000-08:00

Ok so first the preparation! I packed all the essential things that anyone going on holiday should take. It's the bare minimum requirement:

I also took some things for Maria - poor girl has been living in that barbaric country for too long and needs civilising:

OK, so won't bore you too much with the travel details - the flight left a little late. It was a lot more pleasant than I am used to - they kept offering drinks and food and things. I am so used to the carrier charging you for every little thing, especially given that I got an Uber deal on the flight, but these guys gave me loads of stuff. Their inflight entertainment requires some work thougj, the movies were totally lame lol! Anyway, was cool. I decided I wasn't going to take any pictures out of the window. Then we flew over Greenland.

So obviously US passport control was manned by crew-cutted belligerence personified but luckily there were some Germans and French at the front of the queue so I think they were having a breather when it got to my turn, having given that lot a hard time. Poor sods. One of the guys was pretty funny though, whereas mine fired out a load of quick and varied questions in order to trick me into revealing that I am, in fact, an international arms dealer last thought to be at large in Paraguay.

I managed to lose my mobile phone in Cincinatti airport, so at least the part of the holiday where I lose something important out of the way.

Got on a plane the size of a bus to connect to Pittsburgh and half the luggage was left on the tarmac because it was too heavy. Luckily mine wasn't one of them but there was a queue of unfortunate people at the airport without luggage, so again I wa squite lucky.

I was so pleased to see Maria, was so weird after all these years - we had a cigarette and got back to hers where I met her boyfriend, Stefan. This pic is a bit blurry, I'll get better ones later in the week. I crashed out around 1230am, and got some decent sleep. Now I am all ready to gadget shop with Stefan while Maja goes to slave over a hot test tube all day.

More later, you lucky people.

See what I did with the URL?

2007-01-08T06:03:00.001-08:00

I know, it's clever isn't it?

OK maybe not. See my brighter airier template? This is to demonstrate my light holiday mood you see, it's very symbolic.

It's also the first non-crappy one I saw after the one i use for my regular blog .

"So, Matt. Why are you using another blog for your hols? Why not just use your normal one, you know your going to complain just as much as normal!"

Basically the plan is to post lots of pictures and hopefully update daily when I am away, probably lots of short irritating posts. As opposed to the witty, insightful commentaries on my other blog.

Also, there are like two people who seem to like reading my other blog but they may not necessarily be interested in my trek abroad - perhaps they are Luddites, fear the Heathen or think that 'abroad' is a made up place and these are just the ravings of a madman.

Anyway, it's here now so hello! - I'll post again either Friday evening (GMT) or Sunday morning (Pittsburgh time).