Good evening from Pittsburgh, PA! We are spending Spring Break here, mostly visiting museums with our elementary schooler. We've done the Carnegie Museum, we've done Randyland, we took a ride on the Dusquense Incline funicular, we've done Pitt's "Cathedral of Learning" and seen its nationality rooms, 20+ rooms each ornately decorated in the style of a country that has contributed to Pittsburgh's population. It's sort of like Pittsburgh's answer to DC's embassy open houses. The biggest hit so far has been the National Aviary, a bird zoo where you can see free-flight birds and pay extra money to feed the birds. Our kid loved the National Aviary so much that they asked to go back a second time the next day so I've paid that admission fee 6x now. Not too mad however as I got to feed the lorikeets twice and we have seen not only penguins but a tremendous amount of rainforest birds from around the world.
Bowling at Bowlero Pittsburgh is only $9 per person for unlimited games and that includes shoe rental (!). That's like 5-10x less than what it costs to bowl in Northern Virginia.
The 3D geography of Pittsburgh is absolutely nuts. Sure it's flat downtown and in Oakland where Pitt and CMU are but in the hills above the rivers the city is built on terraces or in what I believe they call "hollers" in Appalachia. It's crazy to drive, one wrong turn and you end up at the wrong elevation. Streets are all extremely narrow too and while there is (still) coal up in those hills there is certainly no street grid up there. It's like Boston if Boston were in the Carpathian Mountains.
Tomorrow we see the Nationals play the Pirates at PNC Park. I've been wearing my Montreal Expos jacket around town and saw at least two other people from Washington wearing Expos gear on the streets of Pittsburgh. Gonna be my kids first time cheering for the Nats on the road. Given the weather (high of 60 tomorrow) we are in the Pittsburgh Base Ball Club seats, which have a climate controlled indoor area with restaurants that we can retreat into if things get too cold.
