Destination the First: Pittsburgh

I have a little bit of explaining to do. I wrote the first part of my previous post last Sunday but got distracted and didn't have time or motivation to finish it until yesterday, at which time, I still had more information to add, thus, the second post. Now onto the new information. But I was too tired to finish this post, so her it is today. I'm pretty sure that I haven't even mentioned that I am on spring break vacation right now. I'm been so busy, it kind of slipped my mind to mention it in my previous few blogs. Anyway, today and yesterday, my family and I have been in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania looking around, but more importantly, touring the University of Pittsburgh. We left on Wednesday after school on what was supposed to be a five hour drive, but it didn't turn out that way. But before I start complaining about that, I must start at the beginning, per is usual. Anyway, like I said before, we left on Wednesday after school. We still had school on Thursday, but my mom figured that we wouldn't do anything on the last day of school before Spring Break, right? Wrong. I had a chemistry test planned, as well as math quiz (which got postponed to the Monday after break) and in English, we were learning something really important about my multigenre project. In the end, though, I took the test on Wednesday and it wasn't that bad, and I only ended up with homework in English (my multigenre project, who's due date was fortunately moved back to the Monday after the week we come back, so we have an extra weekend). Well, by the time we finally got packed and ready, it was past 4:00, and we still had drop of my dog at his breeder's (who is watching him for the duration of our vacation). It was so sad when we dropped him off there - he seemed so shy and didn't want to leave us, which is a first. Usually is he full of energy and eager to meet new people, but maybe he sensed that we weren't coming back for a while. We all had to sneak out the door while he was held back, and it was so pitiful to see him in the doorway, looking at us. Now we were finally on the road. The weather had forecasted that it would be cold, but still good weather, but, as usual, they were wrong (you really can't trust those weather forecasters!). By the time we got into Ohio, it was raining, which soon segued into snow and icy conditions as the temperature dropped. I swear, we must have seen four wreaks along the way - the first we saw, a car was straddled across the right two lanes at the top off a hill, so we didn't see them until we were right on top of them, and had to quickly change lanes. The worst was when we were stuck on the Ohio turnpike for more than one hour after I guess was a pretty bad accident. After the first ten minutes, I was starting to get annoyed, but we cracked out the M&Ms, so all was well. At one point, when we were flipping channels on the radio, the first words that we heard were "we're going nowhere." It was like a sign. After that bad wreak, the roads were traffic free, and we made it into Pittsburgh by 11:20ish PM. Luckily, though, we're staying at this really nice bed and breakfast, the Inn on Negley, which has very comfortable beds, and nice, spacious rooms. I would definitely recommend it if you are ever in Pittsburgh. The breakfast is great here, too. Yesterday, I had french toast and today, I had oatmeal. Both were delicious. Now on to the events of yesterday. Like I said before, we toured University of Pittsburgh, and man, did we walk a lot. First, my mom, sister, and I sat in on an organic chemistry class, which was pretty interesting. I didn't really understand anything they were talking about, except for a few words, but I still enjoyed myself. The professor was quite interesting, and kept on saying things like, "this should bother you," and was very energetic and bouncy, especially for that time in the morning. After that, we had a campus tour, but by some accident, we walked to the wrong building - Allen Hall instead of Alumni Hall, and were a little late. We finally got to the right building, but we still had to wait for my dad and brother, who were coming on the tour with us. All and all, I thought they had a pretty nice campus, but I think that I don't really want to go there - it's too urban. We did get to see a dorm room and several of the building, which was pretty cool. My favorite was probably the Cathedral of Learning, which kind of looked like the Great Hall from Harry Potter inside (later I actually saw some people playing what looked like quidditch on the lawn outside). There was also these nationality room, meant to represent classroom from around the world at the school was built, and the one we saw, the Syrian/Lebanese, had gold and really expensive looking stuff in it. Pretty cool. After the tour was finally over (my feet were kind of hurting by then), we were going to eat lunch at this one deli, but my mom thought it looked dirty, so we ate at Five Guys Burgers and Fries instead. It was good, but nothing new, which was what I was kind of looking for. After that, we walked to the building where my sister, mom, and I were going to start the tour of the Engineering Department. That tour was pretty interesting - we got to go to the basement and see this room where a group was building a car for some competition. I'm sure that if my dad had been there, he would have stayed the whole time. From there, we went to a bookstore and then walked around until my dad picked us up and took us to the Carnegie Mellon campus so that my mom could find a t-shirt from there. By then, I was bone tired from my day of walking and desperately wanted to go back to the inn and do nothing. So, I decided to wait in the car with my dad. After what seemed like a super long time of waiting in the car, my mom called us and told us that she and my sister were going on a campus tour - something that they hadn't planned on doing. Later, my sister told me somethings that she learned like that the tartan used to be their mascot, until they changed it to the slight more intimidating Scottie (that's kind of like Kingsley being a mascot!). So, my dad and I had been waiting there for naught, but at least I got to go back and rest my aching feet. Unfortunately, though, my sister had the keys to her and my room, and as a result, I was locked out of the room, and we had to go get the innkeeper to unlock it for us. But that was not the end of our day. At 5:30, we met up with my cousin, who goes to University of Pittsburgh (I can never say "Pitt" - that just sounds weird) and went and ate dinner at Joe Mamma's, an Italian restaurant. The food there was great - I split a chicken and pesto pizza with my mom, as well as a hummus and chips appetizer, and a white chocolate desert thing (one word: tasty!!!). It was nice to see my cousin again, who I haven't seen in quite a few years, and talk and catch up. After the dinner, we went to see her dorm room - which took forever because she had to sign each of us in individually and the security guard was really strict (though I did see her reading an US magazine later...). All and all, though, I had a good, albeit long, day. Although I don't really think that I'm going to go here, it was still nice to see all the aspects of college life. Today, there are a few more things to do - a Honors college meeting, then a Study Abroad meeting, and maybe some shopping or a visit to the Andy Warhol museum, and and then it is off to Gettysburg!! I'll fill you in on the details later, but for now, people are telling me to wrap it up, so I will.