What are we doing here?

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Sunday, August 2, 2015

Well what are we doing here? The intention is to get to make our way to Columbus in Ohio to see Bryan's friend John whom he first met when he was training in Majorca for his Channel Swim. John was out there training too and they have kept in touch ever since and even met up in London when Bryan popped back to England briefly from Thailand. So John and his wife Maryline have invited us to stay and everyone knows we will always say yes - word of warning to anyone thinking of making an offer. So to get to Columbus the Greyhound we had to hop from Washington DC to Pittsburgh and we thought we would stay a few days and check it out. Whilst we were waiting for the bus (which was late) Jody got chatting to the lady in the queue in front of us. She noted her name on her ticket; Denise Smiler. Lovely name for a lovely lady - she was such a character. When she found out we were from England she just chatted away in her lovely Pittsburgh accent which is quite soft and nice to listen to, oh and did we listen...and listen ...and listen. She chatted non stop and barely stopped for breath. I think we had her whole life story. The bus left at 11:30 and took 7 1/2 hours to get to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our bus driver was a woman and she was also a bit of a character. Not a typical stereotype lady bus driver but did she have some road rage in her that had to come out! We stopped a few times on the way and the scenery was very very pretty. We stopped briefly at Baltimore, Maryland; then Grantsville, Maryland; Morgantown, West Virginia (no we didn't see the Blue Ridge Mountains or those Country Roads!) and all the time there was just miles and miles of forest as far as the eye could see. We arrived in Pittsburg at 7pm and luckily our hotel for the night is just over the road from the bus station. Perfect. There really isn't much here - it's not on the tourist route at all so our choice of places to stay was limited - no large community of guesthouses here - so Hot-Wire.com to the rescue again. Whilst we were in DC we had logged on, picked our location, set our budget and booked blind. Then we got our email confirming we would be at the Westin. That will do nicely thank you! Our room is similar to the one we had in Washington in as much as it is a large corporate hotel in a business district so has all the things you would expect. But this one had a bath :-) whey hey clean again! The bed once again is also huge, clean and so so comfy. Perfect! The next day which would be our only full day here, we stepped across the road for breakfast at Penny's. Nice place but terrible service. So much so that even they noticed and gave us our breakfast for free. Good thing as we seem to be getting through our budget much faster than we anticipated. Bryan also took the opportunity to meet up with Darren Miller (an Ocean's Seven swimmer) for a coffee and to shake his hand.  It was great for Bryan to talk to someone as passionate about swimming as he is. And what a nice man too. Not at all big headed about his achievement and really quite humble about it. Then it was time to hit the Strip! The Strip District is a one-half square mile area northeast of downtown Pittsburgh. "The Strip." as it's known, locally, is just that - a narrow strip of land on a flood plain confined by natural boundaries; the Allegheny River to the north and Grant's Hill to the south. It's one of the oldest parts of Pittsburgh with lots of the old houses, cafe's and bars. It's a really nice place with a great atmosphere. There are lots of street sellers, market stalls selling fresh fruit and vegetables, bread and cakes. Really charming. We stopped and bought a local delicacy from a cake stall - they called it a "to Die For" a little folded pastry coated in butter cream and pecan nuts. Yummy! Now we just needed a coffee to go with it. We found a nice little place with a couple of free chairs out in the sunshine. There was a gentleman sitting at the only other table which was next to it who was just chilling out watching the world go by and smoking a huge cigar. Deciding the smoke wouldn't bother us we took our chairs at the table and Bryan disappeared inside to get the drinks. When he came out (wearing his Koh Tao, Thailand tee shirt) the man at the next table shouts out "Sawatdee khap". (Thai for hello). Well that just got the conversation going and what a character he turned out to be too. Oh the stories he told us. He was in his 70s and feeling frustrated that his wife did not want to travel and enjoy their retirement together. He said that meeting us today had given him renewed enthusiasm and it was going to be a bad day for his wife. He was going to go home (when he had finished his big Cuban cigar) and tell her he was going to Rio to help at the Olympics! An hour later as our coffee grew cold and the sun started to burn us too much, we said our goodbyes to Lonnie and made our way back to the hotel. We'd had a great time chatting to Lonnie and privately took bets on whether we would see him in Rio or not. It's nice that we inspire people to live their dreams whether he carries it through or not. Pittsburgh is the home of Andy Warhol, The Pittsburgh Steelers, The first ferris wheel, the first polio vaccine, the first game of bingo and Geoff Goldblum!  Also Henry John Heinz created the H.J. Heinz Company, synonymous today with its famous ketchup. Based in Pittsburgh since 1869, the Heinz Company sells over 650 million bottles of ketchup per year. Unfortunately they wanted quite a pricy entrance fee to look around the museum so we didn't go in but the visitor centre outside was quite interesting. This evening we had decided to take a walk through the city centre to the other side of the river and to one of the two inclines they have here. We decided to go in the evening as we would see the city from above in both daylight and as it grew dark, all lit up and looking pretty. Walking the other direction also gave us a good opportunity to see a different side of the city. Not quite as quaint but still really nice. Again the city is very clean and it felt very safe to walk around here. We found the :Monongahela Incline" and a return trip was only $3.50 each (£2.25). It is a very old incline system built in 1870 and is one of two inclines remaining from a time when the city had 15! It has a length of 635 feet, a height of 367.4 feet, and a grade of 78%. Its lower station is across the street from the Station Square's Freight House Building. Just a few facts and figures for you there. Well the ride up was very rickety but quite quaint and it didn't take very long to get up either. Just think this was a lot of people's daily commute back in the day! We took some time to admire the view from the top but as it was still quite light we walked a couple of streets over and found a nice place for some food and to try a local brew. Bryan liked the tee shirts the staff were wearing as they reminded him of Thailand. He wouldn't say why though!!! Well the views later were really pretty.The city had begun to light up and it was lovely. Definitely worth the wait. Across the water was the big Heinz Stadium and the fireworks exploded to signal the start of the concert by One Direction. Now why did we chose to see U2 when we could have seen them??? Well the next day we had to leave Pittsburgh. We had both come to the city not knowing much about it at all but left feeling really good about it. The people here were so friendly and so welcoming and again it was another clean, safe city to visit. Would we come back? We wouldn't rule it out but there isn't much more to do here than we have already done. If we had to come back though, we wouldn't grumble :-)   [gallery columns="4" ids="14500,14522,14534,14544,14555,14565,14583,14594,14607,14617,14628,14640,14652,14665,14677,14691,14700,14715,14727,14733,14742,14751,14768,14783,14793,14804,14815,14818,14823,14836,14840"]