Matt Jones - Super Tourist!

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.

Day 1 (ish!)

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.