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!
Tuesday, 16 January 2007
Monday, 15 January 2007
Ok, so now I have a plan
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 ;)
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
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!
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
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!
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!
Sunday, 14 January 2007
Imminent Zune-ness
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]
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!)
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.
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.
Monday, 8 January 2007
See what I did with the URL?
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).
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).
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