Made it back Sunday, but I didn’t have time to post the first couple of days. Both my girlfriend TYG and I assumed Pittsburgh would be a grimy, industrial city, but it’s actually extremely pretty. There are big rivers (three of them), high hills on one side, bridges (the old railroad ones are on stone piers—that’s not something you see around Northwest Florida much) and some really cool old buildings. The William Penn hotel where we stayed was one of them: Big rooms, lots of decoration, very old-style elegance. Another was the Union Trust Building (it’s an official historic landmark next more); it’s an office building now, but was a shopping complex back a hundred years ago when it was built. The upper floors have gabels and lots of architectural flourishes that suggest a church because the land was bought from the Catholic Diocese and they wanted the new building to reflect that.
Activities—other than the ones I’m not going to discuss in a public forum, of course—included going to the National Aviary; visiting Anthrocon, the furry convention; hanging out with friends; taking a fox-trot class with TYG; eating a lot (this is definitely the best AG food wise, that I’ve been to); going on a pub crawl, culminating in a dance at the Altar Bar, a dance club made out of a church. It was a wonderful week, and I’m still feeling relaxed, despite having a water main flood the Destin Log office Monday.
