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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Special Travel Edition: Pittsburgh


Frank used to work for American Airlines so we’ve traveled to a lot of places: Aruba, Barbados, Italy, St. Thomas, Cabo, England, San Francisco, New York, Puerto Rico…But today I want to tell you about one of our favorite places—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Frank’s dad is from Pittsburgh and still has a lot of family there (including Nana).

Every time we mention Pittsburgh to someone the reaction is always the same: “Ew, why would you want to go there? It’s all steel mills and smog.” I inevitably roll my eyes because this, of course, means that they have never even been to Pittsburgh. Although I have to admit, I had the same reaction before our first trip there.

So I thought I’d educate my thousands (well, maybe hundreds or dozens) of blog readers all at once: Pittsburgh hasn’t had steel mills since the mid-80’s. There’s no more pollution than Dallas. And beyond its’ smog-free environment it’s also a beautiful city—complete with hills, greenery and a river that runs right through downtown. It’s actually a lot like Austin without the heat.

In fact we liked it so much we almost moved there three years ago. Frank was accepted into business school at Carnegie Mellon so we went up there for their “welcome weekend.” They totally sold us on the city: gave us a historical tour on a train, took us to a reception at the Natural Science Museum and even threw in some potential friends for us to hang out with. We were totally pro-Pittsburgh but not pro-expensive-private-school.

But besides all the physical attributes Pittsburgh has to offer there’s other fun facts: Their sports fans are notoriously loyal, it’s the home to Heinz ketchup and the people talk with these cute accents. I would do it for you but it’s hard to convey sound on a blog. Plus, Frank’s Nana is there and if we lived there we could eat her food every day!

So next three-day-weekend (maybe for Baby Jessica Day). I recommend that you forget Miami, forget NYC and don’t even think about L.A. Pittsburgh, baby. Tell Nana we sent you.


Yay! We Love you, Pittsburgh!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you had moved to Pittsburgh, you could have gotten a job working for the Chamber of Commerce!

Writinggal said...

That did cross my mind. They could really use some decent tourism PR.

Writinggal said...

Thank you, Frank! See, everybody? You need to get to Pittsburgh for some semi-fresh air!

Liz said...

Man... HeFrank wins for longest blog comment ever.

dad simcik said...

WOw attempted to print so I could send to NANA and it does not allow you to print----- Pittsburgh is cool but too too many cloudy days and when you have a chance to be in the sun sooo much hard to get use to the cloudy days. DAD SIMCIK

dad simcik said...

wow nice to see and hear about Pittsburgh--- Nana will be proud and gooooo steelers. Tried to print blog but came out blank was going to send to nana--- only problem with pittsburgh is toooo cloudy and once you get a taste of the sun you will never go back to stay - ok visiting but too cloudy

NorthTexasSECLawyer said...

Pittsburgh is surprisingly beautiful, and you didn't even mention Permani's Bros.- the world greatest sandwich shops - especially at 2:00 a.m.