Pittsburgh

About a week after my parents came, I set sail for Pittsburgh for about a week. By sail, I mean I flew out of seattle and required a ferry to get to Seattle and staying there overnight on the way back. I did that because even after the US$120 ferry and US$57 hotel, it was still cheaper than flying out of Victoria or Vancouver. Plus I got to see Seattle for the first time.

Pittsburgh was nice and relaxing. I visited Grandpa and we took it easy and hung out. We went to a few parks to walk around. But by far the highlight was going to 2 baseball games in which the Pirates beat the Cardinals. The first night (Friday) was free bobblehead night, and the second (Saturday) was free hat night. Saturday they also wore their heritage uniforms from the Negro League team the Homestead Grays. We also walked around downtown, because for all the times I've visited Pittsburgh, I've never been downtown. Grandpa pointed out the building that he used to work in, so of course I took a picture.

Seattle might be a cool place to visit, if you didn't live in much cooler Victoria. I had to walk through the sketchy parts of town to get from my hotel to the ferry. One street I decided to walk down because there were 3 cops wrestling 2 guys into a van. I decided that cops made that street safer.

I also feel the need to point out that I flew in first class on the way to Pittsburgh from Seattle. That's because I fly so much, they gave it to me for free. That gave me a nicer seat for sleeping all night. But the way back home was horrible. There were 2 major accidents on the way so the 30 min drive to the airport took 2.5 hours. Needless to say, I missed my flight. But they were nice and I flew standby via Chicago. It must have been one hairy day for the airport, because one of the 2 accidents was on the entrance ramp to the only entrance to the airport. So it took about 1.5 hours just to effectively go up the entrance ramp. Thus, almost everyone missed their flight. Ironically though, despite leaving over an hour later, I still arrived in Seattle 40 min earlier than my original flight would have.

As expected, photos are here.