Pittsburgh, Pennsylania -- May 2003; Day 6

After breakfast at the inn, we set out to walk two miles to the Carnegie Museum.  We weren't due to pick up our car until tomorrow (in order to maximize our car driving time) and it was a beautiful spring morning, so we hoofed it all the way.  It was a pretty nice walk, though a bit more strenuous than I was used to that early in the morning (with much much more walking to go for that day).  The museum, founded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie (or as they say in Pittsburgh "Car-NAY-gee", not the New York "Car-na-gee"), was interesting -- it was broken into two pieces: half art, half history.  We started with art.  There was a huge room where every square inch was covered with framed art, in the European gallery style.  Luckily, there was a helpful audio tour to help us understand what everything was.  My favorite was an Andy Warhol of Carnegie, reminiscent of the Marilyn Monroe painting in the same style.  After we had our fill of paintings, we headed to the history wing.  This collection was some serious competition for the American Museum of Natural History in New York: taxidermied animals, rows of birds behind glass, gems, dioramas of indigenous people.  There was so much to look at, so we just tried to pace ourselves.

After getting all museumed-out, we were on the hunt for lunch.  I had heard of a nearby sub shop where they put fries and coleslaw in the sandwich.  I asked around at the museum and the staff got all excited and said "You mean Primanti Brothers!"  They gave us directions to this little hole in the wall, within (short) walking distance.  The sandwiches were unbelievable good, but belly bombs. I had tuna (with fries and slaw) and The Hubby had corned beef.  We waddled out, too full to explore The Nationality Rooms at the University of Pittsburgh (a must see for our next trip -- they have 26 rooms authentically decorated to match different nationalities.  I think we thought it was just a few flags or something, but these are major achievements in design and detail).  Instead, we caught a bus downtown to begin our next walk.

The Warhol (a museum dedicated to Andy Warhol) was accessible via bridge (over the Allegheny River) from downtown.  Again, it was a pleasant walk.  We headed into this old warehouse.  There were six floors, each representing a different point in Warhol's life.  We headed up to the top and worked our way down.  The top floor represented his teen years with early sketches and influences (there was a Jackson Pollock), as well as his early work as an ad guy.  Another floor had silk screened canvases with subjects such as Elvis, to a car accident (a bit disturbing).  Two of the cooler floors contained a giant wall of camouflage and a room of silver Mylar balloons.  A room with every issue of  Interview Magazine  (of which he was a founder) helped us understand even more about his life.  We really enjoyed this museum and liked getting such a deep dive into the life and work of Warhol, especially as we were very interested in Pop Art.

We then walked back over the bridge and tried to catch a bus back to the inn, which was not as easy as in NYC.  Back at the inn, after brownies, iced tea, and a disco nap, we strategized dinner.  We were too tired to make it all the way back to Piccolo Piccolo Ristorante near the Warhol Museum, but we luckily found a cute Mexican restaurant in Shadyside, Fajita Grill.  Unfortunately, we didn't realize until we were seated that they didn't have a liquor liscense (which explains why it was so empty!)  We felt we had earned rather large margaritas with all that walking.  The big burritos with tons of guacamole helped make up for it a bit though.  After dinner, we were about to go on a drink hunt, but we were too worn out and crashed early.  So much for exploring Pittsburgh nightife!