Sweet home Chicago

Spoiler alert: I made it to L.A. safe and sound a week ago, in case you were wondering. Since then, I've been working on the obvious things - place to live, source of income, and generally settling into this new thing. I do want to finish documenting this trip, though, so I'm going to keep at it in chronological order, with updates as often as I can manage them. Without further ado, then, rewind about three weeks:

If it weren't for the fact that I know a number of my family members read this blog, I might go ahead and say something about how Chicago seems to be trying to compensate for something, given its obsession with skyscrapers.

Oh wait. Guess I'm saying it anyway.

Seriously though. What else is there to say about a city that looks like this?

I suppose Manhattan probably rivals it, but not only is Chicago considered the birthplace of the skyscraper, it is also the only city in the world with more than one completed building standing at 100+ stories. According to Wikipedia, it has the world's tallest skyline, based on the average height of its ten tallest completed buildings.

The problem with a skyscraper-centric city, at least for a tourist, is that the wait-to-payoff ratio is rather large, due to all the potential bottlenecks - at the Sears Tower, for instance, I stood in line about 45 minutes for the security checkpoint, then maybe half an hour to buy a ticket for the elevator, then half an hour for the informational movie about the tower, and then a final twenty minutes to actually get on the elevator. I was glad I rented the little audio tour doodad, since it let me maximize the amount of time I spent actually at the top of the tower - before waiting in line to go back down. But it was worth it; how else are you going to properly appreciate a town of skyscrapers than by seeing it from the top of the tallest one?

Going into it, I really didn't know what to expect from Chicago. I had heard a range of opinions on its balance of big-city and midwestern, and anticipated basically a core of the latter overlaid with a thin veneer of the former. The impression that I got from it, however, was strongly New Yorkish in flavor, but with more...let's see - character? Where New York is all rectilinear canyons of steel and glass, Chicago has the el

and King Lear,

and a river runs through it.

Oh, and the architecture of its financial district has New York's beat all hollow:

All right. More about Chicago coming up soon, hopefully tomorrow, hopefully after I have secured some gainful employment for the next few months. But look! I'm alive!

Friday's trip: 571.6 miles
Friday's time: 9 hours
Total trip: 3316.6 miles

Sunday's trip: 347 miles
Sunday's time: 5:30 hours
Total trip: 3863.2 miles

Monday's trip: 444.4 miles
Monday's time: 7:50 hours
Total trip: 4332.8 miles

Wednesday's trip: 296.3 miles
Wednesday's time: 6:54 hours
Total trip: 4633.0 miles



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Meet me in St. Louis

So this was my first impression of St. Louis:

It wasn't quite that blurry to my actual eyes, although I had never (up to that point) been so happy to see a smear of lights that represented a friend, a bed, and - perhaps most importantly - an end to the interminable darkness that is nighttime in rural Indiana and Illinois. Oy. Oy, I say.

Brace yourselves, BC folks - I think Sarah's new alma mater, WashU, may be an even prettier campus than the Heights. For starters, this is their version of Linden Lane:

They also have a butterfly garden:

How can you beat that?


Didn't see too much of St. Louis proper, but then, Sarah informs me that there's not much of a downtown to see. I did very much like the Loop, which is WashU's stretch of main street populated by funky restaurants, shops, bookstores, etc. Naturally, I managed to not take any pictures of it. But it was cool! I swear!

And then, of course, there's the Arch. I didn't expect this thing to be as compelling as it was, because come on, it's an arch. But it is oddly compelling. For one thing, it's a massive structure that isn't a building. This may seem unremarkable, but it's the first thing that grabs your attention in the skyline, no matter how many times you look up.

For another, the area along the Mississippi is otherwise pretty heavy on the souvenirish nostalgia - cruises on old-fashioned riverboats and so forth. This soaring, irrepressibly modern piece of architecture is all the more striking being juxtaposed against Ol' Man River.

Going up into it was one of the more unnerving tourist experiences I've encountered. You climb into these tiny cars that immediately put you in mind of escape pods on a spaceship:

The photo doesn't do it justice - it's much smaller than it looks. I sat in the far left seat and had to hunch over because of the curve of the wall. To give credit where it's due, the excessive proximity does all but force you to make very quick friends with any strangers in your car.

The string of eight pods then grinds into motion and ratchets you up through the length of one of the legs of the arch, a trip that is allegedly four minutes long but feels considerably longer, especially since there is a little window in the door that lets you count the number of emergency staircases and imagine having to climb down them.

But you reach the top, and after squeezing past the crush of people queued for the pods you've just vacated, you find yourself here:

I'm not sure why, but I was subconsciously expecting there to - somehow - be some sort of normally-proportioned viewing room at the top, but what you see is what you get. Even after the spaceship pods, it's a little claustrophobic. I couldn't help thinking about how I was

above the ground, and the only thing keeping me aloft was a narrow span of metal, and that if there was any mishap I had two ways of getting down - climbing those bajillion stairs, or falling.

It got into my head a little. Obviously.

Nevertheless, I'm glad I went up, because the views were really incredible, as long as you didn't look too far eastward (East St. Louis is a craphole).

And it looks almost as cool from below:

(Yes, Microsoft, I will sell that to you as a sample wallpaper for the next edition of Windows.)

Sarah and I also spent some time being freakishly tall on the banks of the Mississippi

and considered breaking into the courthouse, which was closed for the day, across from the Arch.

We were, however, able to restrain ourselves, despite the delicious irony the prospect offered.

Yay St. Louis! Yay, thank you, Sarah!

Oh wait - I did take one picture of the Loop:

Ding ding ding, went the trolley...

Wednesday's trip: 599.7 miles
Time: 8:48 hours
Total trip: 2655.6 miles


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Today's trip: 422.8 miles
Today's time: 8:30 hours
Total trip: 2021.5 miles

I had originally planned to write an entry for each leg of the trip as well as for each city, but I'm starting to think that that would make for really boring reading ("It was really flat. Then there were some trees. Then there was a river. Then it was flat again. Then a few more trees..."). So eventually I'll sum up what the drive has been like so far, although I don't have time right now. Why? Well, I was doing a load of laundry at Matt's house last night, and as I'm transferring the last of my clothes to the dryer, what do you think I discover at the bottom of the washing machine?

My CAMERA.

It actually would have been kind of funny, if it weren't so - #*@%. There was this small piece of electronic equipment, gazing back up at me with seemingly as much bemusement as I was feeling. "What am I doing here?" it seemed to say. "There is no possible reason for me to be in this particular place."

I begin to see a pattern here. See, Andrew's tendency with expensive electronic items is simply to lose them. I, on the other hand, apparently need to subject mine to agonizing deaths (smashed cell phone, several drowned watches, now a drowned camera). The upside, I guess, is that there isn't the same persistent, torturous hope that you get when you lose something, where you're constantly remembering one more spot that you haven't checked yet. When you're staring at a camera in a washing machine - you know.

Miraculously, my memory card and its wealth of un-backed-up photos survived the watery abuse, so I'm off to Best Buy to get the card a new house. While I don't generally like making practically spur-of-the-moment electronics purchases, this is one time in my life when I really cannot be without a camera. Oh well.



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Today's trip: 304.9 miles
Today's time: 7:30 hours
Total trip: 1594.5 miles

Illinois looks a little like...Maine, turned upside down.

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Today's trip: 626.3 miles
Today's time: 10:03 hours
Total trip: 1271.1 miles

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Pittsburgh, continued

I met this gentleman, Bobby, while waiting for the bus into town one morning (/afternoon). He has what appears to be muscular dystrophy and is wheelchair-bound, but still takes the bus downtown whenever he can, mostly to spend time in the parks around the city. He was born in Millvale, a suburb to the northeast of Pittsburgh with a very small-town feel, and has lived there all his life, he told me proudly. When the conversation turned to what had brought me briefly to his corner of the world, I tossed out my standard explanation - "mainly, I just needed a change." It was only in retrospect that I realized the slight absurdity of offering this reason to this particular individual, who evidently has not ever felt such a need in his life.

Anyway. A few more things about Pittsburgh.

The cool thing about a city on a peninsula is that it comes to a point, literally, and the cool thing about Pittsburgh is that they've taken their point and made it into a park. Where other cities might have corporations vying to pay top dollar and put their logo in such a prominent spot, this city features a very tall, very cool fountain. It's meant to represent the tendency of Pittsburghers to overcome obstacles (such as being located in the middle of nowhere), and currently bears only a slightly unfortunate resemblance to an erupting vat of Pepto-Bismol, having been colored pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month.

The crablike thing in the background is Heinz Field, ground zero for the religion fanaticism surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I'm not sure why I decided that cheapo flip-flops would be the best footwear for roaming through the entire city of Pittsburgh. I'm just surprised that there is any black left on these, given how much was transferred to the soles of my feet.

Other cool features of the park:

a large grassy area (well, a pretty standard park feature, I suppose);

a bridge that was just opened to celebrate Pittsburgh's 250th anniversary;

and the Fort Pitt Block House, the oldest building in Pittsburgh and the only remaining element of the original British fort.

Did I mention that there's food?

The steak stromboli - mozzarella cheese and chunks of steak wrapped and baked in pizza dough, topped with mushrooms and parmesan. A cornucopia of deliciousness.


And, oh, glorious, the Primanti Brothers' sandwich: that is a "cheesesteak" - with, yes, French fries and a vinegar-based cole slaw on top. Amazing enough to merit an endorsement from Jon Stewart.

But I digress.


I really like how in touch Pittsburgh seems to be with its...let's see - aqueosity. Wateriness. Whatever. You'd think that a city at the juncture of three rivers would consider that to be more than enough water, but they apparently don't. In addition to the fountain in Point State Park, this is what lies beneath their convention center:

There's a couple of lanes of one-way traffic on each side of that, but otherwise it is entirely a love song to water. And although you might not expect it, given that the city is already surrounded by water, it's refreshing and wonderful in ways that the placid rivers can't be. There's nothing like the sound and smell of rushing, falling water to counteract the sense-dulling of urban life.

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Tuesday I ventured out to the Strip District on the northern side of the peninsula, having misunderstood it to be a funky, bohemian type of area. While it wasn't what you might be inferring from the name, it was something of a ghetto, so I decided to make my way over to the Oakland area on the southern side, which is home to the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, and several hospitals - in short, more my sort of area.

Problem was, the maps I had were not the most comprehensive things in the world, and it turns out that a GPS unit is not so good for plotting out walking directions, seeing as it has little to no appreciation for the limits of physical endurance. I'm pretty sure it gave me the route by way of Tucson - and, lest we forget, I'm still wearing those cheap plastic flip-flops. I think I managed about two or three miles, all told, before the blisters finally got to me.

Fortunately, GPS is surprisingly good for outwitting city buses that elect not to post route maps or announce stops (in hopes of absconding with helpless tourists? Why else would you do this?). In fact, watching the bus you're on follow a route plotted on a small console feels a bit like playing the most boring driving video game in the world.

I did finally make it:

The Cathedral of Learning at Pitt - a pretty ostentatious thing, if you ask me - the second tallest academic building in the world and the structure that One PPG Place was modelled after.

The view from nearly the top, including downtown Pittsburgh in the second photo.

Part of the ground floor, which, yes, did feel as much like Gasson as that picture suggests.

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That's pretty much all I've got on Pittsburgh. Tomorrow I'll be spending pretty much the entire day in Chicago, but I'll try to get another update up PDQ.

I'm Not Dead (I'm in Pittsburgh)

Poor Pittsburgh. Apparently there is a dearth of songs written about this fair city; my only real option was this title by Frank Black, which is great if you're in the mood for some bitter pseudo-country alternative whining. That said...

Pittsburgh!




The stitch function on my camera leaves much to be desired in terms of assisting with constructing panoramic shots, but you get the idea. This composite was taken from the top of the Monongahela Incline, named for the river it overlooks, which is popularly shortened to "the Mon," smacking of a pleasant albeit deceptive Jamaican influence. The "incline" is actually a funicular (yay learning new words!), one of two built in the late 19th century to drag tired workers from the city back up to their homes on the hills that surround the peninsula and its rivers.

Riding the incline is a little creepy, as it is old and (at least from the bottom) appears to be fully automated. Which, in context of the oldness, makes it feel more haunted than anything else. And if I imagined that the immediate post-death experience consisted of a slow, grinding, somewhat rickety ascent from wherever you died, this is pretty much what I would envision. If you sit facing outwards towards the city, it does feel as though you are being taken up, if not into heaven, then at least into a place more exalted and deserving of the name "Mount Washington" than this hill overlooking the city. This New Hampshirite, for one, is offended.

I do have to admit, though, that this would make for pretty much one of the coolest commutes ever. It is still used for that by people who live on the hill, and this particular incline is under the auspices of Pittsburgh's Port Authority (going up is considered "outbound" from the city, for fare purposes).

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So much for the bird's eye view. Down in the streets, Pittsburgh is really - I like it, quite a lot, but I'm still trying to grasp it, if that makes sense. It's strangely familiar to me, having spent the last five years in Boston, but there are several crucial differences. For one thing, while it is a city, it is emphatically not a "big" city. I described it to Jen as feeling like a neighborhood of Boston, or maybe of New York, that had been taken out of the larger metropolis and isolated, so that you lack the undercurrent of busyness happening around and outside your own particular neighborhood. They call Boston a/the walking city, but in Pittsburgh you could walk from one end of the city to the other, and it would not only take less time, but you would get the sense of having seen everything that there is to see about the place. It seems disproportionately small to the population size as suggested by, say, the amount of public transportation.

The other strange feature of the place is the fact that it doesn't seem to belong where it is. Though it sits at the confluence of two major rivers (the Allegheny and Monongahela) and the origin of a third (the Ohio), you're never unaware of the fact that you are in the middle of an otherwise relatively inhospitable mountain range, because the hills surrounding the city and its rivers are visible from almost any point downtown, either embracing or menacing it, depending on your point of view.

At any rate, though, this is so far one of the prettiest downtown areas I've ever seen. If you walk down Liberty Avenue, which runs parallel to the northern edge of the peninsula and is approximately equidistant to both north and south shores, the other streets all intersect this main drag at acute angles, so the buildings growing up from them create these alleys that give the impression of being clean and intriguing rather than dangerous. There's a good deal of construction around the downtown area, but also plenty of signage laying out the renovation plans and - more importantly (take note, Boston) - the proposed completion dates of each project, so that Pittsburgh feels more like a city on the make than a city trapped in a perpetual mess of building and rebuilding.

There's a lot of green, as well, and an inordinate number of decorative landscaping installations that are just there for the sake of being there. The Heinz Hall Garden, for instance -

I heard the waterfall first, and when I saw the fence enclosing the place I assumed it would be a courtyard that was only accessible to patrons of a restaurant. But no - apparently it's just there for people to enjoy. What a novel concept.

This is the center of the downtown area and definitely one of the coolest sights of Pittsburgh (and I never thought to say/write that without tongue in cheek, but there it is): PPG Place, Pittsburgh's response to both Rockefeller Plaza and medieval castles.

It's basically impossible to photograph properly from the ground, but you can get the idea - the tall tower is the center of a six-building complex, all done in the same reflective glass, creating canyons between the buildings and an open courtyard space that are as aggressively modern as they are reminiscent of Romanesque architecture. During the summer, the courtyard boasts a fountain that kids (and non-kids) can cool off in; during the winter, the obelisk is covered by a tree and surrounded by a skating rink, à la Rockefeller. So, naturally, I visit when it's fenced off and full of dirt. Oh well.

A fake duck boat. I was full of rage. (Yeah, I know Boston's weren't the first, but I don't care.)

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Much more to come - this isn't even halfway through day one yet. For now, though, I'm wasting precious daylight hours.