Pittsburgh & Cleveland

As it turns out, Pittsburgh and Cleveland are pretty quiet places. Pittsburgh, is just literally a financial centre (after it lost its major industry of steel, it swapped to finance quickfast in order to keep the money flowing in). It was a nice place though, despite the lack of excitement. Lots of trees, nice bridges, and a nice looking financial district (as you kind of assume). So during our time in Pittsburgh we decided to relax after our 2-days of walking 15km plus in DC, and take it easy. First we went to a pet expo. Lucky enough for Lauren, it was the last day it was on, so we decided to check it out. And it was worth it. Notably, there was a competition where dogs had to run down a platform and jump the furthest into a pool of water, and just seeing that was totally worth it (scroll down for a photo).

After checking out the expo, we swore to devote our time in Pittsburgh to relaxing in preparation of the places yet to come. So what do you do when you take it easy or relax? Yes your right, you see a movie... or two. As it turned out, we went to see a movie (and yes we did see the sights of the city, it literally took about 20 minutes in total), Bad Grandpa to be specific, and it was really good, and nice and relaxing, just what we wanted. So after the movie finished, we were still a little bit tired, and didn't feel up to walking the 20 minutes to dinner. So we bought another 2 tickets and saw another movie, Last vegas, which was also very good. The rest of the time was history, so scroll through the photos and have a look.

This is what happens when you have 3/4 days of 5am wakeups when your on holiday (and most bus journeys between 3-6 hours). She goes Crazy.

The neighbourhood we were staying around in Pittsburgh.

 

This is a really good snapshot of Pittsburgh as it turned out (above). Plenty of nice bridges, big financial buildings on the left and sports stadiums on the right. So in sum, what is Pittsburgh all about? Finance, bridges and sports.


This is a photo of the dogs jumping into the pool as described above. If you look carefully the dog is the little blur in the middle of the screen, but what helps is that this particular dog had a yellow jumper on which made it a little easier to see.. This was so entertaining that we watched it for nearly an hour.

A good example of a city with a little bit too much money. They could have built a normal financial building, but no, they instead thought to shape this particular one like a glass castle. I'll give them points for creativity, but deduct for its lack of necessity.



At the time this was some of the best food we had eaten since being in the US, but funnily enough soon to be toppled two days later by the amazing Slows Bar BQ, but more on that later.

This was the cheesecake factory. And to our shock, it doesn't just sell cheesecake, it does full on meals (revelation).

The cinema in which we enjoyed our 2 movies, and what made it even better was the fact that it was bargain Monday (I know it doesn't sound right) so tickets only cost $6 each!

For dinner we went to Fatheads which was soo good. This is pretty much half of the menu, there was way to much good stuff to choose from.

 

Moving on to Cleveland, because we only spent one full day there, we did the necessary and moved on. That particular necessary was indeed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And I guess your wondering also, 'why is the rock and roll hall of fame in Cleveland?', well they just decided they wanted it. Simple as that.

 

Above is the oldest indoor shopping mall in the US. Today, if you look closely, it serves as guest rooms for the hyatt. Pretty cool huh!

One of the main and only tourist attractions in Cleveland is the Rock "n" Roll Hall of Fame.

The hall of fame was so huge that we spent just over 4 hours walking around and looking at all the exhibits. If we weren't so tired we would have probably spent more time.

One of the coolest exhibits was the Elvis exhibit. It had heaps of his old clothes etc.

One of Elvis's old suits.

Michael Jackson's glove and outfits.

The most nastiest microwaved "tator tots and chicken nuggets" ever!

 

This photo is for Jacob and Sam, it was a whole bunch of equipment Skrillex used to make the horrible sounds he does.

Frozen hot chocolate!

Our one night in Cleveland was spent with the best air bnb host we have had so far, Bobbie. She was incredibly friendly and accommodating so much so that she took us to and from the bus, cooked us a delicious dinner and looked after our bags while we went exploring. This is the first time in a while that we have feel as though we were at a relatives house, it was just fantastic.We can't express how thankful we are to how Bobbie looked after us, it was an experience in itself.
Anyway above is her cat Nomey, who was incredibly cheeky. He would lure Kristian into a false sense of security by being all cute then all of a sudden launch and attack him. We have some videos and trust me it was hilarious.

This is Bobbi's dog Andy. He was just adorable and made us miss Jaxy even more than we do now.

So that was Pittsburgh and Cleveland, pretty chill and laid back, and thankfully so, because our next destination was Detroit. Detroit was one of the most interesting, devastating and thought inducing cities we have ever visited. One that will stay with us likely forever. Photo's will come in the next couple of days.

So until then, we hope everyone is well and we will talk soon.
Kristian & Lauren.