Puttin' Around Pittsburgh (by myself)

Pittsburgh and Me

I went to a conference in Pittsburgh a couple weeks ago.  I can't honestly say that I had ever yearned to see Pittsburgh, but I liked it. Pittsburgh is all about museums and rivers, so what's not to like? The opening "networking event" was hors d'oeuvres at the Andy Warhol Museum, which was a big improvement over the usual networking event at these sorts of conferences, hors d'oeuvres in a boring hotel lobby.  The bold narcissism of Andy Warhol inspired me to document my post-workday tourism with a series of self-portraits.

Andy Warhol Museum
When I took the first self-portrait, I hadn't exactly gotten the knack of it yet.  Still, you can see part of me and part of the the boring facade of the Warhol museum in the background.  The museum is much more interesting from the inside, but photographs aren't allowed in there.

Market Square
Old cobblestone squares are virtually absent from my hometown, so I had to get a photo here.

Fort Pitt
Remember all that exciting info about the French and Indian War from high school history?  I didn't, either.

Point Park
Fort Pitt resides in a pretty park located where two rivers meet, hence the name.  The day before I arrived in town, there was a big festival there.  The fish sculpture made of aluminum cans was left over from the festival.

Duquesne Incline
Okay, this one isn't actually a self-portrait.  I figured, "Were' trapped in a tiny box, ascending a very steep cliff, so what is the likelihood that the kind stranger offering to take my photo is going to run off with my camera?"

Top of the Lift
People go up the Duquesne Lift for this view and the opportunity to bask in the ambiance of 1877 travel.  As far as I can tell, there isn't any other reason to go up there.

Duquesne University Colloquium
On the bus from the airport, all of my fellow passengers were musically-gifted Catholics on their way to a colloquium. The person sitting across from me was apparently some sort of rock star in the colloquium world, and everyone was thrilled to meet him and peppered him with questions.  The other passengers invited me to attend a mass, so after the conference, I stopped in and listened for half an hour. It was pretty. Chants lack harmony of course, but the way the sound bounced around the cathedral it seemed to harmonize with itself.