Tag: Pittsburgh

When being a tourist is a good thing

I think most of us will agree that the word tourist has acquired a bit of a bitter aftertaste. Admittedly, I am as guilty as the next guy for striking down any notion of the idea that I might possibly enjoy being a tourist sometimes.  I’d actually probably rather stay home than get caught doing anything that could potentially be labeled as “touristy.” Far be it for anyone to catch me enjoying a nice Mexican lunch in Old Town, San Diego.  But why?  Where has this anti-tourist phenomenon come from?  How have we managed to self-inflict this somewhat silly stigma upon a relatively innocent word? 

Cervia, Italy

I opened up my iPad and looked up the definition of the word “tourist” in the dictionary.  The definition is short and sweet: “A person who is traveling or visiting a place for pleasure.” A wholesome and respectable definition if I’ve ever heard one.  But this makes the negative connotations of “touristy” even more perplexing, as by this definition, rejecting going somewhere touristy is essentially the same thing as rejecting the act of going somewhere for pleasure.

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But then I take a moment to think about touristy places, as in places bursting at the seams with tourists. Disneyland calls to mind.  Or Venice perhaps? And then my heart drops a little as I forget about the beautiful canals and bridges, and Main Street, and I am instead overwhelmed with images of hoards of people in t-shirts and sneakers. Not romantic.

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So ok, I get it now. Lots of tourists – not so great. But going back to the definition again, “…visiting a place for pleasure,” is pretty great. So, why wait until you get to Disneyland to be a tourist, where you do have to join hoards of thousands of other tourists in your pursuit of pleasure, when you can just do that at home?

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Once I went two years in San Diego without going to the beach a single time. Shameful, I know. My home is currently Bologna, Italy. Living abroad has bestowed on me an important gift – the opportunity (and excuse) to be a tourist in my own home, when I return to my previous homes in San Diego, Pittsburgh, and New York every summer.   In my pursuance of pleasure, I will be a tourist nearly 100% of the time when I return to America this summer. Without a set routine bogging me down anymore, I am free to pursue pleasure by seeking out those activities that not only define the city in the eyes of the world, but also those special activities that I have found that define the cities for me and me alone, like eating most of my meals at The Mission when I’m in San Diego, or having yogurt at the top of Bloomingdales in Manhattan.  And I also plan, without shame, to pursue those most stereotypical activities.  The first thing I want to do when I get to San Diego is go to the beach. In New York I’m counting the days until I get to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And in Pittsburgh, the incline.

San Marino, Italy

Which brings me to my most important point: what’s life without a little curiosity and fun? Don’t wait till you’re on vacation.

Illustrious Instants: Taking the Back Road

You know those instants when the beauty of a moment transcends your eyeballs and you are actually viscerally affected by the amazingess?


On this marvelous summer day, driving the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania about an hour and a half outside of Pittsburgh, I experienced one of those moments.  And I was so overtaken by the perfection of the world at this moment in time, that I pulled off the road and took a picture.


I only wanted to record the feeling that I was experiencing, somehow, and I was only shooting with my iPhone 3, so I wasn’t expecting anything special from the photos.  I was just optimistically striving to create a visual reminder to help me pull out this memory sometime in the future.


But, I guess the amazingness of the moment not only transcended my eyeballs, but it also transcended my iPhone.  By some miracle, this little butterfly entered my frame at the exact moment the shutter snapped.


I am so grateful that this instant was made immortal by this photo that lingers on in my life.  I love it dearly.  It now proudly represents my many trips up and down the Lincoln Highway, which to this day remains one of my favorite travel memories.


And a lesson learned – who needs the Turnpike?  Slow down and take the back way.  There’s probably a butterfly or two waiting for you…

Crossing America – The First Time

There is nothing like a cross-country road-trip to capture the spirit of being an American. While cliché, there is truth to what they say – the freedom of nothing but you, your car, an open road, and infinite possibilities ahead of you somehow defines us as Americans in a way. Our life, our freedom, and a million ways to go. What do we choose?

In this case, I chose to drive from San Diego, CA to Pittsburgh, PA. The road-trip was a cathartic experience, as I left my life in San Diego – family, friends, loved ones – in order to make the transition to Pittsburgh for a graduate program at Carnegie Mellon. With each new day on the road, I slowly but surely lifted out of the funk that had overtaken my life, working in administration in San Diego for years before I made the big decision to plunge into graduate school on the other side of the United States.  The challenge of the logistics on the road and the surprises that seemed to come with every turn were exactly what I needed.  My dad always gently reminded me that change and new environments bring new ideas. Now I finally see what he’s talking about. I guess if you agree that we are all in a constant state of evolution, this trip definitely sped up my process just a tad.

I hope you’ll have a chance to do one of your own, soon…

To help out your planning process, here’s an interactive map of our route complete with photos mapped along the way, as well as a google map with our exact destinations plotted.

ITINERARY
I revolved many of our stops around friends and major landmarks

Day 1: Las Vegas, NV
Day 2: Zion National Park, UT
Day 3: Best Friends Animal SanctuaryKanab, UT
Day 4: Denver and Boulder, CO
Day 5: Rocky National Park – Estes Park, CO
Day 6: Mount Rushmore – Keystone, SD
Day 7: Iowa City, IA
Day 8: Chicago, IL
Day 9: Chicago, IL
Day 10: Pittsburgh, PA

Favorite Day of the Trip: Our day in Denver and Boulder, CO. Both cities were beautiful and dynamic, full of great things to see and explore, great food, great beer, and a nice vibe. I want to go back.

Most Random Experience: On the way out of South Dakota we ran into the Sturgis Festival. I don’t think I will ever see so many motorcycles in one place again.

Favorite State: Utah. Unbelievably beautiful.

Best Meal: Chicago deep dish pizza with my great friend Tracy, of course.

Biggest Surprise: Iowa! Iowa was a really dynamic state, full of universities and cool people. My friends live in Iowa City where we visited them. The city architecture was interesting, the food was great, and we loved our stroll around town with them.

This photo gallery of my fave pics from the trip can be plotted on an interactive map of our route by clicking here.

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