Pittsburgh - Day 1

Well May came and went. I did a lot of stuff, but haven't been able to finish a single post. But in my defense, you don't write this blog, so shut up. So in an effort to keep this blog somewhat current, I'm starting with the latest May activities, and I'll have to fill in the earlier stuff at a later time as "retro" blog posts.

Last weekend, Kelsey and I met in Pittsburgh for a wedding. We decided to extend our trip a couple days beyond the wedding since we were both taking the time to fly in. We (I) arranged our flights to arrive as close as possible, so we were able to share a cab ride from the airport to our hotel downtown. There we met Kelsey's co-BFF, Stacy, and her husband, Brian, with whom we would be attending the Pirates game later, and generally spending the weekend... once Kelsey and Stacy stopped shrieking and hopping and hugging.

Hungry before the game and preferring not to get gouged by ballpark food prices (even though we would later anyway), we walked over to Primanti Brothers, whose gimmick seems to be "a meal in a sandwich." Ultimately what this means is that they put what would normally be considered "sides" in the between the bread. Interesting, to be sure.

bff's

The ballpark was just a ten minute walk from there, across the river. A very cool thing about Pirates games is that the bridge between downtown and the ballpark is shut down for motorists to allow game-goers to walk across. PNC Park is one of the newer fields in the league and is now ranked annually as one of the best places to experience a MLB game. I'm assuming this is based solely on the aesthetics and features of the park and not the actual play of the Pirates. The best evidence of this being that our $25 tickets were about 15 rows from the field between home and first.

over the river and to the game

the cheap seats

The game was great fun (Braves won handily), highlighted by two Jumbotron appearances: Kelsey and Stacy dancing between innings, and Brian and Stacy on the Kiss Cam. Also some dude may or may not have one a sweet Andy Van Slyke jersey, so that's pretty cool.

jumbotron!

kiss cam!

After the game we met some other wedding goers and Kelsey ordered one of the strangest pizzas I've ever had. Then back to the hotel to rest up for the next day's wedding festivities.

More pics.