I ended up going to sleep at 3am. It was funny to see my family dead on the beds. My parents forgot the lights on while my brothers did not even know that they could use some blankets. I could tell they were freezing because they were sticking really close to feel some body warmth. I picked up some blankets and put them on my bros.
My family woke up way earlier than me, so when I did too everyone had breakfast and took a shower already. I wonder if I look like a lazy person who does nothing to my brother. He always complains about that at home, though it is not true. He says that because I rarely help cooking. I mean, when I do they tell me no, so what the h word!
I prepared some oatmeal, but I ended up putting too much water, so I added a serving. I got used to having oatmeal and I keep doing it now because it is rich in fiber and I really hope it really gives me more energy than the cereals. I put some crunchy peanut butter, slices of apple and peach yogurt. At first it was too sweet, but after I mixed it well I enjoyed it. I thought I could have never finished it because I cooked two servings, but I actually did.
Washroom stop, shower, brushed my teeth and we were ready to go. As usual we cleaned everything because it is polite, but in reality it is because it is in our DNA. What a racist. But I guess one can make jokes about his own nationality.
The bus stop was really close, so we did not have to walk that much with all the luggage. I explained my brothers what is a backstreet because we have so many reference to them, but we never really understood the meaning. Genzl ended up flossing in the middle of a backstreet before getting onto the bus.
This time the ticket machine worked, so we actually paid our fare. It is okay, I mean, we already saved at least thirty dollars thanks to broken machines on the bus.
So we got off and decided the plan of action. We thought that going to the Steelers’ stadium first would have been the smartest route so we headed to one of the many bridges in town to cross from downtown to the stadium area. I call it like that because the Heinz Field Arena and the Pirates’ stadium are really close.
When we were across the bridge we took so many pictures of the stadium and the bridge itself. I could notice a lot of locks all over the bridge but I did not feel like I usually do. In fact, I would usually feel like “I want a girlfriend right now”, but I just found it cute and it reminded me of my adventures in Paris. Did you know that I got blocked at Charles de Gaulle because the steward thought that I was not the person in the picture? Lot of laugh.
Across the bridge, we took many pictures of the statue in front of the entrance. We met an old man that tried to took the picture of us but could not, so his wife did. We talked a little bit and he told us that he was color blind. Moreover, he had been to many places during his military days and I was really inspired by the kind words of the man. Many people would become numb after seeing what a human can do to another human. He did see it many many times, over and over again, but he kept his kindness and called his president an “a” word. I wanted to write the exact word, but I will go for the politically correct for now.
Done with the pictures, Gabe decided to go to the Andy Warhol museum first because it was already super close. So we walked around five minutes and entered this building. The inside was very cool and had a cafè where my parents could rest while me and my brothers visited the exhibition.
There was one Korean girl who bought a ticket before us. I hurried my family to buy ours so that we could walk closer to her. You may be thinking that I am desperate or a jackal, but honestly what is beautiful is beautiful and I do not mind admitting that I enjoy watching something beautiful. I really liked her clothing style and made me think about how Koreans are always so on point with their clothes, while I try (sometimes) but I always end up looking so plain or completely uncool.
The staff member at the desk gave us a discount because Genzl was still twelve, plus me and Gabe are both university students though I already graduated technically. She also recommended us to start from the 7th floor and come all the way down because we would have been able to follow Andy’s biography in that way and see his works in the correct order.
We took an elevator to get to the 7th floor and started our personal tour. I admit I enjoyed it more than I expected. Warhol was not just a painter but so much more. He also made advertisements and sculptures before he turned to photography and film-making later on his career. What impressed me the most is that his family really encouraged him to follow his artistic interests and though he failed many times when he first enrolled to University, he kept improving steadily to become one of the most influential people in the modern world. His elephant sculpture and the skull paintings were the coolest things I saw in my opinion, though my favorite art was from one of his co-worker/assistant. It was a blue painting that really looked like an iris and a black hole at the same time. You know when in the movies you see someone staring at a painting and you always wonder why they take so much time watching the same thing for minutes and minutes? Well, that was me with that painting. It just mesmerized me.
When we finished the visit we spent some time in the souvenir shop. There were really cool things to see and to buy. I ended up spending for unnecessary things like pins and magnets. I mean, I can always give the magnets to people so I am half guilty of spending for no reason. In fact, there was a “Girl Power” magnet that I bought for a friend who is always about that. There was also another one I wanted to give to another friend, but I think I will end up keeping it. Moreover, I bought two pins and they were really expensive. Why did I do that? I do not know. Maybe after all the days at the camp where I did not spend anything, it was okay to spend a little bit.
Allegheny park became our next destination. It was already lunch time so we decided that my family would have had lunch there while I would have dashed to see the stadium. It was cool to just wander again without looking at Google maps. Going by instinct and orientation gives me a feeling of freedom. I just had to be back soon enough not to annoy my family.
I arrived at the stadium eating on the way and took some pictures. I walked around it to find a merchandising stand or store, but when I found it I did not see what I was looking for. The jersey were like a hundred bucks while they did not have any shorts. I like the Steelers but I am not a fan, so I passed.
On my way back I decided to take another route because I saw an under-bridge passage close to the park where my family was eating. Mathematically, I should have been able to find it if I would have kept walking along the bridge in the direction of the park. I found myself walking among people tail-gating so I thought that maybe I should have just gone back from the same way. But in the end I found the passage and saved a lot of time.
My family moved from the previous spot at the picnic table to avoid the dogs that were running free on the grass close to them. I found them by the little lake eating pumpkin seeds. The view from behind was actually pretty cute, but when I took a picture it just was not the same. I joined them and ate the rest of my lunch. I really like the crunchy peanut butter. Man, it is so good. If I actually find a bio and affordable version of it I will buy for sure.
We spent some time there just watching at the geese and the ducks. My family was amazed, but after Magnetawan I just could not enjoy the geese. Bad experience with goose poop I guess.
Dribbling the goose poop with our trolley, we headed to Randy Land next. I think that my parents did not really enjoy the day since they did not visit anything. In fact, when we got to Randy Land they just took few pictures inside even if it has no entrance fee.
Randy is a guy from Pittsburgh that decided to do something for his ill-famed neighborhood. He collected stuff from the streets and started painting the outside of his house with whatever came to his mind. Now his place is so colorful and full of sculptures he did by himself. His neighborhood resurrected and he became so popular that the newspaper wrote about him.
When we arrived he was talking about chasing dreams and the fact that so many people stop or do not even start doing it. Most of them use money as an excuse, but I think I can understand them since I come from a poor family and I always had hard times because of money. Sure, you can think outside of the box to spend less or to collect money, but in the end you need it somehow. However, I agree with him when he says that it should not stop us from chasing our goals and dreams. Man, it was inspiring and I need to get creative for my music’s sake.
One more thing he said is that he was never an artist to begin with, but with baby steps every single day, even him could actually “build” something like Randy Land, a place full of paintings, sculptures, drawings and original architecture. When I meet people like this I can not think about the many excuses I say to the others and myself whenever I do not move forward.
My dad was super tired and all the family agreed with him about their feet hurting. I guess it makes sense that I was the only one still energetic since I am the only one in the family who play sports and work out. Moreover, the trolley that my brother Genzl was strolling had a damaged wheel so I volunteered to just carry it instead of strolling it. We headed to the bus terminal to let my family rest, though we stopped at few shops where I wanted to buy some shorts. No luck, I could not find any.
To be honest, we actually stopped on the bridge a little bit to enjoy the baseball game. But I guess that the Pirates executives are smart because they planted lots of tall trees in the way from the bridge to the stadium. In this way people can not just stand on the bridge and watch the game like we were trying to do. We wanted to wait until the crowd would have roared for some kind of cool play, but we waited in vain.
We took a little detour in a Starbucks, but my parents did not want to stop there because they thought there was a pee smell in it, so we finally headed back to the bus terminal.
There were like four hours until our departure for Cleveland, so I went back to downtown on my own. I wandered inside different shops I liked. Man, if I were rich there would have been so many things that I wanted to buy.
At one point I found a nice cafè called Crazy Mocha, so I stopped by. It had a goat face as a logo, which is kind of unusual in my opinion. By the way, I had a mango smoothie and actually stayed there long because they had a wifi I could connect to. I mostly chatted with people and read the news, but when my phone was about to die I ordered two more smoothies (one mango, one strawberry) for my family and headed back. I felt so good because I gave a big tip. And I love tipping the people big because it makes them so happy. As Fran said at the camp: “it is in giving that we can find happiness”. I think giving is part of loving and that is why we feel better whenever we give without expecting something in return. So different from my parents that would not tip anyone if they could. Unfortunately for them, they have to but I guess it is a cultural thing more than a greedy one since I know them well enough to say that they are kind people. To other Filipino people and the church at least.
My family did not like the strawberry smoothie, so I ended up finishing it. It was not a problem for me since I love smoothie. In their real form it is just ice cubes and fruit. The ones sold downtown have sugar or something else added for sure, but I still like them.
Since everyone was bored, my mom and my brothers decided to walk to downtown to kill some time. I went with them and showed them a little nice shop with souvenir gifts made by the very people from Pittsburgh. The things were cool but we were trying to save as much money as we could, so we ended up not buying anything.
We walked further in downtown and bought some water and a slice of pizza before stopping at Burger King to buy dinner. We just had the deal meals, with Gabe having five tacos for five dollars. When we went back to the bus terminal and ate, my brother really regretted it because the tacos were so bad. Fortunately for him, my mom never finishes her meals. Or maybe she just pretend to be full to give food to her children when they are hungry. One of them, or maybe both.
At the bus terminal I remember I saw a guy who really looked like Jay Liggins, a body camp that the Eagles cut the day before. He really looked like him, plus he had a Philadelphia Eagles hoodie and hat. I found myself staring at him few times, so I wonder what he was thinking.
When we finally got on the bus, I told everyone to try staying awake so that we would have arrived tired enough to just sleep at the Cleveland AirBnb. In fact, after reading some reviews I was really concerned about the cleanliness of the place we were going to stay at. I shared those concerns with everyone, but we agreed on the fact that we could have survived in a house like that for one night. My only worry was not to annoy or bother my dad with this kind of stressful stays.
Even if I told everyone to stay awake, we all fell asleep somewhere along the way. I tried my best to stay awake and actually lasted three hours out of the four scheduled for the ride. I listened to my music, from the demo that I recorded at home to the instrumentals that I still need to work on and the songs I already finished. It gave me so much motivation to go back to Italy and work hard. But as I said, in the end I fell asleep too.
At the bus station we left my big luggage again. The girl at the desk was not really professional and she made me feel a little uncomfortable, but she was not rude. Luckily, Greyhound terminals always have wifi so we just took an Uber because the bus to the house was not working on Saturday nights.
Nice and smooth ride to the place. We checked in and it was not that bad. As soon as everyone settled down, we just went to sleep. The plan to stay there the least amount of time possible was still up because even if it was not as bad as we thought, it was not a place you would spend time relaxing and chilling.
Godyl Go! 