Hoboken, NJ to Pittsburgh, PA
Our stay in Pittsburgh with friends, Tom and Jen, lasted a few days. This allowed us to do a few more touristy things and eat more (always very important).
On our first day, we slept through breakfast, having arrived on our kind hosts' doorstep at 2 am. After we all were up and about, we decided to grab lunch at a place called The Juice Box. (735 Copeland St.
Pittsburgh). Its a small place with smoothies, juices and wraps. Rumor is they do vegan waffles on Tuesdays and Sundays. I had a smoked tofu curry wrap that was quite good with a really lovely fresh fruit cup. The smoothies folks got were delicious also.
Then to our next destination: The Andy Warhol Museum.
This museum was a unique experience. Of the 12,000 works contained in the museum, I would venture to guess that over 40% had something to do with copulating or eliminating. No joke. I should say that I am not the biggest fan of popart. I have very
specific types of modern art that I favor. But he’s an artist of note and it was worth the price of admission.
I was mostly familiar with his more famous work; portraits, and reproductions of soup cans, so a lot of the fetured art took me by surprise. One exhibit called Silver Clouds, featured helium-filled balloons that moved with the aircurrents and you could play with them. It brought out some of the tongue in cheek humor, I thought. I learned a great deal in my short tour. Things I didn’t know: Andy Warhol was gay, had his own TV show, directed films and was shot (with one bullet through something like 5 organs) but survived.
After that intense exposure, we all needed something inherently soothing... cupcakes. We walked a bit to the Dozen Bakeshop (807 Liberty Ave), which offers a weekly calendar of cupcakes on special that features a different vegan cupcake everyday. I had a tasty vanilla cupcake with a buttercream lemon frosting. Brilliant.
Before heading back to our temporary home, we drove to The Duquesne Incline, a working museum that has provided rapid public transportation since 1877. It had beautiful views of the city and all of its fantastic bridges.
For dinner we decided to stay close to the house and grabbed some Thai from a familiar haunt of Jen and Tom's. Thai Cuisine (4625 Liberty Ave. Bloomsfield), did not disappoint. Although I ordered simple faire, fresh rolls and tofu satay with peanut sauce, it was really well prepared and our server was great!
