Life in Pittsburgh

We have lived in Pittsburgh just over two months, we are both really liking it.

Pittsburgh is a quirky city. It is divided up into neighborhoods that have their own distinct personalities.

We live in Friendship.  It's little, so good luck finding it on the map.  It's above Shadyside.  Friendship is mostly old Victorian homes that have been split up into apartments.  Most of the neighborhoods have their own shopping areas, but Friendship is small and really close to other shopping centers, so we don't have one. Bloomfield is close to us and almost everyone is Irish, in Squirrel Hill there are a lot of Jewish people, East Liberty is low income housing and there are a lot of African Americans there.  Oakland is full of undergraduate students.  Most of our ward lives in Morningside where there are fairly cheap houses. It is very divided and a lot of times you can tell when you are in a new neighborhood because the houses or buildings change.

The roads are crazy.  They used to be old horse trails and go all sorts of directions.  Sometimes you will be going one direction and the road will change direction with out you knowing it and you will end up somewhere completely different.  There are a lot of one way roads so you can't always go where you want.  Also you could be driving on a road for a few miles and it's name changes five times.  It's very confusing.  But I can easily get to the church, Andrew's school, the grocery store, the doctor's office, and Morningside (where most of our ward is).  

Everyone here loves the Steelers

I flew here from Utah on a Sunday when the Steelers played.  Half of the people on the flight home and in the airport had on Steelers clothes and hats.  They also take popular songs and change the words so they are now Steelers songs.  Everyone here loves the Penguins also, they play hockey and apparently they are pretty good.  The baseball team is awful though, the Pirates just finished their 19th losing season in a row, that is more consecutive losing seasons than any other professional sports team (any sport), ever.  Sports are kind of a big deal here. 

I feel like I'm getting used to living in a big city and I am liking it so far.  The internet and the church make moving to a new place significantly easier.  It is nice to know that we can refer to the internet and find anything that we need.  And our ward is so great.  We've made friends quickly and there are a lot of people looking out for us.  

We've been able to do a lot of new thing and have new experiences.  We are having a good time and learning lots.  Andrew has been swamped with school lately, it's been kind of hard but he is learning a lot.  

While Andrew's been gone I have been making a new quilt for my sister, reading, cooking, going to institute, and watching movies.  

Here are some pictures of stuff we've been doing lately that isn't school.

Pittsburgh at night

Alyna came to visit us.  We didn't take so many pictures, but we had fun.

We went to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History one day
Here's a dinosaur 

This is me in the minerals, it was probably my favorite part of the Natural History Museum

We also went to the Carnegie Art Museum --
 I'm trying to figure out this modern art -- No Luck

A lady in our ward is teaching a photography class and we decided to go,
it was fun and I learned a lot

Us being models for photography class

We are having fun.  Our car is still getting fixed.  We were supposed to pick it up on Thursday, but they didn't fix the alarm system.  But the body work they did looks great.  Hopefully they will be able to fix it soon, without having to take it to the Nissan dealership.  But I am still liking the rental car.