Only having been to campus in April and on Friday to get my ID card, I figured it was worth going back to campus to truly get my bearings on the campus since I didn't really have a chance to do that when getting my ID card. The big issue with this trip was planning my route. I knew (relatively) where the campus was in proximity to both my apartment and the Mellon Institute (which is off the main campus and where the graduate chemistry department is located), so I tried to find a bus that would take me there. Turns out that there is no direct bus route to the campus from where I am, which is disappointing. So my only real option via transit is to take a bus almost to the Mellon Institute and then walk, which really isn't that big of a deal, but it's very warm out and it's uphill (not both ways :P).
So, I did that and when I got to campus, I was quite surprised to find next to nobody there. Then again, it was Sunday and the undergrads are not there yet, so I really shouldn't have been surprised. I made an effort to see all the buildings that were science-related or music-related or were a student common area. So, first off I visited the University Center, which is basically the "student union building" and gym/pool all in one. It's really a big place. There's a fairly large common area for sitting with a couple TVs along with a few web stations. Beyond this area is the racquetball courts and the gym and the pool. I couldn't see the pool because to do that I would have had to go through the locker room. Upstairs is more lounging area, the fitness center and a bunch of meeting rooms and some food establishments, none of which were open.
Exiting that building I went over to find Doherty Hall where I would be attending the undergraduate class that I will be TAing for. I quickly got lost (which I learned later is not hard) and thought the building was smaller than it looked on the outside. Giving up on that endeavor, I decided to find the CFA (College of Fine Arts) which I discovered was completely separate from the School of Drama and in a different building. I did find the building though and upon entering, it bore a striking resemblance to an old European church. Even the way you entered through the main doors and then entered this small Plexiglas room where you exit into the main building on the left and right mimicked the European churches. Noting this, I looked up and there was art all over the ceiling. It was fantastic. I noted that this building also housed the School of Architecture and I believe the School of Visual Arts as well. It was really cool! Anyways, I walked around the building for a while, looking at all the rooms and where things were. It's a pretty big building, but I think that I missed the practice rooms. The door might have been locked.
Anyways, I left the CFA and then went to Wean Hall where I will be teaching my recitation session (about which I'm thrilled...). The building is 8 floors and so I decided that it would be worth my while to see what was on each floor. Found out there was physics, math, CS and the Institute for Software Development. So, another "science" building.
At this point I was a bit "toured out" and finding myself at the opposite end of campus, I attempted to take a shortcut back to the bus stop. I didn't quite end up where I wanted to go since the road that I thought I was going to take actually ran under the road I was on. I ended up back at the Mellon Institute though and caught the bus home successfully.
Got back and went to bed early since the day would start early with an 8:45 breakfast.
Info on my first few days to come! I swear I'll catch up at some point.
Well, I can't say that my first weekend "on my own" was particularly eventful. That Friday night, I decided that I didn't really want to do anything, so I started putting together the bookshelf that I bought, which is the last piece of furniture I needed to set up. I built it (except for nailing in the back piece since it was late and I didn't want to disturb the neighbors) and then proceeded to try and figure out where to put it.
Having very limited space, I had only a few options of what to do with it. I tried putting it next to the bed, but as it turns out, I don't have that much space along that wall. So right now, it is temporarily sitting at the end of my bed, awaiting a permanent spot. Mostly it's just awaiting me getting rid of the empty boxes which line the wall where I'm planning on putting it. Over the weekend I emptied these boxes of most of their contents and set things up like my printer and my desktop computer. There are still a few odds and ends that need to be placed (like most of my "sentimental crap" as I deemed it). The sentimental stuff is going to be hard to find a place for, especially if it needs to hang up because I'm not allowed to use thumbtacks. So, it will be an interesting endeavor.
On Saturday though, I went on my first PA adventure. Armed with my new phone (T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide) with Google Maps, my bus number and my CMU ID card, I set off to find Island Inkjet, which is on the way downtown. I discovered that I needed to get printer ink in order for any of the functionality on my printer to work (like the scanner!) so I was off to hopefully spend less money than buying a new Canon cartridge. I walk down the street toward the main intersection where I would be catching the bus. Now mind you, this intersection is quite convoluted. Where my road ends, there is a 5-way intersection with no crosswalk lights, so I have to use my common sense to guess when to go. I guessed wrong the first time and ended up running across in order to avoid the cars turning left. Two hundred feet down the road is another hugely busy intersection, fortunately this one is only 4-way. This is where I was supposed to catch the bus. I crossed the street one way, thinking it would be across the street. Then I looked back and saw the bus stop covered area and had to cross back...and of course, as I am doing this, I see my bus coming so I book it.
Now, boarding the buses in Pittsburgh is a little tricky as you have to be aware of which way the bus is going in order to know when you have to pay for your ride. All buses inbound toward downtown you pay when you get on. Buses that are outbound you pay when you get off the bus, unless it's after 7 PM in which case you pay when you get on. Seems simple enough, but I was still worried. I flashed my ID card and got a nod and was on my way. I pulled out my phone to figure out where I was going and what stop I had to get off at. Fortunately I didn't have to request my stop, someone else did it for me.
I squeezed past and got off and then walked to where Island Inkjet was supposed to be, and I find an empty building. They're out of business. So, as a consolation gift to myself, I stop in at Caribou Coffee (which was ironically across the street from Starbucks) and get myself a 16oz iced dark chocolate mocha. When they asked me what kind of chocolate, I was a little confused. Apparently they have milk, dark and white. Crazy! Anyways, I planned my next move. I discovered that there was another "office supplies" store two blocks away. So I made for that store. This one road that I ended up walking down turned out to be an alley and it was super sketch, even in the day time. There was a homeless guy and some other sketchy businesses. I walked fast. Anyways, I find the place and it is also out of business. So after consulting my phone again, I make for the bus stop and I board the bus toward Staples.
This bus trip was kind of interesting. I have never seen anything like this back at home, but the road we were traveling on was a one-way street, four lanes. However the far left lane was a transit only lane going in the opposite direction. It kinda tripped me out, but it's smart. Anyways, I went to Staples, got my Canon-brand expensive ink and decided that I would stop in at the pet store and look at the creatures. I saw dogs and fish and guinea pigs and some birds. The birds made me miss mine at home. One of the cockatiels was very vocal (definitely a boy).
I hopped on the bus back home and proceeded to sit in front of my air conditioner. It's so warm here.
So that was my first adventure.
The next morning we had to wake up quite early, since the installer from Verizon was scheduled to show up sometime between 8 AM and noon. Oh joy...so we got up and got showered. Then we started to build some more furniture to pass the time. The Verizon guy showed up, took about 20 minutes to look around and make some phone calls and then comes back only to tell me that my property management company does not want him to put fiber lines into the building yet for the internet and TV. They don't want any of that going in until the construction is near complete, which won't be until September sometime.
I'm miffed and so I call Verizon to set up an order for DSL (much to my displeasure). As I am calling them and responding to their automated system, I keep getting redirected to a message telling me that my new telecommunications company is Frontier. I know that this isn't right because that only happened in Washington. So I keep calling for at least half an hour, trying various options on the system and even calling Frontier. I deduce that it must be my 425 area code that is throwing off the system and causing them to think that I am calling from Washington. So I tried calling from my 509 number, hoping that might work. No dice. So, at this point I am beyond angry with them. I spend ten dollars to get my 509 phone number changed to a 412 number. I call them again and sure enough, I'm talking to a rep in 45 seconds. That is crap.
What's even more ironic is that after all that effort, I end up calling this door-to-door salesman who stopped by my place with a flyer for Comcast and got him to come back and give me a really great deal on internet and TV. So I canceled the Verizon order and went with Comcast.
The rest of the day involved Dad and I going to a different Wal-Mart and shopping for all the consumable household items like soaps and other things like that. We also got some more groceries. We also stopped into the local chain called Giant Eagle for some more groceries, like produce and the like.
Friday comes. This is Dad's day to leave. We go down to the CMU campus and look around and me, still being very unfamiliar with the campus, isn't quite sure where to go. I managed to find the info desk and I asked them where to get my ID card. After being kindly directed, I went and got my ID card (which was free, to my surprise). Then Dad checked in online for his flight and drove me back to the apartment. At this point, I helped him clean out the car and pack his things in the car. We said goodbye and I watched him drive off, on his way to the airport.
I went back into my room and just kind of took it all in, sulking a little bit. I didn't do much the rest of the evening besides be on the computer. I wasn't motivated to do much else.
But don't worry, I got out that weekend a little bit.
The Pittsburgh airport is not in Pittsburgh, oddly enough, or at least it's not in the city limits. It's about 20-25 miles west of downtown, so the drive from the airport was not terribly short, especially compounded with the fact that there was a crazy amount of traffic. This was my second exposure to Pittsburgh drivers, but my first time in a car with a non-"Burgher" driving. And man, let me tell you, it was a little nerve-wracking.
Drivers are far more aggressive there than they are in Washington. They will not be afraid to force their way into traffic. They also tend to hog the intersection instead of leaving space for other cars that need to turn. That isn't always the case, but it seemed to happen more often than it does at home. Also, the traffic lights don't switch from red to green as fast as they do in Washington, so PA drivers take advantage of this and they will not be afraid to go through the intersection at the tail end of the yellow and even into the red. And there aren't any traffic cameras so they don't really have a lot to be afraid of. Also, stopped drivers are very impatient and when they see that a light is going to turn green, they will often jump the gun and start rolling through the intersection before the light changes on their side. The same goes with pedestrians waiting to cross. It's nuts! And actually, that's really the best way to describe a PA driver: impatient. They don't even give you a second if you don't step on the gas right away after the light turns green. They'll honk at you to go. Another oddity is that almost everywhere you go, there are signs that forbid you from turning right on red. I haven't quite figured out why, but I assume it's because there are a lot of pedestrians and this way you keep people safe and probably reduce congestion.
Dad and I went and got my keys and after having to call them to figure out where they were (their office apparently is within an apartment complex...?) and getting nervous at the question, "Did you pay your security deposit?" when the answer was yes and she didn't have record of it. Fortunately, the other woman working there did have it on file, which is good because someone cashed the check!
We stopped by the apartment to check it out, only to meet the construction crew. They were nice enough and they let us go in and see the apartment, which was getting the last clean-up done before it would be ready for move in. I knew it was going to be small, but wow, it is pretty small indeed. I mean, it's a good size for a studio, but it's still not that big! I will post pictures later on. I'm holding off until I get all the boxes and stuff cleared away (which I have almost completed!). Dad and I decided to wait off on bringing stuff to the apartment until they had completely vacated the room.
At this point, both of us are exhausted so we decided to go see if the hotel would let us check in early. By some stroke of luck, they did and we both crashed for at least 4 hours. It was much needed.
After that much needed nap, we spent the evening at Costco surveying their TV and office chair selection and purchasing a mattress and frame for me, which we strapped to the roof of our Ford Fusion. And...it starts raining. Fortunately we are able to roll up the windows. Unfortunately that doesn't matter because the straps are pushing on the weatherstripping in the car door, making it ineffective and causing the rain to leak all over me (but somehow not Dad) during our 20 minute car ride back to the apartment. I was not amused.
We sleep in the hotel. We go shopping the next day. Today's priorities are a box spring and the major furniture that I would be needing. Our search for a box spring took us to Ross Township which was about nine miles north of downtown on the freeway. We managed to get a cheap (in quality and in price) box spring and strapped that to our roof. Fortunately, no rain this time. However, we took every back-road and alley and sketchy byway in order to avoid the freeway. I think the GPS was just trying to mess with us. We got back though and didn't have to go over 40 mph.
Our trip for furniture took us in the complete opposite direction to West Mifflin, southeast of downtown. This is where the nearest Wal-Mart Superstore was located. We bought a desk/side cart, a futon and a TV stand and a bunch of other things on the list of things we needed to get, including all the housewares and appliances and things of that nature. I have no idea how we managed to fit it all in the car. We had to take some stuff out of the boxes in the parking lot in order to fit it all, but we did! And of course, bring on the thunderstorm! There were HUGE bolts of lightning going across the sky, nothing like I'd seen before, really. It was beautiful, deafening and scary all at once. Dad was afraid we'd get hit, so we booked it out of there and got back to the apartment to unload everything. Then we turned right around and went back to Costco and bought a TV and office chair and some food items. We got back, unloaded and started to put the furniture together.
The furniture building process was not the easiest when you needed a screwdriver, which we did not have. However, we made do with the end of one of the butter knives that I had just purchased. We got at least the futon together and then we went to sleep...not very well, but still we attempted to sleep.
What a day! I'm finally "moved in" to the apartment.
Note: I'm going to divide up the past week into several entries to make my life easier to digest since this post is already becoming very long.
First off, if you are happening on this blog and don't know who I am, my name is Christian and I recently moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from the state of Washington to attend graduate school in chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. This blog is basically just a place for my friends and family to keep tabs on me as I adjust to this new place and begin to experience it.
My journey starts with my trip back home to Snohomish, WA. Having just graduated from Whitworth University in Spokane, WA, I had stayed around Spokane working at the Spokane campus of Washington State University. For about 7 weeks out of the summer I worked as a research assistant in the WSU College of Pharmacy lab I had worked at during the previous summer at the main WSU campus in Pullman. For the couple weeks prior to my "move-out day," I had been scrambling to finalize a lot of details in regard to my move out east, including finding an apartment, booking flights, the rental car and hotel room and of course, packing up all my things in my room and trying to remember everything that I owned in the house in Spokane.
Of course all the while, I was desperately trying to meet up with as many of my Spokane-dwelling friends as possible in order to say goodbye. This was one of the hardest things for me to do. There were a lot of hugs, a few tears, and more emotion than I thought I could handle. To all of you whom I got to see, it was beyond meaningful to me to see you again and to say goodbye. To everyone else, I'm sorry we didn't get to see each other and I hope that we can see each other again at some juncture.
The day came and I loaded my things into my parents' truck and the car, said goodbye to my housemates and just like that I was on my way home. Caravaning across Eastern Washington is not the most exciting thing in the world, but it had become a regular thing having gone to school on the east side for four years, but this is the last time that I would do it for a while.
Arriving home, I dwelled on all that I had just experienced and all that I had to look forward to come nine days from then...as well as all the things that I had to get done in between! Those nine days were again full of packing and figuring out logistics. It was also full of saying goodbye to friends on the west side that I would be missing terribly. I also got to see my siblings and their families as well.
The day came. I got the last of my things into my suitcases, set off to say goodbye to Kristin and Jonathan and then raced back home to say goodbye to my mother and to drive over to the airport with my dad. At this point, we were quite a bit behind schedule. I was biting my nails the whole time we were driving around Sea-Tac (getting lost and turned around going to the parking garage thanks to the GPS) and while we were on the shuttle to the airport. We ran to the check-in counter, which thankfully had no line, checked our bags and bolted to security. Thankfully, I've been on a few airplanes in my life to I was familiar with all the TSA procedures so we got everything checked and we got through security faster than we expected and got to our gate (which happened to be at the very end of the concourse, lucky us) with ten minutes or so to spare before boarding.
The flight over was pretty uneventful, which is good, but unfortunately for me and my dad, neither of us slept much on the 3.5 hour flight from Seattle to Milwaukee, even though we had upgraded to business class and had comfy seats and a free cocktail. Since the flight left at 11:55pm, we were hoping to catch at least a few Zs. We landed in Milwaukee just as the sun was rising and it was a gorgeous sight. I wish I had had my camera. After an somewhat unappetizing breakfast, we boarded the plane to Pittsburgh and took off at around 7:50am. This time we were in a tiny airplane and we were both practically sitting on each other. It was most unpleasant. We landed at around 10:15am and claim our luggage and go to retrieve the rental car. We step outside and the humidity hits us like a ton of bricks. Yuck. We quickly locate the car and blast the air conditioning. I plug in the GPS, point it to the address of my property manager and we are on our way.
I'm going to stop this post here and you can continue reading in the next entry!
