Pittsburgh

So, what does Pittsburgh look like? It's a lot like Cleveland. You can tell that these were both big, booming manufacturing towns that flourished in the early twentieth century. They also both suffer from the same perpetual overcast skies.

Pittsburgh had a lot of money at one point (much of it from Andrew Carnegie) and a good portion went to educational endeavors. This explains my visit to the Cathedral of Learning, an enormous 42-story building that is a cross between a Gothic Cathedral and a skyscraper.

The inside really does look like a cathedral, although instead of singing hymns, you have study hall there. It looks like great fun to study here, except that tourists are always walking by, talking loudly.

Several dozen rooms in the Cathedral are classrooms. Each one is sponsored by one ethnic group of Philadelphia. (Except the Latin American room, which is sad. Wales, which is not even a independent country, gets its own classroom. But the entire continents-spanning regian of Latin America has to cram into one room.)

To the left, you can see a typical example: the Greek room, with marble facings, a decorated ceiling, and my friend M (she's not a permanent feature of the Greek room.)

We also spent some time food shopping at small ethnic stores, so I could stock up on things that are difficult to find in Miami. High quality Asian groceries are hard to find, which explains the nori and bean curd skin knots. Varieties of looseleaf tea are rather rare, which I attribute to the preponderance of Cuban coffee.

(Cathedral of Learning exterior photo by Piotrus)