Hello,  Dear Readers!

Some of you know that I’ve recently made a big move!

Tucson will always be my home, but on Sunday I hopped on a flight to my new one: PITTSBURGH, PA!

What’s that, you say? Pittsburgh? Isn’t it, like…really cold there?

Ah, reader, how astute you are.

Yes. It does get really cold here. BUT it is also home to a marvelous university (a number of them, actually) called the University of Pittsburgh.

Oversized felines must be the name of my game, because I’m going from Wildcat territory to Panther country!

INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

So far, I’ve found Pittsburghians (?? Burghers, better yet) to be very friendly and helpful. Especially cashiers.

• Example: Had a whole conversation the other day with a Target employee about his son’s cell phone plan. It was also during this interaction that I began hypothesizing that Burghers tell Sara Button stories.* Perhaps I’m secretly a Yinzer after all.

Humidity is a thing here.

• Example: when your weather channel app says “66˚ outside, feels like 66˚,” it is LYING. Because it neglects to include the percent humidity. Which is more than zero, so I’m not used to that.

This is a sports town, and I can’t wait to sport Steelers colors and pretend everything I know about football is NOT from Remember the Titans.

• Example: The city buses say stuff like Go, Steelers on their marquees.

Fact: Bridges lit at night are magical.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS (so far)

1. Getting to Target and seeing the CART ESCALATOR nearly blew my mind. My confusion as to how to load my cart (it’s not that hard) prompted a nearby Target employee to watch me and say, “Let go, otherwise you’ll go up with it!”

2. The moving of the couch: My roomie and I decided to hit up a Goodwill in South Side for a couch. A sturdy (read: heavy) loveseat was purchased, and he and I waddled out with it to the car, me in my clogs silently praying I wouldn’t trip and die on the old upholstery.

Onto the roof it had to go, and as I tried to lift my end, a kindly employee (See? There are so many!) who was much more strapping than I came by to assist. I provided moral support to them as they got the couch onto the roof. To myself I provided similar moral support, but to start doing more arm strengthening exercises.

Roomie got it all strapped onto the roof. I helped by a) not watching him do the knots, b) tweeting about our creative, Clampett-esque setup, and c) catching rope and passing it back to him through the window. Furniture secure, we go to open the doors. Neither budge. We had tied the doors shut.

As they say, when the Lord closes a door, He opens a window. Which is what we climbed through to enter the car.

3. Perhaps most indicative of my preconceptions of Pittsburgh was this, though:

Upon arrival, I waited at the airport for Roomie. The sky looked stormy and there had been rain while landing. In other words, it looked cold out. Sitting by the baggage retrieval, I noticed I was getting goosebumps. I was wearing jeans and a khaki jacket, not the shorts and tank tops I was used to at home. My heart fell when I realized it had begun—the eternal winter. Only August and I was already cold.

Turned out, I was sitting below an A/C vent.

Anyhoo.

Look for continued posts here about finding adventure in my new town, as well as the continual backlog of posts from my Eurodaze. Don’t forget: for most up-to-date info, check Twitter and Instagram!

*For those of you unfamiliar.

Sara Button story: noun: an oral rendition of “events” or similar that has no semblance of traditional plot structure; is usually very uninteresting and leaves listeners with the question, “Is that it?” hanging on their lips.