Phipps – My Fulbright Experience

While I was studying in Pittsburgh this summer it was difficult to be away from home. My dad had recently passed away and sometimes I just wanted to be with family. Luckily my mom decided to come visit for a weekend. It was a nice change of pace. She got a hotel in Oakland and we stayed together. My mattress at school was like lying on a brick wall, so the hotel bed was much appreciated.

After torturing her by having her walk up the hill to my dorm so we could get some of my stuff, we set off to explore the city.

The night she arrived we had the very convenient hotel shuttle service take us over to Shadyside where we had dinner and margaritas at a nice Mexican place. After dinner and after quickly exhausting our shopping options we headed back to the hotel to catch up on some much needed sleep.

The next day we started off by visiting the Phipps Conservatory and walking through all the gardens there. They were having a “Glass in the Gardens” display this summer that we thought was pretty neat.

A glass sunflower at the entrance of the Phipps

One of the spinning pieces of glass art

The Cathedral of Learning!

Cool looking glass people “walking” through the garden

Smile!

The hanging glass artwork that reminded me of the Bushnell in Hartford, CT

Someone offered to take our picture

Then we decided to go downtown and see if we could find anything else to do. Instead we ended up going for a nice walk as was generally my experience in Pittsburgh. I would often go out in search of something to do and, with the exception of a few times I stumbled upon something unexpected, I would end up finding restaurants and shops closed up earlier and just walk my feet off.

Sitting downtown at what I call the “glass castle building”

Our one unexpected find at Point Park

People working on an amazing sand sculpture

On this particular weekend after having enough of the aimless walking, my mom and I decided to take a bus over to Station Square. There were a few little shops to look at and then we ended up meeting my friend from class for dinner. Although it was not quite what we expected (again) we were glad we went.

The fountains at Station Square

On Sunday, after a quick lunch at my favorite place to get salads, Hello Bistro, it was time for my mom to head to the airport. My mom is not the best traveler and she tends to get anxious about flying and dealing with airports. I was hoping this trip would go smoothly so I could encourage her to travel to Europe later this year to visit me, but of course she has the worst luck with traveling. Every time I fly, I walk right through security with no problems, barely any lines, and rarely encounter delays. For my mom that is not the case. She had a problem with the shuttle to the airport, multiple delays, and to top it off after finally getting home late at night, she got rather sick for the next few days.

Hopefully when she comes to Europe at Christmas, my brother will be her good-luck charm and anxiety-reducing travel-buddy.