Return, Day 1

Driving stats~

Time: 4 hours, 20 minutes

Miles: 237

Stops made: None! Easy day for us :)

General mood: Excited

Weather: Overcast but fair, mild snow flurries

What a fun day for us! We made it to Pittsburgh and met up with some of J's family for lunch at a cute little Italian place called Il Pizzaiolo. His cousin got the house salad, J ordered some sort of appetizer that looked like mozzarella sticks but involved potato, and I started off with traditional wedding soup. If you haven't heard of it before (I hadn't), it's essentially a chicken soup with a little rice, pasta, and meatballs, and it is fantastic. It was exactly what I needed, and I loved it! Then they got a margherita pizza and we split one with fennel sausage, which was also delicious. Just the right amount of sauce and an amazing dough, it was really thin but tasted great. The decor was fun and cozy, apparently during the summer there's a cute back patio to eat in, and the service was helpful and friendly--J's niece only wanted plain pasta, and they were more than happy to bring her some. Oh, and the bread! I love places that bring me free bread at the beginning. It was a great meal.

After lunch, we had the whole afternoon and J took me sightseeing. I'd never been, so we took the public transit system there--the T--to a fun thing called the Incline. Apparently, it's so annoying to drive up Mount Washington that they put in this track called the Monongahela incline, where you pile in this little car and are pulled up a track straight up the side of the mountain (much like a roller coaster, but only the anticipation part). Right outside the top is a cute little lookout platform, but between the ice, freezing temperature, and high winds we didn't stay long. Instead, we enjoyed the view on the ride back down and to the nearby shopping center, which used to be a train station. What a fun place! We browsed around and got a free hand scrub demonstration (causing us to crave gingerbread cookies and rasberry lemonade the rest of the day, the sugar scrubs smelled so good) and just enjoyed the Christmas decorations still up around the depot.

After a great dinner with the rest of his extended family in Pittsburgh, we checked into our Days Inn, which in all honesty has been our least favourite hotel so far. It was...clean. That's all I can really say, especially the bathroom. It didn't leave me with the impression of being cozy, or cute, just...Hmm. This is clean. And then the shower had about 8 different settings, all of which turned out to be either drip or deluge, so that was disappointing, but hey. It was a hotel, and yes there was a nice TV and minifridge/microwave set. All in all, a very fun day.