It's 0510hrs and I've been up around an hour, just under. I've managed seven hours sleep. Last night, I decided not to go out to dinner. Why bother? I had a reasonably decent lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe (salmon, mashed potato, greens) and there's nobody to go out with. The idea of dining alone makes me simply look out the window at one of Pittsburgh's many bridges and decide to hit the sack. It's not even dark outside and I can't be bothered to watch television. In fact, I'm all-round pissed off with the Sheraton Pittsburgh Station Square and their gross incompetence.
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| If you saw Adventureland, you'll remember this photo. |
Sitting here now I realise that I've had no time to talk about the good stuff (if you can call it that). On the only real day off for me, I decided to take a trip to Kennywood, a theme park on the outskirts of town. I think I mentioned the bus journey there through a rough place called Homestead. In all honesty, it was alright, but I simply moseyed around, I'm not a great admirer of theme parks and fairground rides and I had the most awful lunch of a hot dog with chips, or fries as they call them here. The girl who served me didn't understand what I meant when I said 'chips' so I quickly corrected myself, 'fries, I mean fries, sorry' I said and then took away the sorry-looking meal to eat on a table. It was a pleasant day, the sun was shining and I, of course, was blissfully unaware of the incompetence unfolding back at the hotel.
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| Arriving at Kennywood |
As you know from previous posts, it was a long day and I didn't get back to the hotel until around 5pm, I went to the room and hit the sack, not waking until 11pm. Again, I missed dinner, but made up for it the next morning at breakfast time. The breakfasts here are quite good, loads of food, invariably all meals involve scrambled egg and cubed potatoes, fried, plus there's fresh fruit and tea and pastries, all sorts of stuff, so I didn't starve.
The hotel room is pleasant enough and the standard for American hotels: two huge double beds, a big television, which I haven't watched, a fairly good bathroom, although the shower could do with being more powerful. There's an empty fridge (it doesn't become a minibar unless it's stocked with chocolate bars, beer and soft drinks). I can never work out the thinking behind hotels that have the fridge but don't stock it. I used to think it was because they don't trust their clientele to act responsibly or they think the guests are capable of nicking stuff, but in reality, I just don't know and to be honest I'm glad there isn't a minibar otherwise I'd have been scoffing my face with Hershey bars and peanuts, especially last night having decided not to eat dinner.
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| A truly awful hot dog and chips |
There's a coffee bar downstairs on the ground floor, which is really just a kiosk. There are no tables or chairs so I haven't used it. Instead I've found a very chilled place called Crazy Mocha a couple of doors down from the hotel, it's a chilled out sort of place, with WiFi, and I plan to go back there as the week unfolds.
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| My journey to Kennywood started here |
Station Square is an interesting place and I remember cycling here the last time I was in Pittsburgh, which I think was 2015. There's a Hard Rock Cafe, a Tex-Mex restaurant, the aforementioned Crazy Mocha, a fondue operation, the Buckhead Bar (a kind of large sports bar) and there's even a sushi bar, so lots of stuff I don't like (sports bars, sushi and fondue). Something that does interest me is a place called the Grand Concourse. It looks pretty upmarket and it's housed in a building that I'm told used to be a railway station. There's a white tablecloth restaurant and I need to check it out this week. Then there's so-called Mount Washington, an elevated spot that offers views across the city and can be accessed via some sort of cable car or rack and pinion railway, I'm not sure which, but it's a steep incline. Sadly, it's not working, but I'm told there's another one on West Carson Street, or I suppose I could get a cab. At the top, apparently, there's a few restaurants and bars and it's fairly upmarket, so another place to try out.
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| The view from my hotel window, the best yet... |
My hotel is claimed to be the only hotel in Pittsburgh located on the waterfront, it's across from the downtown so over breakfast there are great views of skyscrapers on the other side of the river and it's only a ten-minute walk across the Smithfield Bridge into the downtown, and twenty minutes to the convention centre where I'll be spending most of this week, that's why it would have been nice to enjoy Saturday and Sunday, my down time, without having the hassle of the hotel staff's incompetence (see previous posts).
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| A kiosk at Kennywood |
What's also quite cool is the railroad track right outside the hotel. I can see it from my room and every now and then a train rolls by and it never seems to end, carrying coke or aggregates somewhere far away, or possibly just to and from the US Steel integrated mill in the Mon Valley, a place I saw while on the bus to Kennywood on Saturday. In fact, I'd say that the Sheraton offers the best view out of the window I've ever had. Check out the Hotel Views section of my blog and you'll see what I mean. Normally the view is of car park or a brick wall or a housing estate or trees or a garage, but not here. I've got the river outside my window, a huge bridge and, of course, the railroad track. In fact, a train has just roared by and will probably continue to roar by for some minutes as all the trains go on forever. And oddly, the trains don't disturb the peace as much as you might think, they bring something to the party, they add something typically American, which must appeal to guests, like me, from outside of the USA.
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| The view across the river from the breakfast room |
It's a fairly friendly hotel. There's a shop selling everything you're likely to forget and more: tee shirts, mugs, souvenirs, fridge magnets - I bought mine from the Hard Rock Cafe - briefcases, umbrellas, razors, toothbrushes, everything. If only all hotels had shops like the Sheraton Pittsburgh Station Square, but they don't. Invariably, if I leave something behind, I have to go in search of a pharmacy. Not here!
So for the next five days I'm going to have a regular 20-minute walk across the bridge to the convention centre. It takes around 20 minutes. They have a bike share scheme and I could probably hire a bike, but now that everything is beginning to calm down on the missing laptop and passport front, I can figure out what I'm going to do. I have to say that the whole incident outlined in previous posts has been a nightmare and it's basically ruined what is normally a great trip to the USA. Still, life moves on, I've got another big breakfast to look forward to and then I've got to attempt to sort things out or I won't be able to come home on Friday.
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