The Great Ice Skating Tragedy of 2010

The weekend before break, Andrew came for a visit.  It was the perfect storm - I had just finished a bunch of exams, had no weekend commitments, and I wanted to show off my freshly-decorated apartment.

While he was in town, we decided to do some Christmas-y things, including the most Christmas-y thing that you can do in Pittsburgh: go ice skating around the huge Christmas tree downtown at PPG Place.  Seriously, the ice skating rink actually goes around a huge, twinkling tree.  It's like a Christmas explosion!

My desire to ice-skate around the gigantic tree was also fueled by an overwhelming need to show off my mad ice-skating skillz.  Last year, I spent a quarter in "Ice Skating 1," an amazing class in which I learned all kinds of tricks.  I can skate backward.  I can skate on one foot.  I can do a slide stop.  In summary, I now rock a ice-skating.

Since that quarter, I have yet to go skating with Andrew, meaning he is still oblivious to my talent.  So secretly, I was uber-excited to impress him at the rink.

When we arrived downtown, it took forever to find a parking spot.  That should have been a hint that the evening was off to a bad start.  After cruising around for a bit, I finally nabbed one.  Things only went downhill though; when we walked into PPG place, we discovered that the line for the ice-skating rink/humongous tree looked like the line for the Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point.  My heart sank.  No matter how much I wanted to ice skate, I knew that we weren't in it for the long haul.  Two hours in the freezing cold just wasn't going to happen.  I was pretty bummed.

Knowing how badly I was looking forward to skating, Andrew suggested that we look into other options.  Thanks to a tip from friend and the internet on my phone, I located an outdoor skating rink in park not too far from my apartment.  We jumped back in the car, and headed that direction.

I was silly enough to think that once we got to the park, the skating rink should be easy to locate.  After all, how hard could be to drive around and find it?  Turns out, pretty darn hard.  Seriously, we drove over one bridge six times during the process of looking.  I finally broke down and called someone for directions.  The worst part is that in all of the aimless wandering, hoping that we would find the skating rink, we weren't even close.  Andrew was getting kind of grumpy.  He claimed we should have had just called for directions from the beginning.  He tried to keep the grumpiness to a minimum though.  I think he was just happy that we finally found a place, and I could be placated with a few laps around the rink.

The area right around the rink was packed with cars.  Everyone was parked along a curvy road.  From the road there was a path that led to rink, but we weren't able to park anywhere near the path.  We had two options: walk to the path or take the shortcut over a small hill.  I was too eager for the first option, so I headed triumphantly for the hill.  That's when the Great Ice Skating Tragedy of 2010 struck.  In the darkness, the hill looked totally normally and grassy, but it was actually super slick and muddy.  Two steps up the hill, my foot slipped out from under me, and I hit the ground - the muddy, muddy ground.  My coat was muddy.  My jeans were muddy, my super adorable new gray suede boots for muddy.  TRAGEDY.

Andrew helped me up, trying to stifle a chuckle.  He kept saying, "We don't have to ice skate.  We can just leave."  At this point, I was far too determined for such nonsense.  I pretended like nothing had happened, and continued toward the ice skating rink (though I did succumb to the long way instead of trying the hill again).  The girl working the counter smiled slightly as we walked up.  I think she could see the mud.  Ignoring this fact, I said, "We'd like two tickets for open skate and two rentals."  Her smile quickly faded, and she said very apologetically, "We're about to end this skating session, but our adult skate starts in two hours."  That was the nail in the coffin of the Great Ice Skating Tragedy of 2010.  I think at that moment I realized a variety of things: I was cold, I was muddy, and I was not going to get to show off my ice skating skillz.

I had a mini breakdown, so Andrew drove us home.  We watched It's a Wonderful Life and everything was instantly better.  Hopefully, the ice-skating powers-that-be are a little kinder to us next time.

Happy Holidays!
Brittany

The Carnegie Museum's attempt at scarring children for life...

What feels like a long time ago now (I know, it's my fault - I've been neglecting Britt goes to Pitt), my mom came for a fun weekend of mother-daughter time.  We did lots of things, including seeing Tangled, going shopping, eating delicious sushi, and going to the Carnegie Museum.

I hadn't been to the Carnegie Museum yet, but I was excited because it's always on lists of "top things to do in Pittsburgh."  The museum itself is half art and half natural history.  We checked out both portions, and for the most part really enjoyed it.  Additionally, they had gorgeous nativity that was constructed in Italy a few hundred years ago.  Look how pretty:

Angels!

Kind of blurry, but you get the general idea.

Here are a few other highlights:

Dinos!

Ridiculously large Monet Painting.

So as you can see, for the most part the museum was great - exactly what you're looking for at that kind of thing.  However, I do believe that one particular section of the museum was invented purely to torture young children with chilling, recurring nightmares.  That section?  The dead birds. 

Here's what made the dead birds so terrible.  They were just lying there, belly-up.  There was no attempt to pose them in cool bird positions, like sitting on a tree branch or flying or pursing prey.  Just looking at them, there was NO denying they were dead.  I think, that on its own would be pretty bad.  However, it gets worse.  Just take a look:

Toucan, belly-up next to a box of fruit loops

Canary, dead a doornail, next to a Tweety stuffed-animal 

And my personal favorite, a dead whatever-kind-of-bird-Zazu-is next to a Zazu.  I'll never watch the Lion King the same way again.

Morale of the blog post?  If you're visiting the museum with a child under the age of the eleven, avoid the "Hall of Birds."  Otherwise, tears will surely ensue.

Lots of posts are coming in the next few days - look for them! :-)

Britt

Two things that should never ever mix: medical school and finals week

UGHHHHH.  That is an onomatopoeia to describe how I feel right now.  Reasons why include:

1.  I have some kind of cold/virus.  It is the sneezy, sniffly, coughy, yucky kind.  You know how you cough when you're sick, and some phlegm comes up?  (I know this may seem gross, but I've dissected a human so my sensitivity so such topics is severely diminished.)  OK, well today I was walking to the bus stop, and I coughed, and that exact thing happened to me.  The problem?  I couldn't spit it out!  I was surrounded by people!  I tried to look for an alley or bush that I could duck behind to spit, but there was nothing.  So, I swallowed it.  Definitely a low point of the day.

2.  I have a final tomorrow.  And and exam the next day.  And another final next week.  And med school tests are hard.  (I apologize, sentence-structure-variation is taking a serious hit today).

3.  Really, I don't have a number 3, I just thought that a list with two items on it seemed a little sad.

I do have exciting pictures to share of things that my Mom and I did during her visit - they will come soon, likely Thursday when I have break from studying and exam-taking.

Back to the books,
Britt

It's beginning to look somewhat like Christmas...

I have been hard at work avoiding cellular pathology by channeling my energy into something much better: Christmas decorating!

Here are the fruits of my labor (please don't laugh):

I got a Santa "Wall Flower" - he smells good and he changes colors! (This is "white" Santa)

Purple Santa!

Aqua Santa!! (You probably get the idea)

Candles that look like Christmas ornaments - so festive

"And the (Vera Bradley) stockings were hung from the 3M Command hooks with care"

I got a Christmas tree!  The only problem?  I currently have six ornaments.  To put on my six foot tree.  In this picture, it actually looks mildly OK.  But just wait until I turn the lights off...

Insert this noise. 

BUT, on the bright side, I do own one of the coolest ornaments ever.  It's Santa, steering a gondola made out of Venetian glass - I got it in Italy last summer :-)

I feel kind of guilty sticking such a nice ornament on such a crappy tree, but what can you do?!

Last but not least, Christmas candle that smells like cranberry sauce, yummm

Hopefully the decorations improve over the years...regardless, Happy Advent!

Brittany