Blitzburgh

The City of Bridges

Given our appetites, Grampa would always joke that my brother and I must only get to eat when we saw him. We devoured any food he and Gramma would put in front of us, especially his famous cooked watermelon. Today, Gramma and Aunt Elyse still don't let me stop eating. I could not have had enough clementines, jordan almonds, and fig newtons to make them happy on this trip.

Here's a nice Jewish city for ya. I had 3 corned beef specials in Pittsburgh, this one paired with matzoh ball soup

First day of spring called for a Rita's. The earliest indication I'm nearing the east coast.

Gramma took me around the city, showing me the technology parks and Google's branch, trying to entice me to move to the city after I am done my world trek. She's a good salesman, but I rejected CMU for undergrad and grad school: the city probably hates me by now for that. I saw a CMU-supported self-driving Uber in operation while riding around with Gramma. I failed to find another driverless vehicle for a picture the rest of my time in Pittsburgh. Until coming across that one, I had no idea they were in operation yet outside of test driving in Nevada and California. Apparently they started last autumn in a handful of cities around the world.

Google's offices, formerly a Nabisco bakery, the neighborhood's namesake.

I was later in Elyse's hands. We visited the Carnegie Science Center, an historic cemetery, and a "Mongolian" diner (good but just makes me want the real stuff). She generously got my shopping rolling for my backpacking with a very nice rain jacket. The Science Center has been a favorite of mine since childhood, loaded with exhibits, laser shows, and a true IMAX experience. And speaking of childhood favorites, I had to go to Eat'n Park for a Smiley Cookie - nostalgic as it was, the meal was dwarfed the next day by fine dining at the Monterey Bay Fish Grotto. You see I couldn't stop eating around these relatives.

The Amish still live in black and white.

All smiles today, Matt!

The Duquesne Incline:
for when you need to ascend 400ft at 19th century speeds

"peas somp eetin me"

"..."

Those two took tremendous care of me this entire stop in Pittsburgh. And as much as their technological incompetence might drive me insane, I know they love me.

Progressive Gin champs

I saw Best Picture Moonlight with Gramma. I thought it was an excellent movie for the first two chapters, falling off in the third. It isn't Best Picture quality. I haven't yet seen them myself, but friends and family have raved about Fences and Hidden Figures, so why Moonlight got the nod is beyond me.

Dr. Brown's

And that review leads me to another, which is the first of three new features I want to introduce to my blog. Root beer reviews! Most people would review regular beer if they traveled America, but I don't really like that stuff. Over the past year or so, I've been trying to find local root beers more frequently. I can't recall my feelings over most of them, so I'm just starting fresh with keeping record of my thoughts here.

This first one is not especially local to Pittsburgh, but I've noticed it a bunch lately so I had to satisfy the urge: Dr. Brown's. Wikipedia says it's popular in Jewish delis, so that could explain why I keep seeing it. I read the can to find it's produced by Pepsi in New York City. Ok, uh, ew. My mistake starting my root beer reviews with this. 

For reference, I'll rate the common root beers:

Barq's: 6/10, easily the best of the basics, one of the sharpest I've had.

Mug: 4/10, I consider it the baseline root beer for its ubiquity, only worth getting over other sodas if you must have a root beer.

A&W: 2/10, the worst root beer I've ever had, no bite at all, too much vanilla flavor, but can be rescued by ice cream. Only kept from 0 stars by the chance I come across something worse.

And it was with Dr. Brown's that I came across something worse. 0 stars. Sharp but terrible flavor. Nearly a cream ale. Can't imagine even ice cream redeeming it. This is the new worst ever.

Fallingwater

Immediately after leaving Pittsburgh, I went south to the Fallingwater house. You have to really bury yourself in the Pennsylvania woods to find this iconic piece of American architecture. Pittsburgh's millionaire Kaufmann family commissioned famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design their cabin-in-the-woods and got this explosive retreat. The three components (main/guest/servant quarters) completed in the mid-1930's. Less than thirty years later, the family donated it to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and opened it as a museum.

The same exact shot is all over the internet, but this one is mine!

Seeing as it is one of America's most famous constructions, I'm glad I paid it a visit. But aside from the prominent cantilevered design, the architecture didn't excite much, personally. Photography inside the building was unfortunately prohibited.

Buchanan State Forest

On my way out of Pittsburgh, I was reminded of something about me: I still grow miserable during long drives. Maybe I should have waited for the proliferation of driverless cars before I started my tour. Oh well. I will need to break up my drives frequently. To split up my six hours toward Jersey, I stopped at the Buchanan State Forest of Pennsylvania. I found a trail named after me, the Rose Trail, and hiked it. Rolling hills covered in dead deciduous trees. The whole park was desolate. I saw three people, one dog, and some squirrels. A little spooky to be so alone in the forest. Hightailed it out of there before sunset.

Pretty if you imagine leaves.

Aside from hikes and small cities, music keeps me rolling on these long drives. Throughout a large chunk of my life, I didn't care much for music aside from annoying my brother with my singing. But at some point I came to appreciate it, and really fell hard into a specific brand of it. I can listen to a single song for hours straight if I really like it. This leads me to my second new blog feature: what's Matt got on repeat?

Providence by The Temper Trap - haven't listed to these guys in forever, most will know them for Sweet Disposition

Gameshow, the third album from Two Door Cinema Club, a fun Irish indie band.

The final new feature I want to introduce is the poll! See the side panel. May not be visible if you're viewing this page in mobile. Go ahead and vote on which country you most would like to see me visit. Other polls will come around on occasion.

Next up: where I was raised

Foreseeable: DC, Richmond
I decided to head south first, just so summer can be closer when I go north.

Beans made a friend. I'll call him Wilson.

C-Town Rocks!

Something somewhere downtown. Not important.

One of my best friends in the world got married this weekend. Please join me in congratulating the newlyweds, Caitlin and David Abarbanel!

Give him time to get acclimated to being called Mr. Abarbanel.

And further congratulations are due as Dave got matched for residency, one day before his wedding, no less, at his first choice of hospital: the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN! He is now a doctor (or at least will be at his official graduation in two months). He will use his M.D. to hunt unicorns.

Proud sisters and dad

I was privileged to have front row viewing at the wedding as best man. As my speech attested, Dave was my first very close friend at Tufts and, after living together sophomore year, our friendship never let up. I can't say enough about him. Clearly a smart dude, we have assembled a personal language of communication that borders on ESP. I have long known that Dave is superleet, and I have more recently learned Caitlin is, too; they will be great for each other. The wedding as a whole was arranged superbly and proceeded to perfection. I even got to teach my pals how to stomp the ground in time with Copperhead Road.

Beautiful people, especially that guy in the back-center, slightly left. Hair getting a little long though.

On this particular trip, everything revolved around the wedding, but I had been to the Rock and Roll Capital of the World a couple times before to visit Dave. Cleveland isn't my type of city, but that's OK, as long as Dave found the love of his life there. I will continue to be a fan of the Indians. I've rooted for the Indians for as long as I can remember, partially because I was a front-running child (some friends will argue I'm still a front-runner) and partially because I thought they had the best uniforms and logo. I wrote a letter once to their organization, bragging about how I memorized their roster. I colored my bands around my braces in accordance with the team colors; the orthodontist thought the red, blue, and white was for patriotism.... I literally cried during their losses in the '95 and '97 World Series, once calling my dad at work to be consoled. Thanks Mesa, thanks Nagy. I don't think I cried after their heartbreaking defeat in the most recent 2016 World Series, but it wasn't much easier to take.

Indians-Cubs 2016 World Series viewing party

Cleveland's clear-cut highlight is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You should go out of your way to visit if you are ever anywhere near Cleveland, if you have any interest in any type of music whatsoever. You could get there the minute they open and still run out of time when they kick you out at closing. From history to memorabilia to the actual autographed Wall of Fame, they've got it all.

RnR HoF

Next up: Pittsburgh, March 19-24?

Foreseeable: Philadelphia, Niagara, Charleston

I feel I must postpone Niagara until I offload most of my carload at a friend's house in Jersey, so that I don't get stopped by the US/Canada border patrol. Now I need to figure out if I head north or south immediately after NJ.

A couple postscript notes: 

I have been telling people you can subscribe for email updates when I post. I swear it is true, but I don't think the entry field is visible in the mobile version. Please use the regular web version to see that option. If you are already using the regular version and still can't find it, you might be a lost cause.

I changed the format for all of you to comment on my posts ∴ existing comments went away. Shouldn't happen again. I no longer require a G+ profile of you. I didn't anticipate the number of people who would be interested in following my journey, so I don't want to restrict comments to just holders of G+ accounts.

Heroic difficulty

What a fascinating guy!

Indy

Like all photos on my blog, I took this one too.

Two years out of grad school, I went from working right beside the worldwide UPS hub to living in the city of the worldwide Fedex hub. I got packages exceptionally quickly, but a lot of my snail mail from out of town lived up to the name. The USPS doesn't know yet how to efficiently route mail into Indianapolis.

Dance for the world, Momma!

The midwest is a great place to live. Tell me this 5 years ago and I say you're out of your mind. A long time back my mom visited Indianapolis on business and relayed to her family what a nice city it was, joking that we should move there; I took her entire statement as a joke, but the first part was true. Little did I know that I would move there in my mid-twenties.

So what's good here? Still got most of that "southern hospitality" I adored in Louisville. That's critical. Some absolutely beautiful and vast public parks. And then the Indy 500. It is the same exact brand of event as the Kentucky Derby, but with cars instead of horses. And 200 laps instead of 1. I didn't know that the 500 was for miles and not laps. I also didn't know that the Indy 500 is IndyCar - headquartered in Indy of course, racing capital of the world for a reason I suppose - and not NASCAR. Clearly I educated myself. It's missing the fancy hats of Derby, but overall I enjoy it slightly more.

Me driving around America.

Indianapolis is home to the best church sign I've ever seen:

Honk if you love Jesus; text if you want to meet him. 

There are a lot of churches around here, so odds are one of them would be clever.

Nobody will believe me, but Indy has the best pizza I've ever had: House Pepperoni from Some Guys. Sorry New York, New Jersey, Chicago (ew), and California. I've had your pizzas, and nothing beats Some Guys. My mom, a snob for Jersey pizza, even admitted that it kinda maybe rivaled her favorite. Perhaps my favorite pizza will change when I make it to Italy, but for now... Some Guys!

World's #1 Pizza

I knocked Chicago's pizza, but I was happy that Indy is close enough to the Windy City for a lot of its cuisine to make it down. And this is for no reason other than the Chicago Dog! It's a hot dog on a poppyseed bun, with mustard, tomato wedges, pickle spears, green relish, celery salt, diced onion, and most importantly sport peppers. I kept sport peppers in my fridge throughout my time in Indy to make spur-of-the-moment hot dogs or to simply pop one plain.

More sport peppers, please.

Within a month of moving here, I was driven by my big-man roommate Jonathan to start working out. I got in the most powerful shape of my life, and I don't expect to let up. And I never had to torture myself! It wasn't so hard when you make your own chicken smoothies. I dropped from roughly 210 lbs, 19% body fat; to 195 lbs, 11% body fat. Jonathan was a tremendous coach and inspiration. Also an excellent cook who showed me the wonders of Chinese food, especially mapo (Meepo) tofu.

Didn't expect this to become a food blog... I always yelled at Jonathan for taking too many photos of food.

As soon as I post this, I get on the road to Cleveland and beyond. No turning back. My car is packed to the brim. Still looking to sell my bed and executive desk though! I'm gonna miss my apartment here. It was perfect and so was the Broad Ripple neighborhood.

Any takers?

Next up: Cleveland, March 15-19

Foreseeable: Pittsburgh, Niagara

Not quite a hot air balloon, but at least I've got Beans.

Luh'vool

YOU ARE SECRETARIAT

Let's see if I can remember how to write in an engaging manner - creatively and informatively - while putting to use HTML markup for my second first major time.

I used to right alot, and I was very well at it.

But years of math and physics and engineering aren't conducive to reinforcing the skill. My writing is probably about as good as my French, and, excusez mon français, but my French sucks (hope it can carry me through Europe). Writing nothing but technical papers for six years is going to takes its toll.

I remember exactly my feeling when I flew to Louisville for the first time and started driving my rented Elantra. I was listening to Kongos and scared for my life. "Any moment now this road is going to crack open and I'm going to sink into a swamp." Growing up in the northeast, I literally thought civilization stopped at the western/southern borders of Pennsylvania and Maryland. I didn't know a soul for hundreds of miles. I had no one. Few people know that feeling. To make a perimeter, the closest I had been was Denver, Pittsburgh, and Orlando. The only personality I could pin on the south was what movies like Deliverance had impressed upon me.

And yes, I still consider Louisville to be the south, although some Louisvillians will try to claim the midwest and say they deserve better than to be affiliated with the rest of the south. I say: hop over the river to the Indiana side, and only then are you in the midwest.

Louisville is, at this point in time, my favorite city in the whole world despite the fights I got into with Kroger employees TWICE ("point eight pounds" of turkey will never be eight hundredths of a pound of turkey). I hope to return when I'm done with this adventure, if for no other reason than to pick up my small board game collection and my "Sith Lord" computer chair before Reagan toots in it too much. Being in the south isn't all bad. Southern hospitality is real. People talk to you, and smile, and laugh and hug. Hard to come by in Philadelphia or Boston. I think I fit in much better in the south.

Within a month of moving to Louisville, I said I could never move back to the northeast. How quickly an attitude can change! We'll see where life takes me, but I don't think I can bear another job on the east coast. From within the same company, I saw the whole work culture change; the difference was night and day. But of course none of this makes the city itself particularly special, just the region of the country. No, the city is special because it is home to:

• the largest annual fireworks show in North America
• the largest annual zombie walk in the world
• the largest annual Beatles festival in the world
• the largest horse race in the world

Even if you have no interest in horses or racing, the Derby is a must-attend event.

Churchill Downs

Check out the hats.

The PGA Championship came to Louisville, and I spectated for free every day.

Ah! Zombies!

There are lots of other things which I cannot quantify as "largest" but regardless add to the allure of the city, including being a hub of bourbon, boxing, basketball, alliteration pizza, UPS shipping, and performance and visual arts. The city is special because of the friends I made there in just nine months. The city is special because there is zero car traffic.

Mammoth Cave, the longest cave system in the world, about 1.5 hours south of Louisville.

Just some of my friends, who drove 12 hours each way to Wildwood to play ultimate.

And I have to say, Thunder Over Louisville (the aforementioned fireworks) is AMAZING, a whole level above any New Year's or Independence Day fireworks shows you've ever seen. I know what you're thinking: seen one fireworks show, seen 'em all. Not true. Thunder's performance is something else and my number one reason to visit Kentucky.

Thanks for reading my first blog post. For those of you unaware, I have started this because in less than a week I will begin travelling all over eastern America. Then a couple months later, I will travel around Europe and Asia. I want to document as much of it as I can. I doubt most posts will be this long. Just need a way to keep my mom up to date on how many times I've been robbed at gunpoint.

My reasons for getting up and going are numerous. I've gotten tired of my job. I've gotten tired of my current home city. I want to see America (possibly scope out the next city in which I settle). I want to see the world. I want to take part in town halls and protests, also known as democracy. At some point I will have a post with a political digression, but that will be a post separate from anything directly travel-related. I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can drop my life, so I should take advantage of that to fight for America's disadvantaged. Because remember, it is not enough to be neutral and passive in the face of bad actors:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

-Edmund Burke, Irish politician, philosophical founder of modern conservatism, and supporter of the American Revolution

Next up: Indianapolis, Nov. 8, 2014 - Mar. 15, 2017

Foreseeable: Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Niagara

Vague outline of path through Europe and Asia, definitely subject to change:
Spain > France > Germany > Italy > Greece > Russia > Mongolia > Korea

Hot air balloon race, part of the Kentucky Derby Festival, my preferred method to circumnavigate the world.