Home for the weekend!

I snuck out of Florida this past weekend and spent some time in Pittsburgh. It was just what I needed... cooler temperatures, two nights out on the town with my favorite person, wandering around the city window shopping... it was perfect. I ♥ this city.


The bars that I visited in Pittsburgh were relatively low-key, hole-in-the-wall type of places with good music and even better drinks.

This guava margarita really hit the spot.




I took this pic while doing some window shopping downtown... and enjoying the view (which is quite different than a view from south Florida...) There is just something about being downtown here... it may appear to some to be dirty buildings and sidewalks, but to me it seems more like history than dirt. I love how the sun is up, but unless there is a crack between buildings, you probably wont see it. The scenery in general gives me goosebumps.

We had to use the restroom. So, we stopped at this Burger King...

Which, judging by the sign, we should have known the kind of experience we were in for. In order to use the restroom, you had to buy something... then have an employee open the door for you. We first asked for a decaf coffee. After being advised that they dont have decaf, we ordered a small coke... the trip to the bathroom cost us just under $2.00. Crazy. But having a toilet to use at that moment would have been worth any amount of money. ☺

For the entire weekend, I only have one complaint.... Pittsburgh has got to have more smokers than anywhere else I have ever been. For years in Florida, smoking has not been allowed in most places. While I am not too sure what the laws are in Pennsylvania... I do know that every bar that I went in to was coated with a smokey haze that you had to peer hard through in order to see where you were going!


Ive enjoyed bars with smokers before, but in Pittsburgh, it always seems like everyone smokes. Every single piece of me... stunk! This is such an awful thing to wake up to when  you feel slightly hungover from the night before. I may as well have taken my clothes and washed them in a washer full of smoke and hung them to dry in the Phillip Morris corporation's test laboratory. Horrible!


Even worse? The next day as I unzipped my purse... BAM... the stale, stinky, smokey smell blasted me in the face. Not cool, Pittsburgh. Not cool.


I did a google search and this is what I found...("Best Cities for Smokers")

© AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar"

No. 11

Pittsburgh
Ordinance: None
State cigarette tax: $1.35 per pack (26th)
How many smoke: 25.5%
Pennsylvania Supreme court rendered anti-smoking ordinances imposed in Allegheny county and other local governments null and void. Only major cities like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia can pass anti-smoking legislation if they choose. Only Philly has done so.

Note to self: Carry a gas mask and body suit with air freshener when going out for the night!

"Im one of those regular weird people" ~ Janis Joplin