A Relaxing First Sunday

What a wonderful and restful Sunday I had today.

I slept another 10 hours last night, I didn't realize my body was so exhausted. I mosied about the house a bit, fussed the cats (becoming quite the usual routine now), and had cereal. Janice was up as well and invited me to take Zeke for a walk. I figured since I hadn't been to the gym in two days, it was good to get a workout even if it was a mild walk. The mild walk ended up being 2 hours! It was a super warm today, not as bad as yesterday though (reached 100 degrees and didn't even cool in the evening). I'd say it was about 90 degrees today with a nice breeze, so it didn't feel too bad. We walked down the hill to Schenley Park. According to Google maps, it's about 2.2. miles from Janice's house. Check out the wikipedia page for Schenley park.

Schenley Park
I'm so bummed I didn't bring my camera. I would describe Schenley as an outdoor enthusiast's oasis in the middle of a city. Within minutes of entering the park, you're surrounded by lush green trees, small creeks, gorgeous cobblestone bridges, and the lovely sounds of chirping birds and robins. Ugh I'm so mad I didn't bring my camera, but it gives me an excuse to go back and take pics. Here is a nice pic I grabbed off the web.

Gorgeous cobblestone bridge in Schenley Park

While we were walking, Janice and I saw dozens of robins and at one point, I could smell sweet, succulent raspberries and blackberries. I don't know if someone was cooking or eating them, but they smelled glorious. I'm determined to make some kind of berry pie/dessert this week as a result.

Janice and I were exhausted coming back - all sweaty and sticky from the walk. Even poor Zeke took a few breaks on the way back because he was tired,too. And he's a 6 month puppy with tons of energy and endurance, so that's saying something.

We got back, relaxed, and let our aching feet take a break. Janice went to her sister's and I did some laundry. I got a bit restless and was in need of some retail therapy, so I walked up the street and hopped on the 61C bus outside the Giant Eagle to Squirrel Hill.

Squirrel Hill
Squirrel Hill is a lovely residential neighborhood just 10 minutes by bus and 5 minutes  by car from Janice's. It's got cute shops, boutiques, stores, and very walkable. It's one of the nicest areas in Pittsburgh actually. Here's the wikipedia page for Squirrel Hill if you're interested.

Squirrel Hill

I got off the bus and walked over to Avalon Exchange. It's similar to Crossroads in CA, where people buy and sell used/like new clothing of good brand names. I didn't expect to buy anything, but as soon as I walked in, for some reason (I swear I had no control over my body), I darted to the shoes section. Maybe it's because the shoes I was wearing are super worn out (but they're so comfy!)  Before I knew it, I had four or five pairs in my hand and were trying them on. I settled on a pair of nice, shiny black flats with peeptoe and a small but comfortable heel. For all you ladies out there, you know how hard it is to find black, comfortable flats. My justification for buying them was for work, but I have a feeling I'll wear these for non-work situations as well. Upon leaving, the guy at the register gave me a flyer for Dollar Days, in a couple weeks hundreds of items will be only $1...Janice and I will be back soon... so stay tuned for Avalon part 2! hahah!

Avalon was the only shop open, so I decided to find a Giant Eagle close by and do some grocery shopping. I got some essentials for the week and waited for the bus. I thought "oh gosh how long do I have to wait " (the buses in pittsburgh are notorious for being late and having a mind of their own essentially when it comes to arriving on time) and 10 seconds later, there it was :) At Giant Eagle, I indulged in a small ice cream. I was enjoying it so much on the bus I almost forgot to ring the bell to get off at my stop.

A relaxing evening
The day cooled down considerably by evening. We had a beautiful pink sunset and it was so nice, I decided to sit out on Janice's porch. I had homemade lemonade, leftover Salpicon (which tastes even better the day after fyi), and called Nick, my mom, and Carrie (one of my good friends from middle and high school). What felt like only an hour of people watching and thinking about what a nice weekend I had, it was dark (around 9:30 pm) and Janice was walking up the steps with Zeke. We chatted for a bit, I showed her my shoes, and she asked if I wanted ice cream. She had ice cream (since I endulged earlier) and I bought a yummy otis spunkermeir (is that how it's spelled?) cookie. It was such a nice night to walk...I think it's the first night of many where I haven't been in a perpetual state of stickiness.

Sydney having a nice stretch upon my shopping return

Janice's lovely porch... I relaxed on the one in the far back

A yummy dinner of Salpicon and homemade, fresh lemonade

View outside Janice's house in Greenfield

My new shoes =) from Avalon Exchange

I only planned on having this being a short post, but looks like I got carried away. Anyways, I've got to go put my laundry in the dryer and prepare my lunch for tomorrow... got to be in at 8:15 am tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

My first Saturday in Pittsburgh

You may have read the title of this post and asked, "wait, she's been there three weeks now, how is it that this is her first Saturday?!" Well, I wasn't actually in Pittsburgh these first two weekends (look out for posts tomorrow or Monday), so this is my first official weekend here.

Anyway, I had such a lovely day I figured it was worth posting while still fresh in my mind.

One of PNC co-workers named Hang (pronounced "hung") is from Vietnam and we're cube buddies. Everyday at lunch we talk about different countries, traveling, and what we prepared for lunch that day. We've been chatting for several days now about getting together and she was kind enough to invite me to her home this evening for a delicious Vietnamese meal. In exchange, to show her how yummy authentic Mexican food is, I brought a Mexican appetizer. Let's start at the beginning of the day...

I woke up pretty exhausted. I didn't sleep very well this week because I went to bed late and woke up pretty early. I've been getting 6-7 hours of sleep, but that's really not enough for me to function. So, after watching Life As We Know it,  I slept a glorious, uninterrupted 9 hours last night. But I woke up a bit groggy. Anyways, after giving Quincy and Sydney some morning fusses, I showered and headed down to the local Giant Eagle to pick up groceries for the Mexican appetizer, Salpicón (pronounced sal - P-cone). It's essentially shredded beef flank, tomatoes, queso fresco (a soft, unaged, feta-like cheese), avocado, peas, potatoes, and cilantro. Here's the link to the recipe I used (it's from my mom's website in case you're curious).

I headed off to Giant Eagles around 11 am and managed to find most of the ingredients except for the queso fresco. Pittsburgh doesn't have a big Latino population, so I wasn't really expecting to find queso fresco, so I used whole milk mozzarella instead. Shopping for ingredients, I couldn't help but whine a little bit at seeing the $1.99/each sign for avocados....oh how I miss California produce prices!!

I came back around noonish and started cooking. It's been a RIDICULOUSLY hot week here in Pittsburgh (100 degrees today and with the humidity, it feels even hotter) so within minutes of cooking, I found myself sweaty already and coming  back up to my room to cool down. We don't have A/C in the house, just in our rooms. I had the meat on the stove cooking and in the meantime, I prepared the tomatoes, potatoes (haha it rhymes!), peas, and mozzarella, so when the meat was done, all I'd have to do is mix. I was nervous about the meat cooking all the way through but i think I got it at perfect timing. wasn't too tough and not too soft, maybe medium? I don't know... I just went by a rule of thumb using the face test. Once the meat had cooled, I shredded the meat and prepped the salad so it was ready to go.

I was looking at how to get to Hung's house and noticed I'd have to take two buses, and the next bus didn't come for another hour. Janice was kind enough to let me borrow her car (which took only 10 minutes compared the 30 estimated minutes with the buses). I got lost twice going there but eventually arrived around 4:30.

Hung and her husband Greg have a lovely apartment here in Pittsburgh - it's filled with all kinds of neat souvenirs from around the world and has lots of character. Hung showed me how to make spring rolls, even though naturally, mine looked more like burritos. She gave me some good tips on how to roll and seal them so they cook nicely. We then fried them and chatted. Our meal was so good - homemade spring rolls with a spicy cucumber-fish sauce and another spicy sauce, homemade beef pho (traditional Vietnamese soup), and of course the Salpicón I made. Their neighbor later joined us as well and he enjoyed the food,too. Here are some pics of our meal

Frying the spring rolls in corn oil 

My first bite of the veggie-shrimp spring roll.... SO DELISH!

Salpicón - a very refreshing summer meal, it made me homesick while I prepared it ;(

Yummy spring rolls again... I had at least three or four

Cucumber, fish sauce, jalapeno pepper, and garlic dipping sauce for the egg rolls

Hung's scrumptious homemade beef pho, whose broth was flavored with ox tail...mmmm!

After dinner, Greg whipped up some really yummy strawberry sorbet after I raved about how awesome the Vitamix is and the different kinds of desserts you can make with them. Here's a pic

Greg's homemade strawberry sorbet...mmm! so refreshing

After dessert, Greg, Hung, their neighbor and I played a very cool trains game. I can't remember the name but essentially you try to build train tracks across the U.S. and the person that builds more tracks, gets more points, and therefore wins. My tracks ran from Seattle to NY and El Paso to Denver. I think I got third or second place, I'm not really sure but it was super fun. I forget how fun boardgames can be... you're never too old to play them in my opinion!

I left around 9:30 pm, so a solid four hours! I had a really great time and I couldn't have pictured a better Saturday night. I should have taken a pic of the three of us... perhaps I will next time we hang out :)

Hope you had a wonderful Saturday, too!

I'm still here!!

Hi Everyone,

Sorry for not posting in a while. I have two posts lined up describing my first two weekends here, all I have to do is write the second one and upload some photos/videos.

Hope you're well! Thanks for your patience :)

First Day at PNC

Hello everyone!

I had my first day at PNC today and it  went very well. I wish I'd had more energy though - the lack of sleep last night (3 hour time difference :/ ) made the day very belong.

As I mentioned yesterday, I practiced my bus route (I take #58 for those of you familiar with the area), it's about a 15 minute bus ride. However, I was running a bit late (Quincy refused to leave my bed and I didn't want to come back sneezing all evening) but I was out of the door 2 minutes before its scheduled arrival. Just as I was crossing the street, the bus zoomed by. I waved my arms and ran in heels but the bus driver just looked dead straight ahead. It wasn't like Barcelona where I knew the next bus would come in 5-7 minutes. It was another  half hour. I was supposed to meet the HR recruiter at 8:20 am in the lobby but the next bus didn't leave till 8:15 am. Fortunately, I had his number and told him I would be running late to the breakfast. It was a breakfast with a senior VP of retail banking. Lesson learned #1: Always be 7-10 minutes early for the bus stop


PNC owns several buildings downtown so I got confused as to which one was which but I eventually found the correct one.

This is the building I work at

The breakfast went well but I could tell a lot of of the interns were really tired (thank goodness I wasn't alone!) due to the lack of questions when the VP asked students questions. It was a tad too early for an interactive session in my opinion. But he had some valuable advice and tips for how to make a great internship experience at PNC.

Next, the HR Recruiter gave me a tour of my floor (5th floor) and introduced me to my manager and some of my peers. Essentially, Enterprise Services deals with issues that affect the company enterprise wide (e.g. mergers, acquisitions, operations). Then, he took me to an all office staff meeting where I was introduced to the whole division. The senior VP that interviewed me for Enterprise Services jumped out of her chair and greeted me with a hug when I arrived. Gotta love that Pittsburgh hospitality. I will be working in the SIO division of Enterprise Services, which stands for Strategic Initiatives Office. Think of it as internal consulting...but I will be consulting the bank's multiple lines of business. I heard tons of corporate and banking jargon today but I know I will be working on business resiliency (BR as it is fondly abbreviated), which is essentially creating a roadmap for continuing operations under adverse conditions. I'm still getting a hang of the lingo but I'll get it soon.

I talked to my office mates, there's 5 interns total and 30 people in the whole division. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming, I look forward to working and getting to know them soon. And I found ONE californian in the office.

The weather has been nice overall. They say it's really hot but I don't think it's uncomfortable. It's slightly muggy but a lot better than I expected.

I ended up waiting 45 minutes for the bus ride home, it was 20 minutes late and I got there 10 minutes early and my stomach was hurting from hunger pains from waiting so darn long. Lesson Learned #2: Bring a book for the bus wait/ride. Makes time go by quicker

Random pic from my bus stop... I was really bored waiting

I got home and finally met Janice. She's absolutely lovely :) Very nice and friendly and she was kind enough to take me grocery shopping at Trader Joes (yayyy!!), Whole Foods (didn't buy just oohed and aahed), and a cool hippy-like co-op. She pointed out all kinds of neat neighborhoods in Pittsburgh (Fun Fact #1: There's over 80 neighborhoods in Pittsburgh!), so it got me really excited about exploring (ahem shopping) this weekend. There's also a farmers market tomorrow afternoon near the house, so I'll definitely be dropping by.

After grocery shopping, I came home to Janice's two cats, Quincy (who you already know) and Saddie. I'm more of a dog person, but I don't mind cats. But for some strange reason, these cats really like me and won't leave my room. Quincy hides under the bed making me think he's not in the room then as soon as I close the door he leaps out from under the bed and jumps on my bed. Saddie is quite moody but she likes me now too. She's not as clingy and attention-fussy as Quincy but she certainly likes her fair bit of attention. I also met Zeke today (a couple month old border collie). He's super high energy and adorable, I love it. But the cats don't get along too well with him unfortunately.

Quincy exploring my closet *sorry for the awful pic it's from my phone*

Meet Ms. moody Saddie

First Day in Pittsburgh

Hello everyone!

Greetings from Pitttsburgh. Here's a re-cap of my first 24 hours here...

Flight:
I had a direct flight from SFO to PIT (4 hours and 30 minutes total for those of you interested in coming out here some day), but it was delayed an hour an a half. So instead of arriving at 12 am, I arrived at 1:30 am. The flight was decent, nothing special except for the fact that I had the whole aisle to myself, so couldn't really complain there. Once I picked up my bags at baggage claim, I took a taxi to Janice's house (I will be staying with her this summer and found her through airbnb) The taximan was very friendly (like most Pittsburghers I've met so far) and gave me all kinds of booklets, flyers, and guides for first-time visitors and of course a copy of the Sunday paper. The taxi was a bit more expensive than my first choice of super shuttle, but it was so late in the evening (or early in the morning should I say), that I had absolutely no energy to figure out public transit nor did I have the patience to go through various stops with super shuttle.

Settling in
I was greeted by one of Janice's super friendly cats named Quincy. He's grey with bright green eyes and loves fusses. Then, I called my parents (with 5% of my phone battery left) and Nick to let them know I got home okay and finally fell asleep around 4 am with the A/C going full blast.. Since I met Quincy a few hours ago, he's greeted me at the foot of the stairs (my room is on the second floor) every time I come in and he follows me everywhere. As cute as he may be though, I find myself sneezing an awful lot around him (I'm allergic to cats). But as long as I wash my hands after I pet him, then I'm good to go. 


First morning in Pitt
I woke up around 11 am, so a decent 7 hours sleep even though I need between 8 and 9 to function properly. I unpacked and sorted my clothes, medicine, bags and what not. Then I showered and headed off to the nearest grocery store, Giant Eagle,  because I had absolutely no food (asides from the food my mom packed for me on the plane). But I really needed ingredients so I could start preparing my lunch for work and cooking dinners. After an hour and a half in the grocery store, I came out with a bill of $90 and that didn't even cover everything I originally wanted. I didn't realize until I saw the 10 grocery bags that it would be a struggle to walk uphill with the groceries. Let's just say I had to take a few breaks to manage the load. 


I tried taking some pictures but I'm having issues with my camera. It says "lens issues", which makes me really sad because as you all know I love taking tons and tons of pictures and posting them to my blog. I'm going to recharge the battery and see if that works, but if not I have to send it to a Nikon repair center :( 


Tomorrow's my first day of work, so check back for a post on that. 


For dinner, I plan on having cooked lentils, chopped tomatoes, and tuna with a drizzle of olive oil, red wine vinegar and a bit of sea salt...a dish from Spain :)