Reddit's Fantastical Voyage Pt. Eight

11:00am - Arrive in Pittsburgh late (our first delayed flight)

12:00pm - Cracker Barrel

1:00pm - Submarine

2:00pm - Kicked out of PNC Park

3:00pm - Mattress Factory

5:00pm - Ice Cream!

7:00pm - Meet-up at Primanti Bros.

10:00pm - Bacon night. Wizard hat adventures begin.

1:00am - Pass out at Arunan's

September 23^rd

12:00pm - Atomic wings at Quaker Stake and Lube

1:00pm - Cathedral of Learning

2:00pm - Run-in with Pittsburgh police and the Secret Service

3:00pm - Wandered around Pittsburgh

5:00pm - Street cart pho

7:00pm - Church Brewery meet-up

9:30pm - Try to go to a pub quiz, get rejected

10:00pm - Drinks and cornhole at the Double Wide

1:00am - Drunken staring contest

2:00am - Back to Arunan's

8:00am - Wake up late. Rush to airport

9:30am - Board plane for Rochester via JFK

11:30am - Sit around JFK for 5 ½ hours

5:00pm - Leave for Rochester

We missed out on all the fun. If only we had been in Pittsburgh a day later we could have seen the start of the G20 protests and riots and beatings. Oh well, we still got harassed by the Pittsburgh police and the Secret Service despite it all.

Arunan and DoubleD picked us up from the airport and, after grabbing some food, we got a tour of a submarine that is now a permanent fixture of the Three Rivers. It turns out DoubleD knew the tour guide, an older veteran, from his time learning ham radio, so we got a free private tour and were let into some normally off limits areas - namely the radio and communications room. And since it was right next door, Arunan and DoubleD tried to show us the Steelers Hall of Fame, but it turns out they just left the gate open when it was supposed to be closed, so we got chased out of there pretty fast. Oh well.

The next stop was the Mattress Factory. Guess what it used to be? Well now it is a contemporary art museum. The permanent exhibition mostly focused on how people perceive space, and was consistently engaging. There were only a few pieces, but each one was surprising and interesting. The rotating part of the collection was also pretty cool. Everyone enjoyed the ring toss game with a crown of thorns as the ring and Jesus as the peg.

We drove around Pittsburgh some more, grabbed an ice cream at a place with a great view of the city, and meandered over to the meet-up at Primanti Bros. They make excellent sandwiches. A few of us continued on after dinner to a bar that served bacon with your beer all night. While we were there a few more Redditors come by, including one MustardHamsters with his miraculous wizard hat. I had requested a robe and a wizard hat to help with a film we wanted to make the next day, and he came through. Wearing a wizard hat in a bar does tend to draw some attention. First he was approached by a girl who wanted to give him a drink in exchange for the story of why he was wearing it, but he turned her down because he was underage (not a good reason, I know). I ended up with that drink and chatting up her and her friend while the Redditors held up helpful signs such as "New Mission: Kiss Her" followed by a look of disapproval when I did not. MustardHamsters was approached again by someone intrigued by the wizard hat, this time leading to him making out with a birthday girl. Because kissing a wizard on your birthday ensures good luck for the following year.

The next day we were taken to Quaker Stake & Lube where DoubleD said he would pay for the atomic wings if we would eat them, so, well, of course we had to go for it. They made my eyes water, my stomach hate me, and my lips burn for about 15 minutes. From there we picked up MustardHamsters with his wizard hat and went to the Cathedral of Learning to film a little, mostly improvised, video. All that went pretty well, some of the strangers I talked to got into it and answered perfectly (check out Tom's video), but when we were done we ran into a slight complication.

MustardHamsters was trying to convince me to run into a girls ultimate frisbee game and try and stop the frisbee in midair with my wand. Failing that, grab the frisbee, throw it and yell "magic missile", then tun away. I was done with the wizard costume, but he said he would do it if I would not. As he strode toward the frisbee game, passing the Cathedral of Learning again, a large contingent of Pittsburgh PD in forest camouflage came out and stopped him. They questioned him for some time, came over and had a passive aggressive conversation with Tom and I, and finally let us all go. Apparently the Secret Service were also photographing us. Moral of the story: don't film in a wizard costume the day before the G20 starts if you don't want it in some sort of government file for suspicious behavior.

That little adventure over, we killed time around town going to a nice record store and getting some Asian food from some street carts until it was time for the meet-up that night. It was held in a church that has been converted into a brewery, aptly named the Brew Church. We met up with a few new Redditors here, as well as some of those from the night before, and all enjoyed some of the beers made in-house. We crossed over to the south side of town to continue at a bar called the Double Wide where we all played cornhole and Tom and I had a late breakfast (Tecate and tequila).

As we were driving back to Arunan's house, Tom and I decided to finally have the staring contest we had said we would when it looked as if only one of us would be going on this trip. What triggered the idea was driving by a bronze statue that appeared to be locked in a staring contest itself, so we held our contest in front of its eternal battle. As I think we lost the footage we took of the contest, the outcome was Tom won by cheating.

We slept at Arunan's, woke up late, and rushed off to the airport and were on our way to Rochester, with a 5 ½ hours layover in JFK.