A Novel Idea

So a bunch of people were asking Kim, Ray, and I if we were going to start a blog while we were doing the Pittsburgh Semester. We decided (because of our genius ideas and blatant laziness) to do one together!

Here is where we are so far:

Last Tuesday we moved into the guesthouse at the Pittsburgh Project. It was built in 2005 as an LED green certified building, or something along those lines. What this means to us is that the showers take a good 15 minutes to warm up because the water is heated by solar panels on the roof. How this is going to work during the cloudy and dreary days of winter, we don't know. But really it's a pretty cool thing. They use drainage water from the roof to water the toilets, and we're provided with green cleaning products to keep our bathrooms clean and green (that was not supposed to rhyme).

Orientation consisted of a lot of eating. We went to an Ethiopian restaurant for dinner one night. That was awesome because they don't use silverware! We did Indian food one night as well, which happens to be one of my favorite food genres (Kim's too!). We also went to a couple coffee shops including the Beehive on Carson Street and Beleza in the Mexican Wars Streets. Beleza is unique because seven college students from Hope College moved to Pittsburgh wanting to make a difference in the community. What came of that was this great coffee shop that I am sitting in right now!

Along with food, we also had the opportunity to experience some great cultural events. We went to a Brad Yoder concert on the Pitt campus. They do free weekly conerts throughout the summer, apparently. We also got to check out the observatory on where else, but Observatory Hill! The tour ended up being really interesting and was led by two rather geeky astronomer guys. They were actually rather endearing.

We also did a lot of driving and touring of the city and Perry Hilltop where the Pittsburgh Project, and consequently, our dorm is located.

As of today, we have been living in the burgh for a full week. Our first class was this morning. It consisted of sharing our autobiographys and then traveling to Market Square to observe how it is designed and used, which is basically a glorified way of describing people watching!

The other students here are fun. There are a whooping five of us, meaning that aside from Kim, Ray, and myself, there are two other students. Brandon is from Malone College and Anthony is Lebanon (pronounced Lebanen, don't mess it up) Valley. The five of us should be pretty close by time this thing is over.

Overall, the first week has been very good. I am anticipating a very good semester. Internships start tomorrow, so that will be the big derterminer of that.

-Emily