City of Bridges

When a city has over 400 bridges, we can call it a City of Bridges. Recently, I got an opportunity to visit Pittsburgh. I must have passed at least 6-7 bridges in a day of my stay which justifies the name. At a point of time, it was the 3^rd industrialized city of US, after NY and Chicago. I was there on a business trip, just for a day. I flew from Chicago to Pittsburgh in the morning and rented a hotel nearby airport. The benefit of booking an airport hotel is it’s cheap and convenient. Also, you get the shuttle pick up and drop off. As soon as I entered the PGH airport, I was greeted by a Mesozoic era being-Dinosaur. PGH is the home of Carnegie Museum and hence the display. I called my hotel and requested for the shuttle pickup, they gave me directions to stand outside pillar 8. Soon the shuttle came and driver asked me “app Indian hai”, he had a different accent, so I was not able to catch it first time. I said “sorry”, he replied back-“app Indian hai”. Then I understood him and said “ha bhai, me Indian hu”. As I entered in the shuttle, he offered me if I wanted to sit in the front seat. I said, ok, and then we had a little conversation and got to know that he is a refugee from Bhutan/Nepal. He was born in one country but his ancestors were from another country. At 18 years of age, that another country denied keeping them and he could not move back to birth country. So, he had nowhere to go and hence fell in US. The hotel room wasn’t ready when I checked in, which is understandable as I was too early than check in time. I was on call all the time while checking in and traveling from Airport to Hotel which is also understandable. 

I spent some more time on the call and then took rest before heading to office. I called Uber and reached PPG industries where my office was located. It was right in downtown. That building was the best building in PGH. It was surrounded by similar type of buildings. As I was hungry, I had a sandwich first and then entered office. I completed my office work and then I was roaming around downtown to get a gist of PGH. I visited Point State Park and Fort Duquesne (in Point State Park). The Three Rivers Arts Festival was also going on in the park. I sat down and enjoyed some songs, although I wasn’t able to understand everything, still it was good listening to those bands. It was Wednesday, but crowd was enough to make the environment lively. Then I took my dinner and headed straight to hotel and returned back to Chicago the very next afternoon.