Piittsburgh - Part 2

The University of Pittsburgh has a 36-story tower, the first three floors are open in the middle to a Gothic cathedral style architecture. They call it the Cathedral of Learning, and apparently it is the second-tallest education building in the world. Inside of the building are several classrooms that were designed by immigrant groups in Pittsburgh in the style of their home countries. It was fun to take a self-guided audio tour of these rooms.

Here we are in the Norwegian room with rosemaling (beautiful Scandinavian folk art painted on wood) in the background of the first picture and a tapestry in the second.



The ceilings were painted with floral designs in the Czech Republic room. They didn't turn out very well in the pictures, but Karina was cute.


Russia:


Sweden:


and Turkey:


Another highlight of our trip was visiting the Children's Museum. We did that on our last day and were somewhat torn whether to go to the museum and spend the money or to get on the road. I'm glad we went; Karina had fun and we did too. There's a similar museum in Baltimore, we're thinking we should visit it a few times as well. One of the big exhibits was crawling around an obstacle course/human maze. I barely fit and some of the other kids had to squeeze past us, but we enjoyed our time in there. Karina is a good climber.




The toddler area was a big hit with several toys and play areas. This Goldberg contraption with the ball rolling around was popular with Karina.


As Pittsburgh was the setting and production location for Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, there were a lot of toys and memorabilia from the show at the museum. I think this tree house may have been one of the show settings for puppets, or was at least a replica. Karina just liked playing peek-a-boo with the door.


Karina found a walker to play with and it was one of her favorite toys there.


They also had a fun water exhibit with boats, whirlpools, etc. as well as a station to connect pipes/sprinklers to running water. Karina had fun playing in the water.


After the Children's Museum, we got on the road for the return trip. On the way back, we took a break at Fallingwater - a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright that is an architectural landmark. It is famous for blending the manmade with nature and for massive cantilevered concrete beams. Of course, while we were at Fallingwater, the water fell...hard. We got caught in a huge thunderstorm that hours earlier had apparently caused some major flooding near the hotel we were staying at in Pittsburgh. We braved the elements to get some pretty pictures, though.



We wound up driving through several arms of the storm on the way back home and that was quite nerve-wracking (made worse by Karina's screaming). We fortunately made it home without major incident (we saw several other drivers who had hydroplaned off the road who perhaps weren't as lucky). It was good to get away for a few days and explore a part of the area we hadn't visited before, but it was great to be home safe and climb in our own beds that night.