The Day Full of Walking

I woke up this morning at the wonderfully leisurely hour of 1pm, after a night of "socializing" with some of the people I am living with over the summer. Then proceeded to stay in bed as long as possible before hunger drove me to stop being lazy. My day really started at about 3pm, at which point I decided that I wanted to walk around town and take pictures.

About twenty minutes in to walking around I decided that it would in fact be kind of nice to have a bike and pulled out my iPhone to find the nearest bike shop. I quickly found Iron City Bikes on the map, and of course it was in the complete opposite direction as I had been walking. Soon I was heading in the right direction, and snapped away pictures while passing through the melting pot of residential housing, the CMU campus, the Pitt campus, and commercialized areas. Right as I passed the edge of the Pitt campus I found myself walking toward a brightly colored building with a mural of Pittsburgh on one side, and a metal sign saying "Iron City Bikes" on the other. Sadly, the doors were all closed so I settled to come back another day.

From there I started walking down this largely-sloped old cobbled street, cars making a thump-thump-thump as they passed, and bicyclists speeding past me. As I reached the end of the street, and was getting ready to turn back toward campus, I saw a very inviting staircase off to my left, it ran straight up a big hill through a bunch of trees and brushes, so of course I had to follow it. As I got to the top, I found myself in a nice grassy clearing with a fountain in the middle and some pavilions and other gathering places in the distance.

As I turned the other direction I could see some CMU buildings over the trees, so I headed in that direction. I was soon crossing a bridge and heading in to a large park people had told me about that butts straight up to the side of campus. I continued to walk around the park, observing the people out and about. Before I knew it I was back on campus. I walked back toward the house, and passed by the 2005 CMU entry in to the Solar Decathlon before going in to CMU's stadium and taking a walk around the track. Before I knew it I was back in my room.

About five minutes after getting back, a friend came and knocked on my door to see if I wanted to go get chinese food. Five of us were then walking in the direction I started off heading about three hours earlier. We got to Walnut street, and small shopping district, found the Chinese place, and then found that it was closed for remodeling. As a quick alternative, we walked down to the next block and went to a pretty good (but slightly pricey) Thai place. After getting our bellies filled we walked back to the house and I have since enjoyed staying off my feet for the rest of the night.