Canadutch
RIGHT, so back to the story of our visit to Pittsburgh. It all seems like such a whirlwind now, I can’t believe it has been almost four months already. Why is it that the time you spend waiting for something drags on, yet the time that passes after something flies like the wind. Life can be so bizarre that way, can’t it?
Preparing for the trip actually went really well. I had lists on top of lists on top of lists, and I packed like a boss!
I also prepared a lot better for the flight. You know how I mentioned my freakishly small hands in my post about my Christmas mittens? Well, I have equally short legs, and that makes flying a nightmare for me. It’s all to do with the angle of my legs and how it makes my back feel. Every time I fly I wish I had something to put my feet on so that my legs would be at more of a right angle. Every single time I fly I get a backache because my feet don’t touch the floor properly. Not this time!
Sometimes it sucks being Hobbit sized, my feet never touch the floor properly in planes and it makes my back ache… Hopefully this will help me get comfy! A photo posted by Tammy Canavan-Soldaat (@canadutch) on
It totally helped me get comfortable! It raised my feet just enough that my back was at a better angle and I was surprised at how well it kept the air. In the beginning I was a bit worried that I was going to put my weight on it and bust it while shifting around, but it was surprisingly hardy. It takes up most of the floor space in front of you but I didn’t mind that as it let me put my feet in different positions as I was getting comfortable.
Our flight was leaving Amsterdam at around 7am so we decided to stay at the Hilton hotel at the airport the night before. Best decision ever. It really made things a lot more relaxed and there was no getting up at 3am to get to the airport hours before our flight nonsense.
Man I love flying, especially if I have a window seat. I am one of those people that pretty much sits with their nose pressed against the glass the whole time.
It was all good until we reached Frankfurt. We had such a mad dash that we didn’t get to see much of the airport, other than the absurdly long lines at the different customs areas. It was insane. We had an hour and we just managed to get off our flight, get through customs and run like hell to get in line to board the next one. Needless to say, neither of us enjoyed that airport, but we knew it was going to be tight with such a short time in between.
The real trouble started in Toronto.
When we were checking in for our flight from Toronto to Pittsburgh we were told that one of our pieces of luggage didn’t make it from Frankfurt. They said it would be out on the next flight and would be delivered to our hotel. Ok, fair enough. The only problem was that we didn’t know which suitcase it was. My clothes were spread equally across both, but most of my husband’s clothes were in the larger of the two. So we had to make sure we were prepared just in case it was that one that was missing (and it was, we got it back three days later). A Toronto t-shirt purchase at the airport and a quick trip to Target once we arrived in Pittsburgh and we were sorted.
On our flight from Toronto to Pittsburgh we met a young couple returning from a holiday. I don’t remember where they were coming back from, somewhere sunny. We got to chatting and they had a lot of great info about the city. We were having such a fun time laughing and chatting that a rather bitchy looking lady yelled at us to shut up from about five rows ahead. Oops. That reminds me I really should email that girl, it would be nice to have some more contacts there when we finally arrive, and she and her boyfriend seemed like a lot of fun.
Anyway, we finally arrived. After months and months (and a few more months) of waiting we were finally in Pittsburgh!! It’s all a bit of a blur now, thanks to my crappy memory and jet lag but it felt great to finally be there. Tim, one of the guys from the company, was there to meet us at the airport and drive us to our hotel. It worked out really well because he spent a while driving us around the city, telling us a bit about the different areas, different city programs for the pools (one membership to get into all the public pools in the city!) and golf clubs and stuff like that, then delivered us to our hotel later in the evening. I say it worked out well because he helped us to stay awake all evening, which I think helped greatly with our jet lag. We probably would have been in bed at 8pm otherwise!
Speaking of bed…
Hello!! Oh my word, that bed was a little slice of heaven! or, a big slice, rather!
I don’t remember the last time I slept on a bed so comfortable. In fact, I fully plan to ask them where they got the mattress because when we move there we’ll be getting a new bed and I want that one. Maybe not the bedframe, but the mattress for sure. It was to die for!
The “hotel” where the company put us up really shouldn’t even be called a hotel, it was so much more than that. It’s a place called The Shadyside Inn, which is actually old apartment buildings and houses that were made over into a hotel of suites. So you basically are staying in an apartment rather than your regular, run of the mill hotel room. We got really lucky and were upgraded to one of their mansion suites. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t question it!
I could have lived in this place, I swear. Here are a few photos (courtesy of the Shadyside Inn Mansion Suites website)
This is the layout of the place. It is not a whole lot smaller than our flat here in the Netherlands! It’s much nicer, though.
I still dream of that bed. I don’t think I have slept that well since we left! Now that I think about it, I probably should have done an entirely separate post just reviewing this place, but let’s continue on anyway.
The suite that we stayed in was a few blocks from reception but even though they weren’t right there, they were really attentive. When we arrived they had someone there to drive us and help us get our bags up to the suite. If we phoned them, they were always right on top of everything. There really isn’t a bad thing I could say about the place… except maybe that the guys kept us so busy that we didn’t get to spend enough time in there? Can’t really call that a bad thing, though, can we?
We did find time for a few small pleasures though… like sitting out on the balcony enjoying one of their complimentary muffins with my coffee.
Even the travel didn’t rid us of our early mornings. You’d think we’d sleep until noon or something but just like at home, we were up to wake the birds. So on our first morning we decided to go on a little walk around the neighbourhood. It was in Shadyside so it was a lovely area to explore. Thankfully it is mostly blocks (not every which way, twisty, turny, tangled roads like Rotterdam) so I was able to find our way back to the Inn. Well, thanks to that and what my husband calls my “Pigeon Powers”, I’m pretty good at finding my way back to where I came from.
One of the most interesting things from our walk were these signs. One from the city and one from what I can only assume is someone that lives in the area (stuck into the grass next to a heaping dog turd). Oh, if only they took dog crap this seriously in the Netherlands!
An early morning jetlagged walk around the inn has revealed that the people of Pittsburgh literally take shit very seriously. I wish there was more of this in Rotterdam! A photo posted by Tammy Canavan-Soldaat (@canadutch) on
Over the few days we were there we did a fair bit of walking around different areas in the city and I have to say, I don’t think I saw a single pile of dog poo. It seems that while their roads are absolute rubbish, the city does indeed take dog shit very seriously!
After our early morning walk, we went back to the room and chilled out for a while. We had two or three hours before we were being picked up so it was a good chance to get cleaned up and relax a bit before a busy day of meeting people and seeing things began!
We were picked up by Xander’s boss, or well…potential boss at the time. He drove us around a bit, took us to run a few errands and then we picked up his wife and the two of them spent the rest of the day showing us around some of the areas north of the city. Then we stopped at a place called Penn’s Colony to walk around. I loved this place! It was like a festival in the woods with lots of stands with handmade goods and food. Clearly, this was totally my kind of thing!
We were there for a few hours walking around, chatting and getting to know each other a bit, then around lunch we met up with their daughter, her husband and their three kids. Their daughter’s husband works at the company as well, so it was another opportunity for Xander to meet one of the guys face to face finally. It took only about a minute of being around them all to see that they are really family people, and I loved that, I’m pretty sure Xander did too.
One of my favorite things that I saw that day were these landscape weavings by Ruthann Farinacci.
I think they look so cool! I chatted with her for a while and she was telling me about some crafty groups she belongs to. I really want to try this sometime and will likely look her up after we move.
After Penn’s Colony we drove around the countryside some more, falling more and more in love with the area. I was surprised by how much it reminded me of home (Cape Breton home, I mean, not the Netherlands). There were times when we were driving along one of the roads and if you had told me we were somewhere around the Mira, I would have believed you. This definitely worked in their favor in regards to ‘wooing’ us and getting us to fall in love with Pittsburgh.
I wish I could remember the name of the place they took us next, but it has totally escaped me. It was a beautiful castle / mansion type of place way up on a hill north of the city. They live in Fox Chapel so I think it’s somewhere near-ish to there. The grounds were really beautiful. It was surprisingly hot that day and with two bald husbands (both of whom forgot to bring hats) we figured we should probably get out of the sun!
From there we went back to their house to get ready for a gathering later that evening. They showed us around their house, which is apparently always a work in progress with a new addition going on every few years. We chatted, prepared some food, got our asses handed to us in pool and started discussing some of the plans for our future in Pittsburgh.
That evening they had planned a BBQ for people from the company to come with their families and meet us. I so wish I had remembered to get my camera out and take photos, but I just didn’t think of it, not even once. You know that I have to be seriously distracted if I didn’t even get one photo, because I’m notorious for getting photos of even the most mundane things. So one would think I’d have tons from such an important evening… but nope. Nada!
You know what I think it was? I was just lost… in the most amazing way. I was sitting in a circle around a fire pit with the girlfriends and wives of some of the other guys that work at the company. We were chatting and laughing while Xander was up by the house getting to know the guys. It has been so long since I’ve been in a social situation like that where I could fully be myself, where there were no worries about language issues or things being lost in translation. No turning into a wallflower because it’s too difficult to understand multiple people all talking over each other at lightning speed in a language that makes those situations more difficult. I was able to chat freely, not having to worry about making sure I was speaking clearly or slowly enough if I was speaking English, or searching for words in another language. Sure, there are gatherings with other expats and I’m not starved for social interaction by any means, but even during those gatherings the conversations are often still centered around life in the Netherlands. A topic I feel like I’ve kind of talked to death in the past 15 years.
Anyway, I loved it. Not only because of the lack of language / cultural differences but because they were all so friendly and welcoming. I didn’t feel like I was in a group of strangers all evening or like I was at a stuffy company gathering trying not to be too obvious as I checked my watch. I felt like I was at a family gathering, with people who genuinely knew and liked each other and enjoyed spending time together. It was comfortable and fun. I looked up at my husband every now and then, talking enthusiastically with these guys he’s been waiting so long to meet and I knew he was as happy as I was, that after months of waiting and wondering, we both knew in our guts that this company, these people, that city… it was what we wanted.
Of course, it was only the first day and we hadn’t had any really serious discussions at that point, so I was constantly reminding myself that nothing was set in stone. There was a small voice in the back of my mind, the little pessimistic and protective part of myself that said “Don’t get your hopes up, nothing is for certain, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is!”
I heard it, and I acknowledged it, but it didn’t stop the excitement from mounting.
Would Xander finally be able to make the career change he’s been dying to make for the past few years?
Would I finally move back to an English speaking country where I can truly thrive and really be myself again?
Will I finally be at least on the same continent as my family again? Will I be close enough to, after 15 years, be able to spend Christmas or other holidays with my family?
Is it all going to work out? Will they want him? Will they like us? Will it all really happen?
I looked around that evening as we were driving home and was thinking to myself, will I drive here again? Will this be my home and someday will I be driving along this road thinking back to this moment when it all seemed so new, uncertain and exciting? What on earth does our future hold for us from this point?
As we saw more of the city and spent more time with the guys and their families, the more attached we became to the idea of moving and having a new start in Pittsburgh. There was still a lot to figure out and discuss, but we were already sold. We had an exciting few days ahead of us!
Wow, so very cool!