The Good, The Bad, and The Burgh: My Travels to Pittsburgh Part 4

Alright so I've decided that not much happened on Thursday, at least not enough to develop a worthwhile retelling of events, so we skim Thursday, hit the details for Friday, cause Friday, well we got down on Friday.

Almost have been here for 24 hours at this point woo!

Thursday March 24 Recap:
Woke up, watched Kellie a the smallest, yet most expensive meal i have ever seen. $27 for a bagel cream cheese and pot of coffee. We then realized we had a coffee maker in the room the whole time. We then went and listened to Kellie read her paper, it was about a banned book whose title I cannot remember at this point, but the plot revolved around prostitutes in England, and the paper analyzed whether or not virginity really exists. The other papers I believe revolved around Jane Eyre, or Jane Austen, or I could be confusing them with another presentation. I lost the program, so I can't go back for reference. Anyway it as a very good paper, an it gave me the first taste of how this convention works. Here's how it works:
1. Sit in the front of a small conference room of roughly 20 people.
2. 4-5 college students will read their papers in front of a podium, if said room has no podium, substitute a round table that is slightly taller than the table the presenters are sitting at. Most, but not all, papers will have a similar theme.
3. Have the professors in the room ask questions to the students, who most likely do not know what the professor asking the question is talking about.
4. Applaud
So, you know, good times.

For lunch we went with our professor, Dr. MacDiarmid, to a pizza place near by, a fun little hole in the wall run by an Italian family. Their pizza was much better than the pizza I had the night before.

Outside

Later we (Kellie, Kaela, Jennifer (the other girl who made it) and I)  went to dinner at a place called the Primanti Brothers. This is apparently one of the staples of Pittsburgh, so we were eager to try it. We got it and saw that it was pretty much just a sandwich shop, which was fin, because I like sandwiches. We sat at the bar because the restaurant was very narrow. The girls all ordered chicken strips to which the guy behind the bar asked them, "You do realize this is a sandwich shop right?" to which I told him, "I do, give me the steak sandwich." That's how you man up.
A Primanti Brothers sandwich is built like this:
Base: Bread
Tier 1: meat and cheese
Tier 2: Fries (which made me think of Fat Sandwich, this was no Fat Sandwich)
Tier 3: Coleslaw
Top: Bread (or did you already figure that one out?)

Coleslawisacious

Now, I don't like coleslaw, especially when it consumes half of my sandwich, but I was committed to having the full Primanti Brothers experience. Unfortunately, it wasn't a positive one as I felt sick the rest of night.

[SideNote: In addition to the outrageous bar time of 11 p.m. EST, liquor stores in Pittsburgh  apparently close 5 p.m. EST because we saw a guy buy  six pack from the Primanti Brothers at like 6 p.m. saying that's how this city worked.]

This is her

The rest of the night consisted of listening to one of the guest-author's speak to the entire conference, and then heading to bed. The speaker was good, her name Lorene Cary and she wrote a lot of poetry and memoir. She also helped with a prison program an she was a professor. I enjoyed her speech although I'm not sure if I took much away from it. The nice part of these speeches was when the authors would talk with the audience instead of at them when they opened it up for Q&A at the end.

Ok this ended up being kind of short, but I'd like to keep the days in separate posts so I'll stop here and gear up for Friday, because that's when we hit the South Side.

The Good, The Bad, and The Burgh: My Travels to Pittsburgh Part 2

When we last left, I was headed back to my gate in Green Bay after waiting on the tarmac for 3 and half hours in the midst of a blizzard only to find out the Twin Cities airport had shut down. And now...

Still trying to get here

Wednesday March 23 10:15 a.m.
Getting off the pane, I immediately got on the phone to Walt to figure out what I should do. I knew there was a flight leaving sometime around 1 p.m. to the twin cities as well, but looking at radar, it didn't look like anyone would be getting in or out of the Twin Cities anytime soon. Walt luckily works for a company that has their own travel agent, so he was able to figure out that there was a United Airlines flight to Chicago leaving around noon, as well as an American Airlines flight leaving for Cleveland around the same time.
There was a long line but an additional desk opened up and I was able to get helped fairly quickly. The lady at the desk while nice, did not seem to happy when I asked to be switched to a different airline, but I was like hey lady I gotta get to Pittsburgh. However apparently Delta, United, and American don't get along very well, so neither of them was willing to give up any seats.
What finally ended up happening was that I kept my original Delta flight, but got put on standby for two flights to Pittsburgh, and was actually booked on one that left at 7:30 p.m. As a I again looked at the radar, I noticed the storm now stretched from Minnesota to the East Coast, suffice it to say, I believed I had little hope of actually getting to Pittsburgh that day.
I got a terrible sandwich that was grossly overpriced at the airport, and began to again wait to see what would happen. Outside the the wind was still blowing and the snow was still falling. At 12:30 they reboarded the plane, but this time, I had to go back to my original seat, since the couple seemed to have given up on this plane. After sitting for another hour, as they deiced the plane again, we finally took off, and got to the Twin Cities safely.

This a scale model of the Twin Cities Airport, although I don't know what scale

2:30 p.m. Twin Cities, MN
I got off the plane at the exact moment my first standby flight was departing. Since it was on the other side of the airport, and the Twin Cities airport is apparently really big, there was no way to get there, so I made my way my next standby flight, also on the other side of the airport, so I could check in.
When I got to the gate, there was an old man working the counter, which I immediately knew was a bad sign (nothing against the elderly). He said he couldn't add me to stand by because it was already full, but directed me over to a guy in a red jacket, who is apparently like the head customer service person for Delta, who was able to get me on standby.

Apparently these guys were the bees knees in the 70's

I waited around for a while, and saw the flight get bumped to 5:30, which was good because I hadn't seen the flight from green bay that should have left shortly after mine arrive yet. I tried sleeping at the airport, because that's kind of like a bucket list item for me, but i just couldn't find a good spot to nap. At about 4:30, the two girls finally got their, saying their plane had gotten stuck in  a snow bank, as had the tractor that had come to get the plane out. They were able to make it onto the flight, and looked as if I was going to as well, because there were two seats open for standby, and I was the second one on the list. (Apparently Delta prioritizes standby by how badly your travel arrangements had been fucked up that day, so even though i was the last person to be added to the list, I was technically second) However, the people on the list in front of me, was not one person, but actually a party, consisting of two people. So, I was out and off to find a place for dinner.

5:30 p.m.
I trucked back to find the gate for my 7:30 flight, to find it had been bumped to 8:30, which was fine because it gave me time to find someplace to eat. I was also waiting for about three other girls to get in from Green Bay who were supposed to be on this flight, however I was soon informed their flight had been canceled and they wouldn't leave until the next day. So for dinner alone, I had a few options, but traveling makes me anxious, which makes me lose my appetite, so i thought over a few options. There was a TGI Fridays, that was tempting, but was no Chili's. There was a Quizno's that sounded good, but apparently Quizno's changed their menu, so I didn't seen anything too appealing, I finally settled on a sandwich at Einstein Bagel Brothers which was good, not great. Then I headed to my gate and waited.
Upon my return I found that my flight had been moved back to its original time of 7:30 and would soon be boarding.

7:30 p.m. On the plane
Once on the plane though we had to wait because the time had changed and they were still missing people, so they wanted to make sure everyone got on the plane. It was on the plane that I experienced first sitcom stereotype of air travel, the uncomfortableness of sitting next to an obese woman. She even said I should ask the stewardess to move to the open seat behind us because "We would both be more comfortable." But the person showed up for that seat so I was stuck, allow I was on the aisle so that was ok.

This is the best result Google could give me for the search "stuck between fat people on a plane"

In front of me there was a girl who looked to be about my age, also traveling by herself. A guy came up and asked to read her moleskin, she seemed surprised but said ok.
It was at this point I asked if she was also headed to the STD convention, to which she said yes. Her name was Hilary, she was from Santa Clara, and she was also presenting a creative non-fiction piece.

The plane took off, and an hour and half later, we landed in Pittsburgh. Now I needed to figure out how to get to my hotel.

So end Part Two, stay tuned for Part Three, to find out if I make it to my hotel, I told you day-by-day, play-by-play, you get all the details whether you want them or not.

The Good, The Bad, and The Burgh: My Travels to Pittsburgh Part 1

Ok so, it's been a while, and a lot has happened since my last post.  I've been places, done things, seen things, most of which, I haven't revealed on this blog. So it's time to play catch up, starting with my trip to Pittsburgh, it s a long and frightful story fraught with peril, so skip to the end where I sum up the day by day play by play.

The mission: Get to Pittsburgh

The Set Up:
Back in fall my adviser suggested I submit a piece of my work to a national English honor society, called Sigma Tau Delta. If my piece was accepted I would attend the national convention in Pittsburgh and present my paper on a panel. So I submit a creative non-fiction piece, get accepted at the end of January and book a flight for Pittsburgh from Wednesday March 23 to fly out of Green Bay for Pittsburgh.

The Sigma Tau Delta logo, otherwise known as STD

Tuesday March 22, 2011 10:00 (ish) p.m.
Inclement weather in the form of a notorious March Wisconsin blizzard moves its way into Green Bay. Expected snowfall 10-16 inches. I was finishing getting the latest issue of school paper together to be sent to the printer for publication the next day. We were already two days behind coming off spring break. I checked my email to find an email from one of the girls going on the trip (did I mention that there were like 9 girl students, 2 female professors, one male professor, and myself going on this trip?) saying that the 7 a.m. flight from Green bay to Detroit that most of the group was scheduled on was already canceled. However there was a 6:15 a.m. flight to the Twin Cities that would then direct to Pittsburgh.
I hate traveling by plane, which is weird because I love airports (a post for another time perhaps), so I booked that flight and set my alarm for 4:20 a.m. determined to get to Pittsburgh as soon as possible. y the time i left the newspaper office, it was already snowing pretty hard.

Wednesday March 23, 2011 4:20 a.m.
The plan was this:
Wake up, make sure the flight wasn't canceled.
Shower, make sure the flight wasn't canceled.
Drive to airport, get on plane, get to Pittsburgh.

This photo was taken on a nice day

This is what happened:
I woke up and found my flight was still scheduled, showered, got my bags downstairs, and went outside to clean off and warm up my car. By now at least 8 inches had already fallen, and it was still coming down hard. The dead end street I lived on had not yet been plowed. I got in my car and drove to the airport. The nice thing was no one was on the roads, and the stupid main street in De Pere that has like twenty different lights, were all blinking yellow, I would have gotten to the airport in ten minutes, if I hadn't realized, as I was about to turn into the airport, that I had forgotten my luggage inside my house. I pull a U-turn, get back to my house, the flashing yellow lights are now back on their regular green, yellow, red schedule. Get to my house, get my luggage, but my street still hasn't been plowed. The street it is connected to has been though, and now  I need to get the Stratastrophe over a big mound of snow. I think I would have made  if there hadn't been a car coming and I had to slow down. Instead, I get stuck. Luckily I have a shovel in the back of my car (thank you Walt) and begin to frantically shovel out my car. After much shouting, swearing and grunting, I got out and got back to the airport. However, when I got to the long term parking, only portions had been plowed out, and it was hard to tell what was only covered with a little snow, and what was actually a foot of snow covering a spot. I guessed wrong, and again got the Strat stuck halfway into a parking spot. Cue excessive and frantic shoveling. Got it out, got it parked in a decent spot. Rushed  to get my boarding pass, figure by now, its about 5:30-5:40 a.m. still snowing very hard, still very dark, still very windy.
Green Bay airport (also known as Austin Straubel International) has a very efficient security system to get through especially when you are there early in the morning. y the time I got to the gate, my plane had already boarded.
Another thing I should note, this was my first solo trip, as I didn't see anyone else that was supposed to be on this trip on the flight. I am a very hectic traveler meaning I always worry about missing flights and arriving at my destination. But I digress...
On the plane I was seated on the window by the wing, but a young couple, one whom the female loudly announced I'm pregnant (in nasally self important tone), asked if I would switch with the aisle seat in the row in front of them so they could sit next to each other. I was more than happy to oblige since I like the leg room, although I find I often get knocked by the flight attendants walking through the aisle making sleep next to impossible. I sat next to a nice gentleman who was trying to get to San Fransisco and didn't seem to confident either of us would be reaching our destination that day.
No sooner had a switched seats then the pilot came on to tell us the only plowed runway had a strong crosswind that he didn't feel comfortable taking off in, so they were waiting for another runway to be cleared that worked better with the wind. He'd check back in 15-20 minutes.

This is what happens when you try and take off with bad crosswinds

SideNote: OK now did anyone watch that recent episode of 30 Rock where Tina Fey and Matt Damon break up while she's trapped on the plane he's piloting? Because he says like 20 minutes is just something they tell passengers when they have no idea, and it's totally true.

Thankfully, my plane did not delve into madness

Let's fast forward to 9:30 a.m. still on the tarmac but about to take off for Twin Cities, the right runway is cleared, the plane has been deiced, get ready to go down the runway and...
"Well folks we've just been informed that Twin cities has closed down, we're gonna head back to the gate and let you deplane."

Alright, while I really wanted to belt this out in one post, it looks like parts would be the smarter decision here, so we'll end part one on a cliffhanger, check back later for the rest of the story.