Monday, July 31, 2006
Travel Log - Day 12 (Mr. Dixon goes to Washington)
And so does Mrs. Dixon, of course
About a year ago Belinda and I were planning our honeymoon. At that stage, we were about 90% sure we would never be able to afford a holiday to America just a few days after our wedding. Added to the cost was the effort of organising a overseas trip at the same time as planning a wedding, buying a house and moving out of a home for the first time. All this meant the likelihood of a honeymoon was low - but it also meant we didn't cut too many corners for the plan (why skimp when it's not going to happen). One such extravagance we added was "there's 5 days between to hockey games while we're in Pittsburgh - we might as well go to Washington instead of just hanging around". So on day 12 of our trip - we flew to Washington.
We woke up early and finished packing for our flight, and went straight to the airport. At the hotel lobby, the guy noticed that we had our bags and asked if we'd like him to call us a cab for the airport. Sure, why not, we said. When the cabbie finally turned up (I'm sure we could have found one much quicker) he put our bags in his car - and I thought I saw him give the hotel guy some money.
Anyway - our guy was really nice - and his car was great. He said he was an old footballer for the Cleveland Browns, but he was a huge Steelers fan. Guess Pittsburgh just wears people down like that. He gave us his card - and said he'd be happy to be at the airport to pick us up when we returned to Pittsburgh. I assume he organised this so he wouldn't have to pay some other dude just for calling his number. But he was nice to talk to - and he didn't cost that much more than the bus we took from the airport when we arrived at Pittsburgh - so it was fine.
A google search of our limo driver's brings up this guy - so I assume the above picture is what our driver looked like in his playing days. (I admit it - I just like bobbleheads)
As we usually tried to do, we arrived at Pittsburgh airport early for our flight - so we had some lunch. While we were waiting for our flight, we noticed that almost half of the airport were hanging around the stores with televisions. Sure enough, the town favourites were playing a game that day. Apparently (I really didn't pay much attention) it was a do-or-die game for their season - which they ended up winning. We could tell the result of the game just by listening to everyone else's reaction - which we ended up having to do for a while as our plane was delayed.
Once the plane was finally ready, we boarded to our seats. This plane was very small compared to all the others we had been on - I guess there's relatively few people traveling from Pittsburgh to Washington. Nothing interesting at all on this flight, except that the wings had ice on them - which was shot off by a high pressure water gun machine (very cool).
We got a taxi back to the hotel, which turned out to be pretty uninteresting. We decided to catch a movie and try to have a typical American evening. We ended up seeing Just Friends, which was a great choice. It was a comedy (which we both love), had some romance and a bit of hockey. Perfect for our honeymoon. After the movie we had some dinner at a random food place, I can't even remember what it was called. It was funny though - the waitresses had no idea what Belinda was saying - and kept talking about how cool her accent was (they thought she was European). I had to translate for us - turns out all that American TV watching was useful.
Our hotel was two blocks from the dinner venue - so we walked. It was getting pretty late, and it got very creepy. There was a car that was following us with people pointing at us from the inside - and some dude just walked up to us murmuring something. Apparently our hotel wasn't in the nicest of neighbourhoods, but we got back ok. This was the only time on our trip that we felt scared - and it kind of soured the whole Washington segment.
Anyway - we found our way home - and Belinda had a great suggestion. She asked if I wanted to watch a hockey game while we were in Washington (that's why I married her - so thoughtful!). It really was a great suggestion - as there was another highly rated rookie that played for the Capitals - Alex Ovechkin. I called the MCI center - and found out there was a game that fit our schedule quite well - and it turned out the rink was just around the corner from our hotel room! It was a sign.
About a year ago Belinda and I were planning our honeymoon. At that stage, we were about 90% sure we would never be able to afford a holiday to America just a few days after our wedding. Added to the cost was the effort of organising a overseas trip at the same time as planning a wedding, buying a house and moving out of a home for the first time. All this meant the likelihood of a honeymoon was low - but it also meant we didn't cut too many corners for the plan (why skimp when it's not going to happen). One such extravagance we added was "there's 5 days between to hockey games while we're in Pittsburgh - we might as well go to Washington instead of just hanging around". So on day 12 of our trip - we flew to Washington.
We woke up early and finished packing for our flight, and went straight to the airport. At the hotel lobby, the guy noticed that we had our bags and asked if we'd like him to call us a cab for the airport. Sure, why not, we said. When the cabbie finally turned up (I'm sure we could have found one much quicker) he put our bags in his car - and I thought I saw him give the hotel guy some money.
Anyway - our guy was really nice - and his car was great. He said he was an old footballer for the Cleveland Browns, but he was a huge Steelers fan. Guess Pittsburgh just wears people down like that. He gave us his card - and said he'd be happy to be at the airport to pick us up when we returned to Pittsburgh. I assume he organised this so he wouldn't have to pay some other dude just for calling his number. But he was nice to talk to - and he didn't cost that much more than the bus we took from the airport when we arrived at Pittsburgh - so it was fine.
A google search of our limo driver's brings up this guy - so I assume the above picture is what our driver looked like in his playing days. (I admit it - I just like bobbleheads)
As we usually tried to do, we arrived at Pittsburgh airport early for our flight - so we had some lunch. While we were waiting for our flight, we noticed that almost half of the airport were hanging around the stores with televisions. Sure enough, the town favourites were playing a game that day. Apparently (I really didn't pay much attention) it was a do-or-die game for their season - which they ended up winning. We could tell the result of the game just by listening to everyone else's reaction - which we ended up having to do for a while as our plane was delayed.
Once the plane was finally ready, we boarded to our seats. This plane was very small compared to all the others we had been on - I guess there's relatively few people traveling from Pittsburgh to Washington. Nothing interesting at all on this flight, except that the wings had ice on them - which was shot off by a high pressure water gun machine (very cool).
We got a taxi back to the hotel, which turned out to be pretty uninteresting. We decided to catch a movie and try to have a typical American evening. We ended up seeing Just Friends, which was a great choice. It was a comedy (which we both love), had some romance and a bit of hockey. Perfect for our honeymoon. After the movie we had some dinner at a random food place, I can't even remember what it was called. It was funny though - the waitresses had no idea what Belinda was saying - and kept talking about how cool her accent was (they thought she was European). I had to translate for us - turns out all that American TV watching was useful.
Our hotel was two blocks from the dinner venue - so we walked. It was getting pretty late, and it got very creepy. There was a car that was following us with people pointing at us from the inside - and some dude just walked up to us murmuring something. Apparently our hotel wasn't in the nicest of neighbourhoods, but we got back ok. This was the only time on our trip that we felt scared - and it kind of soured the whole Washington segment.
Anyway - we found our way home - and Belinda had a great suggestion. She asked if I wanted to watch a hockey game while we were in Washington (that's why I married her - so thoughtful!). It really was a great suggestion - as there was another highly rated rookie that played for the Capitals - Alex Ovechkin. I called the MCI center - and found out there was a game that fit our schedule quite well - and it turned out the rink was just around the corner from our hotel room! It was a sign.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Travel Log - Day 11 (Best NHL Game Ever - Mach II)
I was excited waking up on day 10, waking up on day 11 was twice as bad. I actually woke up quite early - a fair few hours before Bell - so I just read a book I had recently purchased.
When Bell finally woke up we decided to see a bit of the City of Pittsburgh. From the hotel room we could see that there was a fair bit of snow cover on the city, which was exciting. Even better - when we stepped outside our hotel room it was actually snowing. In Niagara Falls it was snowing - but really, that was the equivalent of a small spit. This was an actual fall - admittably not pissing down - but definately decent. I rather enjoyed holding my open hands up to the sky and collecting the snow. As a kid I always liked the idea of snow - the most we ever got in Melbourne was a very heavy hail storm - so this was great.
Something that I was entirely unprepared for was the amount of support the town gave to the Steelers. I had read on message boards that Pittsburgh was "Stillers Town" - but I was very surprised. Pretty much 1 out of every 3 or 4 people had some article of Steelers clothing on. Everyone from grandmothers to children was proudly displaying the Steelers name. There was also a lot of Penguin clothing (much more than I'd ever see in Australia) - but it was a little bit of a letdown.
We walked around the city - the first stop was the (now retired) Kaufmann's department store. The first thing I noticed was that half of the store staff were wearing Steelers jerseys as their uniforms (none of them were wearing Penguins jerseys though). We bought me two pairs of shoes (very cheap - and Pittsburgh has no sales tax on clothing) and two extra suitcases to store all of the crap we bought at the Penguins store. There was also a nice cafe in the middle of the store and I filled up on soda spiders. We just had a great day out.
At the end of the trip Belinda and I both agreed that Pittsburgh was one of the nicest cities we'd visited on the trip. The people were great, food was nice and (though it's probably got a lot to do with the snow) the place just looked beautiful. Whenever I list the honeymoon destinations (New York, Niagara Falls, Washington, Pittsburgh) I get a "Why Pittsburgh?". Originally the answer would just be "hawkey" - but now I could honestly say it was a great place to visit. We didn't even end up seeing much more of Pittsburgh than downtown - but it was great fun. I'm looking forward to returning (and Bell is too - which is wonderful)!
Anyway - the most important part of day 11 was the chance to watch the Penguins play at home. About a half-hour before the game's start time we walked around the corner to Mellon Arena. The atmosphere was incredible, and every second person had a Pens jersey on (with about a quarter of those having Crosby's number 87). Afterwards Bell and I both agreed that the Pittsburgh game was so much more of a show, and much more enjoyable (even though it was great in New York). Cheerleaders, free T-Shirts and a mini radio controlled blimp were some of the things that anyone could enjoy - not just fans of hockey.
Not as fancy as the Madison Square Garden display (a few extra dead pixels) but it was a great sight!
How cool are these! And note the Pen's credit card in the background
A few warmups going on behind me
The Penguin's cheerleaders shooting t-shirts from a slingshot. Iceburgh was also firing t-shits from a bazooka contraption
The Verizon blimp was dropping some kind of vouchars. One dropped right in front of me - but kids snatched it up before I got a chance (and then ran back to their seats on the other side of the stand - bastards!)
"My dad drives the zamboni"
Go you big skating penguin!
Anyway - another dot-point summary of the game:
Opening faceoff - people were still only just getting to their seats. What a waste!
Iceburgh stood up right in front of us. I didn't have the heart to yell "down in front" to him! (so I just pushed him)
I'm not 100% - but I think Iceburgh is trying to score here
Again, watching a Penguins game was awesome - it was just a bitch that we lost. Once we left Mellon Arena, we saw that it had been snowing all through the game, and the ground was just covered! Most of the Pens fans were huddled together, head down, running towards their cars. Bell and I were running around playing in the snow, it was quite fun. We even made snow angels!
When Bell finally woke up we decided to see a bit of the City of Pittsburgh. From the hotel room we could see that there was a fair bit of snow cover on the city, which was exciting. Even better - when we stepped outside our hotel room it was actually snowing. In Niagara Falls it was snowing - but really, that was the equivalent of a small spit. This was an actual fall - admittably not pissing down - but definately decent. I rather enjoyed holding my open hands up to the sky and collecting the snow. As a kid I always liked the idea of snow - the most we ever got in Melbourne was a very heavy hail storm - so this was great.
Something that I was entirely unprepared for was the amount of support the town gave to the Steelers. I had read on message boards that Pittsburgh was "Stillers Town" - but I was very surprised. Pretty much 1 out of every 3 or 4 people had some article of Steelers clothing on. Everyone from grandmothers to children was proudly displaying the Steelers name. There was also a lot of Penguin clothing (much more than I'd ever see in Australia) - but it was a little bit of a letdown.
We walked around the city - the first stop was the (now retired) Kaufmann's department store. The first thing I noticed was that half of the store staff were wearing Steelers jerseys as their uniforms (none of them were wearing Penguins jerseys though). We bought me two pairs of shoes (very cheap - and Pittsburgh has no sales tax on clothing) and two extra suitcases to store all of the crap we bought at the Penguins store. There was also a nice cafe in the middle of the store and I filled up on soda spiders. We just had a great day out.
At the end of the trip Belinda and I both agreed that Pittsburgh was one of the nicest cities we'd visited on the trip. The people were great, food was nice and (though it's probably got a lot to do with the snow) the place just looked beautiful. Whenever I list the honeymoon destinations (New York, Niagara Falls, Washington, Pittsburgh) I get a "Why Pittsburgh?". Originally the answer would just be "hawkey" - but now I could honestly say it was a great place to visit. We didn't even end up seeing much more of Pittsburgh than downtown - but it was great fun. I'm looking forward to returning (and Bell is too - which is wonderful)!
Anyway - the most important part of day 11 was the chance to watch the Penguins play at home. About a half-hour before the game's start time we walked around the corner to Mellon Arena. The atmosphere was incredible, and every second person had a Pens jersey on (with about a quarter of those having Crosby's number 87). Afterwards Bell and I both agreed that the Pittsburgh game was so much more of a show, and much more enjoyable (even though it was great in New York). Cheerleaders, free T-Shirts and a mini radio controlled blimp were some of the things that anyone could enjoy - not just fans of hockey.
Not as fancy as the Madison Square Garden display (a few extra dead pixels) but it was a great sight!
How cool are these! And note the Pen's credit card in the background
A few warmups going on behind me
The Penguin's cheerleaders shooting t-shirts from a slingshot. Iceburgh was also firing t-shits from a bazooka contraption
The Verizon blimp was dropping some kind of vouchars. One dropped right in front of me - but kids snatched it up before I got a chance (and then ran back to their seats on the other side of the stand - bastards!)
"My dad drives the zamboni"
Go you big skating penguin!
Anyway - another dot-point summary of the game:
- I saw a few people wearing Steelers jerseys to the game - poor form!
- I was happy to see Fleury starting in net again, and he played a great game again.
- The Penguins were robbed early, and I was pissed off. Marcus Nilson's shot hit the crossbar and lay on the goal line - but didn't cross it. Many players on the ice could clearly see that the puck didn't go in - and quickly protested. The referee called the goal and they didn't even go to the video referees for clarrification. 1-0 Calgary.
- Pittsburgh then tied it up with a spectacular backhander goal by Sidney Crosby. I was extremely happy that I got to witness Crosby scoring - and it was a plus that Mario Lemieux had the second assist on the goal.
- Langkow scored two early third period goals to put Calgary ahead 3-1 both from great assists from Huselius.
- Midway through the 3rd I saw Ryan VandenBussche's first NHL goal to bring it up to 3-2.
- We pulled the goalie towards the end of the game to attempt to score a tying goal - but alas, it was not to be. Made the first non-goal so much more difficult to stomache!
Opening faceoff - people were still only just getting to their seats. What a waste!
Iceburgh stood up right in front of us. I didn't have the heart to yell "down in front" to him! (so I just pushed him)
I'm not 100% - but I think Iceburgh is trying to score here
Again, watching a Penguins game was awesome - it was just a bitch that we lost. Once we left Mellon Arena, we saw that it had been snowing all through the game, and the ground was just covered! Most of the Pens fans were huddled together, head down, running towards their cars. Bell and I were running around playing in the snow, it was quite fun. We even made snow angels!
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Travel Log - Day 10 (Pittsburgh at last!)
I woke up on day 10 with a real excited feeling - as this was the day we were finally going to Pittsburgh. We woke up early and left straight away to La Guardia Airport. The flight from New York to Pittsburgh was quite enjoyable, it only took an hour and a half and it was much less packed than the Red Eye we took earlier.
The first thing I did after touching down in Pittsburgh was purchase a Post-Gazette newspaper from the airport. At first it was great to actually buy the paper I had been reading online for many years - but then I realised it was a bit of a waste as I only read three articles from the sports section.
We took a Shuttle bus downtown, and checked into our hotel. Most hotels have a mint on your pillow to welcome you - the one we stayed at handed out cookies (which was muchly appreciated). Anyway, after dropping off our bags and scoping out the hotel room (much nicer compared to the one we just left) we set off to pick up the hockey tickets.
I really liked the Pittsburgh room - no neo-romantic Ostro-Goths here
Once we left the hotel and started looking for the building to pick up our tickets we saw that Mellon Arena was literally across the road from us. Being this close to The Igloo was another dream come true, and the hockey flags around the place just topped it off.
Mellon Arena - Terror goes into over-time
One of the flags around the 'Burgh
The place we picked our hockey tickets up was pretty cool in itself - as it was Mario Lemieux's actual office. The decorations around the room were very nice too - especially the next-game countdown.
A little display outside the ticket office
Time until the next Pen's home game. I would be lying if I didn't think of ripping it off the wall and running!
I'm sure this paper sold a few copies
Fleury's distinctive pads can be seen in the foreground
After picking up the tickets we went straight to the Arena to see if the memorabilia store was open, fortunately (unfortunately for my wallet) it was. I had another "WOW! This is awesome" moments when we stepped inside - looking at a sea of Black and Gold. All the Penguins stuff was cool and we bought lots of it!
The first thing I bought - a Crosby Pens home jersey
Wearing this in Melbourne - I'm sure some people are wondering when Bing played Ice Hockey
A couple of sweet hoodies, for the casual man about the town
Don't get me wrong - I'm not the kind of guy that normally wears leather jackets. But this jacket is just awesome - and will be treasured for years
The only things I got from the Pens store here is the shot glass and cool tiny replica of a goalies mask. The plastic cup was filled with sprite at one of the Pens games
My final purchase seen in action - next to my computer desk
The first thing I did after touching down in Pittsburgh was purchase a Post-Gazette newspaper from the airport. At first it was great to actually buy the paper I had been reading online for many years - but then I realised it was a bit of a waste as I only read three articles from the sports section.
We took a Shuttle bus downtown, and checked into our hotel. Most hotels have a mint on your pillow to welcome you - the one we stayed at handed out cookies (which was muchly appreciated). Anyway, after dropping off our bags and scoping out the hotel room (much nicer compared to the one we just left) we set off to pick up the hockey tickets.
I really liked the Pittsburgh room - no neo-romantic Ostro-Goths here
Once we left the hotel and started looking for the building to pick up our tickets we saw that Mellon Arena was literally across the road from us. Being this close to The Igloo was another dream come true, and the hockey flags around the place just topped it off.
Mellon Arena - Terror goes into over-time
One of the flags around the 'Burgh
The place we picked our hockey tickets up was pretty cool in itself - as it was Mario Lemieux's actual office. The decorations around the room were very nice too - especially the next-game countdown.
A little display outside the ticket office
Time until the next Pen's home game. I would be lying if I didn't think of ripping it off the wall and running!
I'm sure this paper sold a few copies
Fleury's distinctive pads can be seen in the foreground
After picking up the tickets we went straight to the Arena to see if the memorabilia store was open, fortunately (unfortunately for my wallet) it was. I had another "WOW! This is awesome" moments when we stepped inside - looking at a sea of Black and Gold. All the Penguins stuff was cool and we bought lots of it!
The first thing I bought - a Crosby Pens home jersey
Wearing this in Melbourne - I'm sure some people are wondering when Bing played Ice Hockey
A couple of sweet hoodies, for the casual man about the town
Don't get me wrong - I'm not the kind of guy that normally wears leather jackets. But this jacket is just awesome - and will be treasured for years
The only things I got from the Pens store here is the shot glass and cool tiny replica of a goalies mask. The plastic cup was filled with sprite at one of the Pens games
My final purchase seen in action - next to my computer desk
