My Fair Lady - Pittsburgh, PA part 1

Feb 01, 2024 08:04

The bus ride was long and blessedly uneventful.
There were some light flurries blowing around that didn't lay on the roads but coated all the trees with sugary crystals.

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travel day, my fair lady, local foods, sneak peek, hotels, exploring, megans foodie finds, thoughts, breaducation, exploring: restaurants and businesses

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taz_39 February 3 2024, 13:45:38 UTC
Hello Very Shy Person! Thank you so much for commenting! I know it's hard to interact especially online, and really appreciate hearing from you!

Yes, I use LJ primarily, and DW and Wordpress are backups (Wordpress is only circus-related posts I think)

Glad the location "tags" help! I used to have tags for each city/state, but that created quite a lot of tags so I got rid of it...but have kind of been thinking maybe I should put them back, at least for the states to make it easier to find things.

Wow, can't believe you read the WHOLE journal, my goodness! You are one of few people with an attention span LOL!! You probably noticed a lot of broken links and missing pictures; I apologize for that, it's because I used to link media directly from facebook but they change their URLs frequently, and I haven't found time to go through those broken circus portions and fix it yet :/ It'll hopefully happen one of these days, because all of the pics still exist, just aren't uploaded to LJ directly.

Same about nostalgia for PBGH actually; I went to school at IUP nearby, and also one of my biggest high school "achievements" was performing with the All-Eastern band at the David Lawrence center. It's kind of a full circle thing to be playing the Benedum right next door, decades later as a professional trombonist. I might do an introspect/friends only post on that later.

It looks like we've lived in a lot of the same places! I never spent lots of time in Alabama but have good memories there with the circus. Sadly you're right, we won't get much time for exploring in Auburn, and not only that our hotel is miles from the theatre meaning we'll have to take a charter bus in and out for the two days we're there. HOWEVER, you have brought to my attention that the theatre is really only a mile and a half from downtown! If there are Ubers available some of us may be able to get downtown on Wednesday...so I'm going to update my Foodie Finds recommendations for our group to include the places you mentioned, plus a few more! Thank you, if you hadn't said something we might have missed downtown! I'll let you know if I get to visit Toomer's! :)

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Re: Auburn recommendations section taz_39 February 4 2024, 13:58:13 UTC
I actually do this sort of mapping myself, because I run a WhatsApp group for our tour called Megan's Foodie Finds! The group can post recommendations or whatever, but each week before we go to a city I make a Google Doc with linked maps, menus, dietary info, groceries, pharmacies, etc for us.

Usually I map from the hotel (because we generally want to keep things like groceries and leftover food at the hotels, not the theatre.) This week I've mapped from both since we have a commute. I've mapped everything here except for Naruto...I had a different/closer Korean place picked out simply because of distance and the ratings were good. Thank you for all of this work though! I totally know what it's like to have to look all of this stuff up haha.

Thank you for the history about the oaks! I'll be sure to check them out.

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Re: Auburn recommendations section taz_39 February 4 2024, 22:35:43 UTC
Yeah, I am mapping for a group so I try to be comprehensive.

I am aware that Auburn is not a major city and didn't have expectations for it to be one. We don't just play major cities...Auburn is not "different" in that regard. A quick look at google maps gives us a good idea of city/town size.

Regardless of how much cool stuff there is in Auburn, we still only have about a half-day to explore, and that's only some of us IF willing to walk at least 1/2 mile or pay for an Uber. I'm sure we will see what we can, with the main focus being the downtown area for those who are able to get there between work hours :)

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Re: Edited because blockquote HTML tags completely borked on this layout XD taz_39 February 4 2024, 14:20:02 UTC
- Yeah, I might put the state tags back at some point. In the meantime if you want to find, say, Virginia stuff, you can usually use the LJ search to look for "VA" or "Virginia" or the city names spelled out and most of the posts should come up.

- Thank you for the compliment on my weird life! It has been a trip so far, that's for sure. And this journal isn't even all of it...I have a private "diary" journal that I've kept since probably 2007 too, that mostly covers the time I was getting a Masters in North Carolina. That was fun times. THIS blog started as a way to let my family know where I was and what I was doing while traveling with the circus. But when circus people found out about it 2-3 years into it, it became a reference point for what train yards were like in each city; what was nearby; what the arenas were like; etc. So it's been not just a way for me to document my life but also a tool for others to reference. And yeah, these full-circle moments like the one you describe in Virginia, they happen all the time and it's such an odd, nostalgic, "crossing paths I've walked before" feeling. Last year with Tootsie we played in Kentucky near where the circus train had parked, and it was odd to stand at the entrance to the train yard, wearing my Tootsie ID badge instead of my circus one, and looking in like I expected to see the silver circus train sitting there waiting for me. Ghosts everywhere, and crossing over paths you walked in the past...there's a lot of that for me.

Which is also why I'd like to do an international tour :D

- I wouldn't be surprised if we really did have mutual friends from BGW. I don't know your "real life" name but mine is Megan O'Malley and all of my socials are very public, so feel free to search if you think it would help (or friend me if you like, no pressure.) I did Busch from 2011 to 2012ish so it was a short stint, and yeah I was stupid-busy at that time. Working four jobs with a color-coded calendar, let's hope THAT life path doesn't come around again lol

Thanks again for the recommendations, I've revised the Foodie Finds doc that I share with our cast to reflect more of the downtown area. I had made a reservation at Acre since they're all James-Beard-Nominated, but actually might cancel it and got to The Hound instead because of the game meat options. And will definitely stop in at Toomer's. The only real day to do any of this will be Wednesday and barring something coming up, I'll probably splurge on an Uber downtown to see the oaks and eat some local goodies :)

Not to pry or infringe on your privacy, but if you have a public "about me" somewhere, I'd love to read it so I can know a little bit about you! Nothing crazy, just like any basics that you'd share publicly anyway to help me know who I'm talking to better :) (I read the LJ one but always assume that LJ bios are out of date.) And if not, no problem. I'm super flattered that you found my DW/LJ corner of the world to be interesting! Look forward to a fun Auburn post!

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Re: Edited because blockquote HTML tags completely borked on this layout XD taz_39 February 5 2024, 12:21:56 UTC
You can read it if you want, it's all decades old now. I think it's friends only and I haven't logged in there forever, so I do need to check it for interactions.

RE: international tours: I don't dare dream of specific places, or getting picky yet! Getting to do one at all would be AMAZING. But that said, if I could choose I'd love to do Europe (any part of Europe, getting my figurative feet wet in some primarily English-friendly countries first) or Japan (I'm 1/4 Japanese and while that won't be acknowledged and may even cause me to be looked down upon in Japan, I am interested in my bio-heritage. Plus, yeah, I like anime and their freaking amazing food scene.) Have you traveled internationally? Or, what countries would you like to visit?

I'll let you know how The Hound is! Doubt I'll get to try more than one grown-up place.

RE: about you: Don't feel bad! I share a lot about my life because I know it's interesting, with all the traveling and being a female trombonist and all that. I don't expect others to reciprocate that level of exposure. Privacy is important! And yeah, I get a lot of weirdos (I've complained about it from time to time in posts here, mostly friends only.) But that is my choice, to keep my adventures public for the majority of people who just want to enjoy following along with me. For now I'm still willing to deal with the occasional jerk/weirdo if it means most people get to enjoy pics of food and reading about new-to-them places.
And, my blog represents a very PC, watered-down version of true events. I leave out a lot of drama, heartache, health scares, fights...the "dirty laundry" goes into Friends Only or private posts. So THAT'S private anyway :)

I didn't notice your icon particularly other than to see it was Zelda, and I'm not offended by dirty art/puns :p It's your icon anyway, you do you! Thanks for the PM!

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Re: Edited because blockquote HTML tags completely borked on this layout XD taz_39 February 6 2024, 15:49:48 UTC
We stayed in Mexico for nearly two months each time...I wouldn't call that pass-through. But yeah, there's a difference between going as a tourist on vacation and going to do shows and having to work.

RE: Japan: At this point I don't feel I could afford to be picky about which parts of Japan to see, until the opportunity presents. Ideally I'd love to check out Hokkaido since that's purportedly where my ancestors are from, but getting to go at all to any part of the country would be appreciated.

Sweden DOES sound cool, I hope you get to go! Cool genetic heritage you've got!

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Re: Edited because blockquote HTML tags completely borked on this layout XD taz_39 February 7 2024, 13:40:22 UTC
Each post (during the circus at least) represents one week usually, so there would be three posts for Mexico City (3 weeks) followed by two posts for Monterrey (2 weeks, for a total of 5 weeks), and in addition to that it took about four full days to ride the train from Loredo, TX to Mexico City, then another four to get back to the US when we were done. So at minimum, a month and a week each time we went not counting travel in and out. One of those posts is even titled, "A Month in Mexico"! Obviously I wouldn't expect anyone to recall that, though!

I got to ride the MXC subway, visit open air markets, eat at restaurants, ride a glass-bottomed boat on a volcanic river...all sorts of stuff. Not to mention living for 35 days in a Mexican train yard patrolled by guards with machine guns. We had a very heavy show schedule though so that's probably mostly what I wrote about, for sure.

I have to explain context for this blog (and my social posts) constantly. For example there are people who think that because I post pictures of the times I eat out, that I must eat out ALL the time; that those pictures represent ALL of my meals. The truth is I post a picture of the ONE meal that I ate out, out of 21 meals in the week, the rest of which were cold cuts or steamed veg or oatmeal or whatever.

So you're right, it's always sharing such a tiny fraction of what happens each week. If I didn't narrow it down to the most-PC and accessible stuff, I'd be writing novellas all the time. Really boring novellas :p

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Re: Edited because blockquote HTML tags completely borked on this layout XD taz_39 February 7 2024, 23:39:32 UTC
It's no worries, I wouldn't expect you to remember or really anyone to notice a pattern other than "she posts once a week."

Now it's twice a week because I do more pictures and this type of touring covers more cities per week.

But yeah no worries!

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