We are back! Dev and I flew for a week to Pittsburgh for his orientation. This is the beautiful scenery that met us. The picture doesn't give the place justice. There are lush forests everywhere. The city was established in this beautiful backdrop where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers merge to form the Ohio river.
This is a picture of one of the 3 corners of the city. This is downtown Pittsburgh. The university is actually in the mini downtown Pittsburgh called Oakland. It was founded as an academy in 1787, then a charter and finally a university in 66. It is well known for it's medical programs.
I went with Dev to the first day of classes. The class of 70 has about 14 LDS students. It was really interesting to meet the other students and their wives.
Dev went to the second day of classes for orientation while I met with a Realtor. We had our work cut out for us. We had to find a place to live, decide our transportation and car situation, learn where we are getting our money for expenses and get a feel for the city and Pitt in about 4 days. By the end of the week I am proud to report that we accomplished our list of to-do's. We drove to 43 homes and went in about 35 of them. We found the cutest little house that we are really excited about. The neighborhood is really rural and homey.
Here is a picture of us inside. This is a picture of the living room.
We stayed with the cutest family. We really want to thank them. They were so hospitable and warm. Ani, Devin's sister arranged the housing arrangements (thanks ani!) and they were an LDS family of a second year. They had two adorable kids and really helped us with the campus, where we were going, what neighborhoods were good and bad, etc.
Our normal day was waking up at 7 for orientation or realtor appointments. Getting down with classes around 4 or 5 and going through houses till 10 or 11 at night. By the end of the week we were exhausted and decided to do a little site seeing as a reward for working so hard during the week. Dev wanted to go down an alley in homestead. I couldn't tell you why, but we went and it was shocking. We realized how much maze we will be needing and how diverse the culture is over there.
I had to take a picture of this. I hope that you can see it. We would be driving by all of these old, old houses and there would be Escalades and brand new Crysters out front with the most expensive rims I've ever seen.
My request was to go to one of the old cemeteries.
Sorry we didn't get too many pictures of us on our trip! The cemetery was amazing. There were graves of soldiers from every war around a Gettysburg monument. There were grave stones with date back in the 1700's. I loved it!
This picture was a picture of a highschool baseball field in the ghetto. It was seriously the size of the Idaho falls Maleluka stadium. It was pretty funny.
The family that we stayed with had a BBQ for all of the LDS students and their littles. (The school matched up a second year or big with a new in-coming first year or little.) That was my favorite part of the week. I met so many really nice people. The wives are really fun. I'm the youngest wife by about 2 or 3 years. There were some wives with the cutest kids and some that were working and just playing and traveling.
The best part about the trip was that it made us really excited to move. We are excited to go to Pittsburgh and experience life in the east.
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