Pittsburgh was great. The Hilton was not. All my flights left and arrived on time. I'm back to the real world with three dozen new books (could have had more) most of them free. It was a feeding frenzy an hour into the Dorch party. The two book limit disintegrated when people realized they could get back in line. I saw women taking them out in boxes. I'm sorry, but let's not be piggy. I only took books that looked interesting, not as a means of financial support once I listed them on E-Bay. As it was, I had to bribe the airport guy to put a "heavy load" sticker on my suitcase instead of charging me extra for the weight.
Now I can concentrate on writing again instead of trawling Goodwill for one more accessory for my costumes. As soon as someone (hint, hint) emails the pictures they took of me, I'll post them. And send them pictures I took of them. The other shots are of the city itself. Was I the only one to venture out more than once?
The little store where I had Pelmeni (meat-filled dough) with a big scoop of sour cream. Yum. You can see one of the three tables in the store. The owner tried to get me to eat Halva, which is a nut/honey/mystery ingredient so sweet the half-teaspoon sample put me into a diabetic coma for a few minutes.
Walking downtown, looking for a place to eat (try Costanza's chicken marsala) I passed this chain link fence. Someone had cut out the pages of three very old books and wired them to the fence. This one had a map glued in it, with a star and the words "You are here." It was so cool, I had to take a picture.
