Adventures in Oakland

Oakland is this little town outside the city that is about a 7 minute shuttle ride away and there are lots of fun things to do there. But before I begin I have to say that Pittsburgh is a COLLEGE city! There is about 10 colleges in like 10 mile radius. I'm really not sure if that's true, but you get the point that there is a lot of colleges. Haha. So anyway.. University of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon is located in Oakland as well as the Pittsburgh Playhouse (where all of Point Park show's are), all of the upperclassman (most of them move out of the dorms after the first year into apartments in Oakland, because it's a lot cheaper than the dorms, which is what I will probably do as soon as I survive this first year of school), lots of clothing stores, restaurants, and more. So some of us decided to take a little trip to Oakland and mosey around! So here's some pictures of our little adventures... :)


We just walked into this gorgeous looking building and decided to take a picture! haha


As we were walking through this park, we saw this carousel and we found out that you could ride it for free! So we took a couple rides on it. It was really fun :)






Sorry the picture is sideways, I don't know how to change it. But this is the Carnegie Library! I think its just lovely!

Cozyness

Just to let everyone know, last night was the first night that I used my comforter to keep me warm while I was sleeping because it was actually COOL at night! Other than my alarm waking me up at 7:20 for ballet, it was by far one of the best nights because I was just so cozy!... for once! :) YAY!

My First Week at Point Park!

Point Park University is located in downtown Pittsburgh. My school is not the normal spread out campus like most colleges. It is consisted of 3 main high rise buildings--Lawrence Hall, Academic Hall, and the Univercity Center. There are some other buildings scattered here and there that are the University, but the main things happen in those three main buildings. My dorm room is in Lawrence Hall and I live on the 16th floor. Most of my theatre classes are also Lawrence Hall, but located in the lower half of the building. So I can basically wake up about ten minutes before my class starts, take the elevator down a couple stories, and make it to my class with plenty of time the spare! :) Very cool.
Here are my classes as follows: Ballet II every morning, voice and speech, acting, musical theatre history, sight singing, piano and theory fundamentals, private voice lessons, and an english class. So I guess you could say I go to the "Step Up" college. I've never actually seen Step Up, but that's just what poeple have told when I tell them about my schedule. I guess I should probably watch it sometime! I am very unbelievably grateful for this college and my schedule! I'm so lucky to be actually going to school for something that I LOVE to do! It's so unreal. I'm just really happy to be here! :)



My first days here at Point Park were busy with meeting new poeple, making friends, and going to activities. I really had no free time for myself, which was actually a good thing because I didn't really get homesick that much. Right off the bat I started to love this city and now I think I can call myself a REAL city girl! :)


Here's me and some poeple on my floor doing laundry!


This is my across-the-hall neighbor! Dan! He's become one of my really good friends. We thought it was fun we were matching one day.


These are some of my Musical Theater girl friends!


Activities!!!
1st Activity: 80's Dance Party!
The first week of school there were all of these "opening week" activites that were going on and one of them was an 80's Dance Party! If you know me, you know that I couldn't resist an offer like that so I, of course, went all out!


I thought I'd throw this picture in because I thought it was funny... haha.



"Busy Being Awesome".... what a good 80's band name! Love it!


This is a bunch of us just walking to McDonalds after the party.


2nd Acitivity: Sundy Boat Ride!!
Point Park rented out this lovely, large ferry boat that sweetly sailed across the two rivers that surround the city. It was such a beautiful day for this "MAJESIC" (name of the boat) ferry boat ride.


Aww.. the typical Titanic pose. I think we pulled it off very nicely :)


A bunch of us "MT's" just chatting up a storm.


Here's a picture of the city from the boat. You can see that it does sort of look like a "point" where the two rivers meet. And where that water fountain is, that is actually a park. Hence the name... Point Park!


3rd Activity: Pirates Game!
They were giving out free tickets to see Pittspurgh's proffessional baseball team, so my roommate Katie and I decided to check it out!


Of course we decided to go all out and dress up for the game... that's what makes it more fun :)


This was the view of the city from where we were sitting... GORGEOUS! I swear it looks like a painting or something. When I was sitting there, staring at this unreal sight before me, I was in "AW" the whole time. Can you tell I really love this city? haha.

Aww.. The Dorms

There is nothing like living in college dorms. Everyone has to experience this kind of living at least once in their life! Right?
I'm not going to lie, it was not what I expected when I first walked in. I mean the bathroom light took like a minute to warm up before it actually turned on, brown water started coming out of the fossets when you first turned them on, the mirror was a little cracked, the closet was of course to tiny to fit two peoples wardrobes, one of the mattresses on the bed was sinking in, and we have NO AIR CONDITIONING! But, really... what else should I be expecting from a dorm room?
However, as soon as I moved in all of my belongings and started getting aquainted to my new "home," I began to love it!! And believe it or not, I am actually one of the lucky ones in the whole building! My room is A LOT larger than most the rooms AND it has two windows instead of one! So I am very grateful for the wonderful luck I have :)
Yay for College Dorms!!


Just a FEW things for my dorm that we bought at Wal-Mart as soon as we got there... woops I guess we did go a little overboard. But it was definately well worth it!


Here's the BEFORE picture...



And AFTER! The second picture is my side of the room. I know, is does look very sad compared to my roommates side, but you have to remember that I was limited to bringing only three suit cases of all of my personal belongings. And trust me, thats not very much. Also, my bed isn't fully made, however, due to the lack of cool air flow in our room, but I actually do have a cute polka dot bed spread that I'm pretty excited to use once it starts to heat up!


The view ouside my window at night. However, this doesn't even show the true beauty of what is really out there. VERY GORGEOUS though. Another one of my favorite parts about living here!

Arriving to the City...

This is what it looked like the first day my mom and I arrived to Pittsburgh. As you can see, it's a very "mist"ical place... so gorgeous though!


This is an old railroad track right in the middle of everthing!


Okay, so driving from the airport to the city is exciting. Especially going through the "tunnel." The reason why it's so exciting is because of what you see on the other end of the tunnel... THE CITY!



This is on the other end of the tunnel and the first thing you that you see. Crossing over one of the many HUGE bridges, where two beautiful rivers meet, and the gorgeous sight of the city ahead... BREATH TAKING!
This was by far one of my favorite parts :)