Saturday, David and I went into Pittsburgh around noon… it was his birthday, so we opened presents first.  And he saved two to open when we got home at night.  We first went to the Arts Festival (they’ve been having it downtown for something like 30 years)—there was one weaver selling jackets she’d made.  We saw a glassworker make a bead, a calligraphy demonstrator, and lots of booths with a variety of arts (and expensive stuff… not the crochet-and-knitting art fair). 

After that, we went to a Greek restaurant for dinner—David got lamb and chicken kabobs (I tried the lamb, and I like it very much!!) and I got a mixed plate with hummus, a vegetarian grape leaf, gyro, and rice.  Yummy.  Then we went to the other greek restaurant across the street and got a piece of baklava (I knew it would be cheaper there).  I wanted to go back on Sunday, but they were closed. 

As part of the art festival, we saw a film called Pittsburgh Neighborhoods.  Each short film took place in a different neighborhood, highlighting a few people in that neighborhood, and some were quite funny.    We stopped out for dinner and to watch the Red Wings game on TV.

Sunday we went to church in the morning (Peters Creek Baptist Church)—it’s a little weird being in an area that’s close to where my parents grew up.  Dad used to play in Peters Creek, and went to T.J. High (a few kids from the church had recently graduated from there).  Then it was out to South Park (David lives in South Park, but this was the South Park in South Park Township.  Nope, not confusing at all).  We walked on the trails for about an hour, then toured the Oliver Miller homestead—it only cost a dollar each, and we were there for an hour and a half.  They had an old stone house (built in 1830), springhouse, smaller replica log cabin, blacksmith forge, and barn.  At each point, there was an interpreter to tell us about the Miller family.  This was where the first shots of the Whiskey Rebellion were fired.  Inside the stone house was a woman spinning—both wool and flax—and a big barn loom.  It only had two shafts, but the spinner said no one knew how to work it, so they’d had the same warp on for about 6 years.  There was also a woman making candle wicking on what I believe was a lucet.

Then we went to Pittsburgh again—first back to the arts festival because I wanted a little glass bead I’d seen the day before, then to look for a place to eat (lots of places downtown are closed on Sundays), get tickets for the theatre, eat dinner at Primati’s, and then to theatre.  One of the main characters in the play was also in Pittsburgh Neighborhoods (one of my favorite pieces about parking in the South Side and a milk crate, a juxtaposition of young and old).  I wanted to get his autograph, but we didn’t see any of the actors afterward.