Brits Ladding it Up in the Pitts

 

It's always nice hearing a fellow British accent when you're away from home. We'd only been on the road for a week, but when I heard Tom and Pat's familiar chat at the rest stop after leaving hum-drum pig's bum Toledo, I very nearly fell upon them like they were from the embassy and I had been released from a traumatic hostage situation. But in the way probably only the British do, I shyly skitted past them and reported my discovery to Gassonatron. She looked mildly interested but was far too busy celebrating our escape from Yawnsville, USA by yelping out all the amazing things we could see, smell, do and eat now that we'd mercifully rejoined civilisation.

Anyway, it wasn't until we rolled up in Pittsburgh and eyeballed each other's backpacks that we actually converged and conversed. The lack of hostels in the vicinity meant that they were most likely staying at the same place as us; Not Another Hostel.

Tom, blond and tall, leapt in first with a toothy hello. We sang back cordial greetings and then got on with the business of exchanging names, ages, where in England we were from (London, Devon, Devon, London by coincidink), and how long we'd been travelling (us: seven-ish days, them: around the two-month mark) before debating the merits of getting a taxi together. It was a choice of either hunting down two buses at $2.50 a ride, or piling into a cab and splitting the fare amongst us for a three mile journey. The obvo choice was to find the nearest cab with a capacious back end for all our junk.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment I realised Tom and Pat were Lads of the Highest Order, but it was probably when I suggested we stop for happy hour at a bar offering $1 beers on our way to finding Mount Washington. The original plan was to get up the cable cars and look down on the city by sunset, but we all quickly consented to a swift pint because frankly, at that price, the bar was practically paying us to drink.
Pint drained, mountain conquered, dinner inhaled (we all went for half-price chicken wings with various marinades - ONE OF THEM RASPBERRY. Blew my mind. I usually abhor the idea of pairing fruit with meat (par example pineapple on pizza. Who in the hell invented that? A right frickin' wrong 'un, that's who) but raspberry barbecue marinade on wings was Offish Delish*) and cab caught, we returned to the hostel to find our host Jon whizzing around the dorms, chucking bed linen and towels on mattresses for us.

We spent the rest of the evening in Church Brew Works, a pub in a church that had barely been converted out of its religious moorings into a palace of ale. Apart from the fact that the altar now housed a full-on brewery with copper pipes and tanks and stuff, the place would be ready for Mass at any given second. I wondered if they performed beer baptisms.

Seeing as Tom and Pat were in town for the same length of time as Leah and I, and we all wanted to see the same things, we decided to knock about together the next day. During this time we:

Ate at Primanti Bros, a restaurant known for its ridiculously stuffed sandwiches (fries, coleslaw and cheese are the default basic fillers) and immortalised on Man vs Food. Adam Richman basically jizzes his pants when he has one, and while it was good, I don't think my arteries could take eating another in a hurry.
On the Lad Scale of Ladditity, I'd give this activity a 8/10. It would have gotten more if bacon was involved.

Strolled down the strip, one long road round the corner from the hostel that led us into the heart of downtown Pittsburgh. We passed houses that had properly gone to town with Halloween decorations, scrap and junk yards, sections of dilapidated dockland warehousing and then grocery stores, bars and food markets. Here's where we picked up ingredients for dinner, because nothing marks out a bunch of Lads more than lamenting about the lack of houmous and selecting items to make falafel and salad for dinner.
Lad Scale of Ladditity rating: 6/10. Would have received a higher rating if we did it rat-arsed, goin ' fackin'  MENAAALLLL and with bits of kebab in our hair.

Went to the Andy Warhol museum. Located on the other side of the river, the museum houses six floors full of videos, magazines, art work, sculptures and installations created by the Daddy of Modern Pop culture. Warhol made his fortune by making the mundane and everyday into the iconic, so a lot of the stuff was a bit like, why am I trying to find artistic genius in this rubbish drawing of a Heinz ketchup bottle?
Then you turn the corner and WHAM! It's the iconic screen print of Elvis, or a giant replication of the front page of the New York Post using black glitter, or a space filled with rectangular silver helium-filled balloons floating dreamily around the room. Great place to while away the day, but the $20 admission fee seems a bit excessive.
Lad Scale of Ladditity rating: 5/10. A lot of it was awesome, but it made me think about social norms and how people behave and celebrity begfriending and yeah. Thinking is an unapproved activity in the Handbook of Laddism, Chapter Six, Coping with Culture so pôints had to be deducted for that.

 

 

Anyway, wicked time. Loved the Pitts more than Brad Pitt in Interview with a Vampire. Going to eat a burger now. Hugs and rainbows xx

 

Down in the Pitts

When I was researching Operation of US of Heeeyyy! a couple of months ago at work, there didn't seem to be many places to stay in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Then I stumbled across Not Another Hostel, run by Jon and his then girlfriend, on a donation-only basis. If you couldn't afford the suggested $25 a night, you could pay whatever you could or they would let you stay for free. A highly philanthrophic idea that seems rather unusual in the United States of Corporate America.

However, as Jon told us the night we arrived (holed up in a church that had been converted into a pub), he didn't always have good experiences. He left home at 18 after falling out with his ultra-religious parents and opened the hostel after returning from travelling for four years. His first group of visitors were in town for a music festival and invited total strangers to sleep in the lounge so that Jon woke the next morning to find a bunch of decrepit tramps on his sofa. Another flushed tampons down the toilet, causing the plumbing to break down and flooding the basement with a metre of shitty tampon water which cost $1000 to fix.

ONE GUEST EVEN SHAGGED JON'S GIRLFRIEND, then had the absolute cheek to hang out with him the following day and ply him with drinks. Out of guilt I suppose, but what the eff!? Who would have the nerve to stick around? Pig dog.

 

You'd think after this catalogue of horrendous episodes, Jon would just give up and shut the place down. Most people wouldn't have the heart to carry on. But Jon has 'social experiment' stamped through him like a stick of rock and a generally optimistic attitude, so not persevering was never an option.

The $25 per person per night donation keeps Not Another Hostel in operation. It pays for laundry, rent (the landlord is an old hippy who doesn't mind the place being used as a hostel), food, toilet roll and beer. Say the hostel is full every night, and everybody who stays coughs up the money, Jon easily clears $2500 dollars A WEEK, just from hosting travellers in his house. It's not even his full-time job, he runs a paragliding school over the city during the day. And because the hostel is donation based, there's no requirement for fire escapes, extinguishers or the need to pay additional tax or insurance. Schweet. The address remains a secret until you arrive, to avoid an army of tramps and vagabonds pawing the front door. Staying there is sort of like going for a sleepover at a mate's house; it's comfy and a bit messy but you don't feel awkward helping yourself to a beer.

It's a brilliant concept, and a pretty brave one too. I don't know if I could have randomers in my house ALL THE TIME. You couldn't wander around in your pants. Or watch Emmerdale without judgement. Or pretend you were starring in a reality TV show. Whatever.

It relies heavily on people not being douchebags. And while most aren't, you never know which sly bastard about to trip into your living room could be about to poke your girlfriend in the vagine.