Day 2.60: Pittsburgh Day 1

We slept a bit late and woke up with time to have breakfast and then walk to work with Jeremy. In his position as Director of Derekh and Youth Tefilah at Congregation Beth Shalom, Jeremy had organized a program for Arielle to speak on Shabbat afternoon, and so they recorded a video conversation to publicize the event while Abe sat in a classroom and caught up on some blogging. We walked a few more minutes to the more happening section of Squirrel Hill, where we were welcomed by messages of peace and love in Hebrew on the windows of the local Starbucks and numerous signs about it not being a place for hate.

We worked in there for a while before heading over to Bangkok Balcony, a Thai restaurant just down the street. We met Ed, a former colleague of Abe’s who Abe had wanted to see and we thought might be a good person to talk to Arielle about places to contact given his years of experience working with Jewish educators and synagogues across the country. This vegetarian-friendly restaurant proved not to be nearly as attentive as we might have hoped. We were the only three people in the restaurant, yet they still managed to serve us soup with chicken broth after first telling us it had no meat in it, and then Abe’s tofu dish arrived having clearly been made with beef. Abe still liked his food, but Ed was clearly disappointed in this place that had previously been a great choice for those with special dietary needs.

We explored the kosher store and local supermarket around the corner and then walked back to Elana and Jeremy’s house. After working for a bit, we decided to go out and get some ice cream at a place they had highly recommended. We passed what we thought was a church only to realize that it was the Tree of Life synagogue where the shooting happened back in October. We stopped to look at the messages of support that adorn the outside of the building, which were all very powerful.

We continued on to Millie’s Homemade Ice Cream, where we sampled a number of the flavors and each got three scoops. Arielle got Viennese coffee, mint chip (which was dairy-free but delicious), and salted caramel. Abe got salted cookie dough (a cool option), the mint chip, and chocolate.

We returned to the house and then left again when Jeremy got there so that we could meet Elana for dinner. We got to see a lot of Pittsburgh along the drive to Onion Maiden, a cool vegan place with some very interesting items on the menu. We started with Crucifer Rising dumplings to share. Abe got the Coffins, a scallion pancake taco with jackfruit, hold the jalapeno, which Arielle liked enough to order another after sampling his, and a veggie hot dawg, or, more accurately, half a veggie hot dawg. Elana got her own order of the Coffins and everyone shared the famous tots. It was a fun experience, and we had a great time.

Excited by our visit earlier in the day, we decided to go all together to Millie’s, which wasn’t as exciting as the first time but was still good. Abe got the mint chip, and Arielle tried mango and vanilla. We went back to the house and hung out for a bit before heading to bed.

Approximate number of miles covered: 6