A Scientific and BUCN Birthday

It's been a long day of birthday fun on the Northside...so I am going to quickly recap Brian's official birthday celebration today and then undoubtedly pass out once last time in the Priory's over sized, comfy King bed.

Potato  Pancake Happiness.

We were fairly short on time, but I wanted to stick to the itinerary as much as possible, so we quickly got ready and headed over to Max's Allegheny Tavern for a German brunch that makes my mouth water just thinking about it.  Every time I go to Max's, I immediately feel like I am no where near the city of Pittsburgh. It's something about the cozy dining area paired with with the dim lighting and old, rustic decor that gives you this feeling that you are far, far away from any city. It's really quite incredible, and paired with Max's authentic German cuisine, it's a true dining "experience."

The brunch is a perfect mix of Max's classic German menu items and typical breakfast options, like made to order omelets.  I had a hard time steering away from the warm, semi-sweet German potato salad and schnitzel, while Brian stayed with the more traditional options.  We both, however, indulged in the dessert table, which was littered with cookies and pastries reminiscent of the desserts your sweet old grandma would make especially for you.  Absolutely YUM!

We had no problem quickly shoveling down brunch which was good, since we were limited on time and still needed to stop at the Carnegie Science Center before heading to the baseball game.

World's Largest Playable Guitar...BOOM.

The Priory's shuttle gave us a lift to the Science Center, thank goodness (walking + German food = ouch), and we began walking through the Science Center's four floors of robots, weird - but definitely fascinating - science experiments and the newest exhibit "GUITAR: The Instrument That Rocked The World," the touring exhibition of The National GUITAR Museum.

It had been a long time since I actually walked through the Science Center (midnight Pink Floyd laser shows don't count), and as we began making our way through each exhibit, the worst sense of nostalgia washed over me taking me back to the dozens of times we had visited the Science Center while in middle and high school. I still remember the excitement of getting to spend the night there, running through the facilities floors in pajamas with your besties and getting yelled at by security guard after security guard. Now, walking through those same floors, it felt like I was 15 all over again!

After taking a trip down memory lane, I stopped thinking about the good ol' days and started enjoying the Science Center all over again.  The guitar exhibit completely surpassed all expectations,  featuring dozens of awesome guitars and in typical Science Center fashion, several stations that showed you how guitars work, how they are made, how they are played and so forth and so forth. The highlight was of the exhibit was seeing the world's largest playable guitar which I quickly climbed on top for a photo.

The rest of the Science Center's floors though were all very entertaining, featuring everything from the most elaborate miniature railroad and village I had ever seen to an entire floor of hands-on science experiments allowing you to get in touch with your inner-scientist.  I had one last request of Brian before leaving though, and that was to satisfy my need to keep going down memory lane and eat in the Science Center's cafeteria where I could so vividly remembering sharing Cheetos and Little Debbies with my girlfriends during every visit.

Birthday boy has Buc Fever!

After lunch, we headed over to America's most beautiful ballpark, PNC Park, to watch the battling Buccos take on the Miami Marlins.  With the Pirates having an incredible season thus far, the stadium was absolutely packed with fans screaming and cheering over every little play and fully getting into every aspect of the game. Brian was of course in his element ,rambling my ear off with stat after stat which, since it WAS his birthday, I pretended to listen to.  We each enjoyed an ice cream and Pirates victory before heading out and making way back to the hotel, for a free birthday drink at Monks' Bar courtesy of the fine people of the Priory Hotel.


Pretty warn out by the day, Brian didn't need much encouragement going back to the room where we decided to just enjoy some quiet time and relax. As much as I wanted to keep to our weekend itinerary, our lack of motivation to get ready again kept us right where we were at, eventually getting some takeout from Frank's Pizza and Chicken on Troy Hill (that's technically still Northside for the record!) and now just enjoying some Sunday night television!


While it's our last night at the Priory and back to work for both of us tomorrow, our staycation will continue after work with a few more stops at some of my favorite Northside spots and a Counting Crows concert tomorrow night at Stage AE.


See you tomorrow!


- Stephanie