Lost in a Not Really That Big City... Again.

Pittsburgh is a relatively small city. Navigation in it is really only hindered by one way streets, and yet these played absolutely no part in our confusion last night. For a total of 120 minutes, we were traveling to and from Joe Mama's, a restaurant in Oakland. For a whopping 80 minutes of that total time, we were lost and/or utterly confused. Now, there are two ways to look at that. There's the positive view: "Oh, we only got lost twice!" And there's the negative view: "We have no idea which way is left." Positive in this case is extremely subjective. Interestingly enough, we were late to our destination. 


We needed to go straight on a ramp to get to Forbes, and Josh thought it would be fun apparently to take a 20 minute longer detour into Squirrel Hill. His reasoning after the ordeal was to expose us to some 'culture,' but other than a higher Jewish population, and the feeling of helplessness and imminent death, it really wasn't too different than anywhere else. So we veer into a random lane in a tiny car, bumping to dubstep, with cars all around. 

"I don't know if this is left or right. I really don't get it."

Obviously in need of divine intervention to get back to civilization, we call his dad. He gives us directions, and we listen intently, but yet somehow we don't hear a word he says. It went from having an idea shortly after we hung up, to later hoping we were still in Pennsylvania. After getting out of Squirrel Hill and making it to Oakland, we took a shot in the dark, and, surprisingly, got lost. We took some turns and found the place just so we could park a half mile away. Though we made it into the restaurant without going astray or getting into a knife fight. Inside, we made friends with an old black man and a younger but still old black man. I don't know if this is normal in the city but if it is, I need to go more often.

It was a little bit like this, x2.

No we did not talk to either one of them at all. I don't know their names or ages or favorite colors. I do know that one of them had a preference for the color blue but I cannot tell if that is his favorite. Even though there was absolutely no communication from either of them, somehow we had forged a bond. Maybe it was the fact that after being lost for an hour, I felt it necessary to make something useful out of my time on this Earth. I know that I changed these two mens' lives. 

Upon leaving Joe Mama's, or Joe Mam's as the neon sign said, we filtered out of the building back to our parking spot 20,000 leagues into the city. Got into the car, and, literally five seconds after turning it on, realized that we had no idea where we were going. We made a left (or was it a right?) and sped off into the depths of a city we knew nothing about. Needless to say, we were traveling in the wrong direction. Not wanting to call Josh's dad again, I called a friend who attends Pitt. He heard our plea, and, probably felt bad for us. He helped us get out of the city after another bout of being completely lost. So thank you, Chris. However, Chris hasn't seemed right to me since...

Maybe he's been left?