I still can't believe that I live just 2 blocks away from a world class museum. I took for grantedthe existence of the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh until I dashed for an emergency visit to its toilet while waiting for the bus last Friday.



Phey Yuen and I visited the musuem this afternoon after mass. I find it to be much bigger than what it looks exteriorly. From the front, it looks like an ordinary, black, squre building but as we stepped inside, the sense of being a superior art gallery started to set in. Since both of us are CMU students (Phey Yuen aka H. S. Kho..hehehe), we got in for free. We started with the art gallery. I can't believe how many 15th century paintings were there. None were from really famous artists, at least to my shallow knowledge of the arts world. I really like the 15th century Italian paintings that depicts religious events and messages. I remembered reading in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code about Leonardo Da Vinci playing pranks with his religious paintings. For example, he included a woman-like figure in The Last Supper/. But here in the museum, nothing strange or fishy was seen on the paintings. Some were intriguing though like a fly on the foot of a throne where the Madonna sat with the child Jesus.



Phey Yuen and I were the only ones taking photos I think. At first I thought it was not allowed but after asking a security officer whether we could do so, we found out that it was okay to do so. Most of my snapshots for the day were of the hall that holds parts of ruins of buildings in France, Rome and Greece. I just couldn't believe how Andrew Carnegie could have the money to ship all these to Pittsburgh and restore them indoors. Even the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur is not that elaborate in its exhibits. Even better, the staff in this Pittsburgh Museum, were extra friendly and were ever willing to answer questions. Another admiration on how Americans value their jobs. I don't find this back home especially in the government sector.



Both of us came back at 4 and started cooking pasta for the evening's dinner which was also a celebration of Chern Yih's birthday on Monday. I didn't turned out well as far as I think although Phey Yuen was commenting it to be good. I think cooking for a large crowd with a medium-sized pot made it tough for it to taste nice. I'd rather cook for two with much more 'control' over how the pasta would to turn like. I'm a big fan of the Italian delicacy. So much so that I would have my own homemade pasta sauce refrigerated for ocassional (frequent maybe) midnight snacks.



Paokong, as what's Chern Yih's affectionately called by us is now 20 years old. He's the innocent but hilarious one among us. I especially enjoy listening to the way he sums up his life in words, words that goes very local to me with his Manglish slang: "Last semester, I played games a lot. This sem, I watch anime a lot. After school, download anime, sleep for a while and do homework." True enough. He's indeed an anime freak now that his birthday wish was for faster downloads in Kazaa. He even wanted to send me anime to me but unfortunately, the transfer was cut off during the middle of the night. Paokong's the intelligent one among us too. See how much us guys admire his ability to tell immediately tell whether a series converge or not.



I must end now and start sleeping for the next to hours. We're going to Orlando tomorrow for the Spring break. Flight will be early at 8am and even earlier to leave since the helpful Joe will be sending us in his rented van. I might not be writing for next 5 days until we return from the warm and sunny South on Friday. By then, lots to tell and lots of pictures to upload too. Florida, here we come!