Between Star of India and Southside

Reoccurring themes. Boring, entertaining, creating continuity? Anyway, this Saturday is full of them. A Saturday that feels more like a Friday. The classes that did not take place the past Monday, due to Labor Day, a public holiday, were simply transferred to Friday. A little chain reaction: On that day of the week, recitations usually take place. The assistants of your professors go through past homework assignments. That has been transferred to Saturday now. Your conscience tells you to go there, trying to get hold of some accounting details.

After surviving that, you have lunch with Pallavi and Yash, two Indian co-students. What place could be more appropriate than an Indian restaurant? The second Indian lunch in a row. Yesterday, you went to Indian Garden, today Star of India. But the creativity does stop there; Prince of India, Indian Palace and Bombay Palace have yet to be tested. Luckily, the service is better than the day before, but the variety of the lunch buffet is unfortunately smaller. Regardless of that, the Indian food is delicious and filling. You are really getting hooked.

Yesterday’s lunch took place under less conditions: You had ten minutes for getting your food before the waiters put the buffet items away. Therefore, everyone in your group rushed and piled up stuff on two or three plates at the same time. Not in accordance with official business etiquette, but pragmatic. The zesty food goes along with vivid table conversations. One of the topics: Pakistani politics. What a picture: Rizwan, from Pakistan, Imran and Pallavi, from India, talking about ill-fated attempts of the country’s ruler to stay in power. Marcelo, from Chile, watches helplessly and puzzled. Everyday internationality at Katz.

Later the afternoon, it is college football time again. Not as intense as the stadium experience, but Amir’ giant flat screen gets pretty close for a TV set. If there was ranking for the ratio of screen size in square feet to apartment size in square feet, Amir would be a top candidate in Pittsburgh. But even the biggest TV does not prevent your favorite team from losing again. This time, the opponent of North Carolina State is Boston College. A tough one. After a fair start, NCSU’s quarter back makes too many costly mistakes, mercilessly exploited by adversary. Amir sees his team’s star slowly but constantly sinking, making him mad. Some cusswords and pillow throws relieve the anger. Despite the unpleasant development of the game, your knowledge and understanding of that complex sport increases steadily. A very strategic but yet dynamic game.

Less dynamically, you join the usual suspects in the evening for a few drinks in Pittsburgh’s Southside district. Across the Monongahela River, shopping and party quarter popular among students has developed in recent years. The nightly atmosphere, a mix of exuberance and superficial entertainment in generic bars, reminds you of similar areas in Cologne. Regardless of that, your crew and you have fun talking and dancing at one of the places. The drawback of Southside is it remoteness. You can walk to the bars and cafés and Walnut Street in Shadyside. But for the trans-river enjoyment you need either a taxi cab or a sober person on your team doing the driving.

This part of the city, like several others, used to be dominated by a steel mill. The brick buildings that house the bars used to accommodate the steel workers. Despite the economic change, the area still has some blue-collar ambiance. The actual site of the steel mill has been cleared of its industrial, contaminated heritage, giving way to modern office building and shopping facilities.
On your way back, you cross the Hot Metal Bridge that was in fact used for transferring molten steel. The name persists, reminding the conscious passerby of Pittsburgh’s history.