It's a very special house, built over a waterfall and built to "fit in" with its surroundings. Sort of meld with nature so to speak. Lots of open space with windows over several levels. It's a very serene building and surroundings.
The water from the waterfall flows through the structure.
The tree came first!
After the stop in Reynoldsburg, Ohio for the seminar, on the back back east we stopped in Pittsburgh.
We checked out the Cathedral of Learning from the outside and the Heinz Memorial Chapel from the inside and out. The chapel is non-denominational and really beautiful.
Heinz Memorial Chapel.
It's famous for its large stained windows, which took longer to make than the building of the chapel itself. The windows were actually commissioned before construction of the chapel started back in the thirties. Since we were the only ones in there, the woman looking after the chapel opened up a few places for us that people usually can't go to. Like right to the front where the organ is or up in the balcony. The organ can be connected up to a digital audio player and the music is played using the organ's pipes. Pretty cool.
The windows show various scenes and people, and being a non-denominational chapel there are non-religious people featured as well, which I found really cool.
The pipe room which people usually don't get to see. The pipes get tuned once a month. The chapel will face a problem though when the current technician retires, as nobody can do this kind of work these days.
Shot from the balcony. A lot of ceremonies and gatherings are held in this chapel, and usually for religious ceremonies people need to bring a consecrated altar themselves, as the chapel doesn't have one. You can book the chapel for your wedding for about 900 bucks, which includes the organist, parking and various other things.
Back in Massachusetts, we stayed close to Foxborough, home of the Gillette Stadium where the New England Patriots play their home games. The game started at 8.20pm and the weather forecast for the day was rain/snow. So we thought we were prepared by taking our rain jackets when we made our way there at about 3pm. Peope start tailgating around that time, setting up tents, starting fires for BBQ, vendors start setting up their stalls. People take this stuff really seriously and it really doesn't matter what the weather is like. Rain, hail or shine people will set up their gear.
The stadium has a very bad rep when it comes to traffic, all people said it's absolutely horrendous. So we had to come up with a plan so we wouldn't spend hours in the parking lot after the game. I was looking at parking in one of the first lots further away from the stadium, on the left side of the road so we wouldn't need to turn left to get home. Parking was $50, a taxi would have cost $100.
The stadium itself is great, quite clean and lots of room, lots of vendors, plenty of food places and the prices for food were not atrocious.
Panorama shot of the front. Click to enlarge.
View from our seats, in the 310 section, row 8, seat 1 and 2. This is when teams were warming up. Once the game started, the stadium was pretty much completely full.
The Patriots had a great comeback to tie the game but eventually lost, due to fumbling around too much. But it was a great experience, even though our legs were as cold as ice. I had to buy gloves during the game, my hands were so frozen. Simone's gloves were soaked and the hand warming thingies were not really working either I don't think.
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