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Pittsburgh

Trip in Summer 2022

After writing a lot of blog posts, I wanted to experiment with this sort of more free-form scrapbook style. So here’s a recap of a trip to Pittsburgh! I’m writing it for myself to look back on, but maybe you’ll find it interesting too.

July 16, 2022

I just came back from a trip to Pittsburgh with my dad!

We went there for a math conference, where my dad presented two talks. One was about the app that I built for teaching college classes that he’s been using for two years: Bagel Institute. I got to come along and give half of the talk!

But first, it was the first flight I’ve taken since before Covid:

My dad and I on the flight.
The view out of the plane window.
Trisha and I once tried desperately to use the bathroom at this park, but their bathrooms were closed.
Trisha and I once tried desperately to use the bathroom at this park, but their bathrooms were closed.

We landed in Pittsburgh, and the next day my dad and I did our talk about Bagel Institute.

Setting up for the talk.
Setting up for the talk.

I spent the rest of the week working in various coffee shops and the library near our hotel, while my dad actually attended the conference (and gave his other talk).

We ate a lot of good food:

A sandwich with meat and pickles.
The Starbucks Pineapple Passionfruit Refresher isn’t bad, but not fantastic.
The Starbucks Pineapple Passionfruit Refresher isn’t bad, but not fantastic.
A pasta dish.
Chicken in pita bread.
A fried chicken sandwich.
A chicken parm sub sandwich.
A thai salad with chicken.
A chicken shish kabab with salad.
I made ample use of the free food at the reception.
I made ample use of the free food at the reception.
And the free food at the poster session, which I ate instead of looking at posters.
And the free food at the poster session, which I ate instead of looking at posters.

But the highlight of the trip was the one sight I wanted to see: Duo’s Taqueria.

It’s a taco restaurant created by Duolingo , the language learning app that it turns out is headquartered in Pittsburgh.

They have a pop-up shop attached to their headquarters, and my dad and I took the bus out of downtown Pittsburgh to have lunch there.

Duo’s Taqueria
The Duolingo headquarters

The menu teaches you how to order in Spanish, and they give you “Duo’s Challenge” — if you can translate a word from English into Spanish, they’ll give you $1 off. (I swear in the TikTok I saw it was that they’d give you free tacos, but I guess not anymore.)

My dad and I failed the challenge, but they gave us the discount anyway.

And the tacos were quite good!

The food from Duo’s Taqueria.

Altogether, a nice trip!