Hi!!! I hope everyone’s had a great week and snacked on delicious protein bars! I finished my first week of classes. I knew college would be different from HS, but WOW! I was not prepared. To start, I have less than 1/2 the actual class time each day. What do I do with the remaining time? My schedule’s actually surprisingly packed and free at the same time. Packed in that I fly around to appointments, office hours, meetings etc. Free in that besides class time, I don’t HAVE to be anywhere at any particular time. I can read in the library, get coffee with friends or…. go on another adventure! My new friend and her residence floor happened to plan a trip to the Phipps Conservatory so I decided to tag along for my second Adventure!

Phipps Conservatory

The Phipps Conservatory is Pittsburgh’s botanical gardens created in 1893. It’s 15 acres of beauty featuring a magnificent Willy Wonka esque glass house of botanical wonder. Besides being located less than a block away, we get in free! They change exhibits almost every month and there are A LOT of them to see.  Unfortunately, the steamy rooms didn’t make for very good pictures, so I didn’t take many.. sorry… Even so, let’s get started! Here are my top 3:

Van Gogh in Bloom

The inspiration behind this exhibit is to recreate some of Van Gogh’s best in plants and it was AMAZING. As usual, a picture’s worth a thousand words

I admit, I’ve never been into impressionist art, but it was AMAZING how Phipps literally brought Van Gogh to life. Definitely worth the visit

Tropical Forest Cuba

Cuba is a tropical paradise to say the least. Unfortunately, the beauty is also hard to get to and teeming with less than pleasant bugs. Well, Phipps brings (almost) all the beauty to us without the bugs. They also drop some serious knowledge bombs regarding the culinary and medicinal uses for some of the amazing plants found on the island.

Orchids

Orchids are one of my favorites. Except, I never knew there were so much variety! Apparently, even vanilla is in the orchid family! Unfortunately, the steam made it hard to get any pictures. Visit to see for yourself!

All in all, the Conservatory was well worth the trip and I will definitely be back soon to check out any new exhibits. I hope everyone has a beautiful week and a great day off. I’ll be back soon! Until then, bye!

 

 

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