Philadelphia, PA Day 1

Brian: It was nice not to wake up with a fresh frost in my hair. Thanks to Julie’s family for hosting us. It is the hospitality of our friends that makes this trip possible. There were two main topics of conversation the night before. One was the high volume of haunted hotspots in the Philadelphia area, and the other was fake drug names on state surveys we took in high school. In order to disqualify people who were filling out the survey randomly or intentionally falsifying information, they would plant a question regarding a made-up drug in the survey. If you said you have taken the drug, it would disqualify your exam. Hope and Wagon Wheel are examples of the fake names they would come up with. To fuse these topics of conversation, we decided to travel with Julie to the haunted town of New Hope, New Jersey.

Nick: New Hope was pretty cool. There was a giant stature of an unidentified creature greeting us as we entered the town. A one thousand dollar reward to the reader than can correctly categorize this beast in its proper place on the evolutionary tree. A picture to follow with us riding the thing Falcore style. That’s right. New Hope also had a pretty well stocked sword shop, which was convenient as we needed a new whittling knife. They sell them at sword shops. The next stop was an Italian deli not far from Julie’s place. Buffalo Chicken cheese steak: Delicious. With fresh armaments in our camping supply box and supreme sandwiches freshly devoured, we were ready to roll into the city of brotherly love.

Brian: Nick is quite familiar with Philly, so I’ll take the reins to give my first impressions. Philadelphia is like Boston in the sense that it has great historical significance, but there seems to be a greater emphasis in general on the arts. Every wall of reasonable size is covered with a mural that represents the neighborhood. Also unlike Boston, the city is clearly built on a grid system. Apparently Philly’s grid system planning predates New York’s, making it the first major planned city in the United States. We hiked around downtown for a couple of hours, sampling some of the famous Water Ice, which basically like a soft Italian Ice. Nick showed off the old church he worked at a couple of summers ago. Frankly I’m impressed it’s still standing. We decided to end our time with Julie by visiting the Eastern State Penitentiary, where Al Capone served a single year of prison time. It was awesome, and I would totally recommend it to anybody passing through.

Nick: I’ve been looking forward to Philly more than anywhere else on this trip. Some of my best friends in the world are here, my favorite places to eat, drink, and hang out are here, the place that taught me so much about social justice and what a church can be in that context is here. It’s a city I hope to live in again. Anyway, Julie left after we got to Broad Street Ministry, which is the church Brian mentioned. For those of you familiar with the city, it’s right on Broad, just a few blocks south of City Hall. For those of you not familiar with the city, it’s pretty much as downtown as you can get. Wendy, who is my good friend and the person we’re staying with for the next few days, took us out for cheese steaks after we left Broad Street. There is a street corner with two famous cheese steak places across from each other, Pat’s and Gino’s, and there has always been heated controversy over who has the best sandwich. Personally… I’m more of a Gino’s guy. I don’t like all the crazy lights that adorn their establishment, and the staff is allegedly very racist. I don’t know about that, but I do know that their cheese is out of control good, and I could eat there a couple teams a week for the rest of eternity and not be too unhappy about the arrangement.

Brian: Unfortunately if you ate there a couple times a week, the rest of eternity would be less than a year. Not quite as potent as a Double-Down, to be sure, but certainly a challenging endeavor for even the biggest junk foodie. I thought it was delicious, but according to Nick, they weren’t even the best they’ve ever made. I ordered mine “Whiz Wit’” which means melted cheese whiz and fried onion. Mmm. To finish off the night, Nick took me to his favorite local dive, a perpetually unfinished bar called Bob and Barbara’s. They have a $3 special where you get a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon and a shot of Jim Beam. Still on camp time, we only had one of those and came back for an early night. In my typical style, I was asleep the moment the lights went out.

Nick: Feels good to be back in what I can confidently call my favorite city in America. And now, for your viewing pleasure, photos from a creepy, possibly haunted, prison in serious need of repair. Brian and Nick out.