Philadelphia, PA Day 2

Nick: It’s starting to get hard, readers.

Brian: Too easy. I’ll pass on this one.

Nick: Here we are in a Border’s somewhere near York, PA desperately trying to recount the events of the last two days for the blog. Progress is slow and strained. But here’s our best recollection to date:

In the morning, we met Erika Funk at a most excellent breakfast/brunch place called Honey’s. Honey’s was an old favorite from last summer, and it did not disappoint. Huevos Rancheros will always cure what ails you in the morning.

Brian: Everything there is made using fresh local ingredients, therefore everything there is delicious. I ordered guacamole and vegan biscuits and gravy. They are healthy because they are vegan. Right?

Nick: Sure… After getting fueled up for the day, we worked our way over to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the Constitution Center, all located in, if you can believe it, the historical district. The Bell is free to the public. The Hall is free to the public. The Center is free to the public if the public sneaks in a construction entrance and carefully times their way past the less than vigilante guards.

Brian: So sneaky. And my Dad says video games are a waste of time. Today they saved us 12 bucks each! Actually I think it was $8 for students…

Nick: Still a great day for the gaming industry. I have to say, the historical presentation at the Constitution center was pretty moving. Check it out if you find yourself in the City of Brotherly Love with a free afternoon.

Brian: Later that day we admitted to each other that we were so moved by the video that we were choked up. Almost crying. Alas, such things are not allowed in the company of men. We left the historical district and made our way back to what has become our unofficial Philadelphia HQ, the old church/castle on Broad Street. Our task: disassemble an “art project” Nick built last summer. It’s a giant tree built out of garbage.

Nick: OOOORRR…. It’s a sculpture created by combining different objects that youth found on the streets throughout the summer in an attempt to visually represent the transformation of the used, the dirty, and the abandoned into something practical, beautiful, and inspirational. Kinda what Broad Street’s all about. It was a little sad taking the tree down, not because I didn’t think it was time but because I never really got to give the sculpture the energy or attention it needed to look the way I had planned. Oh well. If the stars align just right, I’ll be back in Philly next summer with a job title that gives me more time to work on art projects. After the dirty work of disassembling the trash tree, we headed home, showered, then met Erika and Wendy out at a fairly new resturaunt called Max Brenner’s House of Chocolate.

Brian: If Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory existed in real life, this would be the café in the lobby. Max Brenner, also known to his patrons as “The Bald Man”, is a master of all things cocoa… and cacao. (What’s the difference again?) Nick’s French fries were covered in a chocolate powder, and my fish tacos were drizzled with a light molé sauce. Dessert was fondue. They ran out of churros so we talked the waitress into bringing us an extra bowl of marshmallows. After dessert we played a hilarious game where you begin by writing a sentence, then have people alternately either draw what is written down or write down what they see drawn. It is done secretly, and you aren’t allowed to look at any other previous drawings or sentences except the one given to you. It is hard to draw a goat duct-taped to a ceiling fan.

Nick: Or, as I interpreted it, an Aztec glyph hovering over a devil-bull. Which Erika interpreted as a flaming devil butt. Love it. Mad props to Funk on her pretty perfect drawing of Sarah Palin tap dancing in Disney Land. That about does it for Thursday. We’re jam’n. Brian and Nick out.