Philadelphia, PA Day 3

Brian: I thanked my body for being such a trooper by getting a full night of rest and having a simple breakfast of granola and goat yogurt. Then for no reason at all I punished my body by purchasing a $2 fried egg sandwich on the street from a Middle Eastern man in a silver trailer. What about second breakfast… elevensies…

Nick: As if the blog isn’t nerdy enough…

Brian: We spent Friday morning catching up on this week’s TV shows. Jim and Pam got married! Like I care. If it was up to me, a single Pam would be purchasing the first of many cats, and Jim would still be tapping that Italian chick. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a girl that knows how to play Call of Duty.

Nick: After tasty cart food, I had a conversation with Erika about next summer in Philly, seminary, and where I might find the funding for those ventures. Next, we drove to the post office to pick up a birthday package from my folks. Suffice it to say, as parents go, I got pretty lucky. With gift in hand, our next stop was a place named, rather lamely I think, the Magic Gardens. The place itself is not lame however. It’s a multi-level sculpted environment made mostly from found materials like bottles, shards of glass and ceramic, and bicycle wheels. I can’t imagine why I would like a place like that…

Brian: Trash tree much? In all seriousness though, the Gardens were pretty awesome. Although the faces in the artwork are reminiscent of Napoleon Dynamite’s rendering of Trish, the man has clearly spent countless hours placing each shard of glass and tile with utmost care. Definitely check this out if you are in Philly. The best part was, as we were walking out, I accidentally brushed shoulders with this hippy dude. When I turned around to apologize, I was looking into the face of the man who built the Magic Garden’s. It was kind of like at the end of a movie where an inspirational person makes a cameo as his or herself and gives an inspirational speech. We were hungry again by the time we were finished, so I led Nick to a nearby pizza hole using ISP.

Nick: Italian Sensory Perception. I like it. After that, we hit up a bar in north Philly that allegedly had free drinks from 7-9 in honor of their one-year anniversary.

Brian: This was according to a girl named Jade that we met on CouchSurfing. We met her at the bar. I know what you are thinking. After the Dooz debacle why would we ever give meeting people online another chance? Well you might be right about that, because things got a little crazy toward the end of the night. But to begin, yes, they did, in fact, have free drinks.

Nick: What up. After that, we worked our way south again to end the night in that most excellent of dive bars, Bob and Barbara’s. A can of PRB and a shot of Jim Beam for three dollars? Yes, please. The long and the short of it was, it was an easy night on the wallets. Another rough one on the liver. Life is about compromises.

Brian: A lesson Jade would be wise to learn. She drank a bit too much and then tried to follow us home. We gave her a subway token and told her she needed to go to bed. She wouldn’t have any of it, and she tried to tell us that she didn’t actually even have a home. I believe this to be a lie, because she had earlier asked us if we needed a place to stay, and offered her residence to us. We ended up walking her to the subway station and then sprinting a couple blocks as soon as we rounded the corner. She was that clingy. But we were able to shake her.

Nick: OK, listen close all you cyberistas out there. We like meeting new people, and we know some of you are good because Amy Blunt from Pittsburg made us cupcakes. The rest of you need to cool it with the crazy. Seriously. If you can’t trust people you meet on the Intermet, who can you trust? The song of the day is definitely “Jaded,” by Aerosmith. That pretty much does it for Friday. Check out the new poll if you haven’t already. Nick and Brian oooouuutt.

Sewickely, Pa through Scranton, PA

Nick: Morning readers. Today’s post comes to you from a small coffee shop in rural Vermont. We’d like to take this opportunity to personally apologize for the lack of posts in the last couple days, as we know many of you have been hungrily awaiting an update of our journey. It is not for lack of writing on our part, but for a lack of Intermet in the deep woods.

Brian: Aside. No, that’s not a typo. Nick and I were sharing with each other the hilariously crappy local commercials we’ve grown up, and stumbled upon an old Vern Fonk gem. According to him, “Internet” is actually pronounced “Intermet”. It’s on YouTube. End Aside.

Nick: You see, the last few days have been spent mostly in the wilderness, fending off wild animals and starting fires without the wonderment of modern inventions like Duraflame logs. (Thus far, we have been fabulously successful on both counts.) Allow me to fill you in:
On Thursday morning, Amy sent us on our way with delicious cupcakes (thanks again!) and we left the Pittsburgh area towards Scranton, PA. The address we plugged into the GPS was that of Poor Richard’s Pub. That’s right. Along the way, we stopped to check out the Niagara Falls. The American Niagara falls, mind you. Brian and I decided that if there was part of the falls that couldn’t bee seen from the U.S. side, it wasn’t worth seeing. Sorry Canada, no dice.

Brian: Nice try with your massive waterfront Ferris-wheel though. Lesser men would have fallen for such blatant pandering. Here are a couple pics from the winning side:





(A photo of a man Japanese man taking a photo. If you weren't sure, that's called zen. Maybe not.)

Nick: The giant waterfall was cool I guess, but I’ll probably remember the best fish sandwich ever that we had nearby more than anything else from that day. I think the restaurant was called “The Beach House.” Tasty.

Brian: I took the steering wheel for the five hour drive from Niagara to S(Compton)ranton. As our friends know, Nick and I can’t spend five hours together without inventing a new game, and “Seabiscuit” as we coined it is a prime example of our creativity. Step 1: Pull up along the left side of a car on the highway. Step 2: Racially, sexually, and haircut-ly profile the driver. Step 3: Have the passenger stare directly at the other driver until he or she makes eye contact with the driver. Step 4: Pull away laughing hysterically.

Nick: AKA, smoke them a la Paul Walker. Minus the laughter. And the general douchiness. And minus the hair. Actually, forget Paul Walker. We pull away a la Vin Diesel. Yes.

Brian: We haven’t collected enough data to make a statistically sound conclusion, but honorable mentions to the guy who broke the sound barrier to get away from us, the guy who was already looking at us when we pulled up-
Nick: That was way creepy.

Brian: -and the girl texting on her Blackberry who we matched for miles without a glance. We are taking notes diligently so rest assured we will have conclusions in about a week.

Nick: We eventually made it to Scranton, though when we “arrived” there was no sign what-so-ever for anything that might be a pub. We inquired of a kindly gentleman smoking behind a nearby bowling alley where it might be, and he directed us into the bowling alley itself. To our surprise, there was absolutely no indication that the place was frequently mentioned in the hit show “The Office.” That was fine with us though. We ordered some chow and a couple beers, turned on the back T.V. to NBC, and watched our show as weird locals scampered around behind us.

Brian: Yeah, for some reason a dude literally crawled into the bathroom and we never saw him leave. This trip is full of mysteries.

Nick: We left the bar after dusk, and made our way to a nearby state park. Under cover of darkness, we slipped in, pitched our tent with incredible dexterity and purpose, then fell asleep. With Ninja like stealth, aided by the Civic Hybrid (which everyone knows is perfectly silent under 10mph as its advanced engine actually absorbs sounds which are converted to fuel,) we quit the park in the most intense fog ever. A deer guided us through, though, so we made it out in one piece.
Song of the day: “The Omen” by Prodigy. Food of the day: Fried fish sandwich, of course. Question of the day: A man pushes his car, stops in front of a house, and goes broke. How did this happen? I don’t know, I’m asking you, readers.