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The Philadelphia Experiment (a.k.a. WE’LL DO IT LIVE!)
By Woopop | June 25, 2008 2:55 pm
So now that I’ve had time to digest everything (literally and figuratively), I can give everyone the rundown on our ridiculously awesome “all-guys” trip to Philly this past weekend. Since there’s really no better way to do it, I’ve interspersed videos and pics into this narrative, with a link to the whole gallery at the end. Without further ado:
Friday: Matt rolls in, we get the van from the airport (a new Dodge Grand Caravan… but no video screens… awwww..). Adam shows up with Pandora, we journey to Ithaca to drop the dog off, and then collect Karl. We were so hungry, we could’ve eaten at Arby’s, and we did (Thanks Whitney Point!). A rather uneventful drive some hours later, we arrived at our luxurious accommodations: The Fort Washington Best Western. It’s a half hour north of the city, but was way cheaper than anything downtown. Nice place. Meanwhile, Kevin and Carlo came up from NOVA, collected Dan at the train station, and arrived at the hotel. We got everyone together, and promptly piled back into the van to head to Victory Brewing Company.
It would have been prudent to actually print out a map and directions beforehand, but we’re not that smart. After tooling around Downingtown, PA, and trying to get directions via Google SMS and Dan’s brother, we found the place in a nondescript industrial park (much like where Boulder Beer Company was). Ahem, Victory was ours!
Once inside, we proceeded to the bar, the gift shop, and our table, where we commenced the tackling of two samplers and who knows what else…
After our good time, we retired back to the hotel, to get up somewhat early for our big day in the morning.
Saturday: After thinking we had the SEPTA system figured out, we walked the mile from the hotel to the train station (briskly, ha!) in order to just barely catch the right train to get downtown…
After a connection or two, we made it to Independence Park, got our tickets for the Independence Hall tour at the Visitor’s Center, and hit our 11am tour…
Next stop, the Liberty Bell across the street…
We’d had our fill of history, now it was time to get our fill of cheesesteaks. We walked a couple of blocks to South Street, to Jim’s Steaks, where we waited in line for about a half-hour to get our Whiz Steak on (as in, Cheeze Whiz). Totally worth the wait. Some of us didn’t want to wait, and snuck in a beer at the bar across the street (Lickety Split was it?), and still made it back in line before we got inside. Nice work boys!
To walk it off, we took South Street to the pier, and thought, well, there’s bars here, what else are we doing? First stop, an Irish Pub called Downey’s, right on the corner of South and Front. After a round there, we only made it a little further up the street before we happened upon a Rite-Aid (for my lack of odor-prevention planning), and then across the street from there, an even better Irish Pub called Kildare’s, where we commenced with more beering.
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Karl kept saying he wanted to check out the City Tavern, which was back near Independence Park. Good thing he kept needling us about it, because we had what could have been some of the best beer on the trip there (if not the most expensive!), brewed by Yards (which we couldn’t visit because they weren’t doing tours at the time after renovating). Dubbed “Revolutionary Ales”, the General Washington’s Tavern Porter, and the Thomas Jefferson’s Tavern Ale were excellent.
As if we’d stop there, we continued our journey out to Manayunk, which is a section west of the city center. Many little boutique shops (as Kevin discovered)…
…and our destination, Manayunk Brewery and Restaurant. We were joined by an old Chili / RIT friend (Hi Mike! I won’t call you Ryan anymore, promise!), and got down to business…
A $300 tab later, we moved to the outside patio, where the real fun began. We ended up standing right near a table of people, one of which was wearing a Sabres hat, much like my own. Turns out he and his girlfriend, and a couple of their friends were West Seneca transplants… sup dude! Next on the entertainment list was a table of three chicks that were checking us out all night (we’re still not sure exactly who), and guess who got roped into talking to them? No, not the two single representatives of our party, nope… *I* did. Dammit. I then introduced the two single guys as quickly as possible, and tried to get the hell out of there. Eventually, no one was spared from these girls’ interest, but one of the three looked less than thrilled to be talking to us (uh, yeah, don’t sweat it, we didn’t like you either). So after they left, leave it to me and my hat to start another incident. With the jack-off bouncer. We’d been there since 6pm. Outside since probably 8:30. At 10:30, this douche gets right up in my face and bellows “You gotta take the hat off”. No please, no nothing. I immediately take it off, and ask why it’s a problem all of a sudden. “It’s after-hours.” Ok, fine, but I’ve been standing here all night and no one’s said anything. “If you don’t like it, you can leave”. At which point he turned and strutted off. Um, ok dude. You win. So who comes walking past us not a minute later with his hat in his hands? Sabres dude! I asked him if he got “regulated” too, and sure enough. We joked that if they’d been Flyers hats, we’d have been ok. :) In the meantime during all of this, the place got wicked busy. Apparently there’s no other place to go in the area, because by the time we left at 12:30, the line was down the entrance and around the building. We stuffed four guys into a cab, and Mike was nice enough to drive the other three of us back to the hotel. Thanks Mike! After some hanging out, and some hijinks involving a certain shirt, it was bedtime again, to gear up for Sunday.
Sunday: After breakfast, we caravaned out to our last Philly destination: Citizens Bank Park for the Phillies-Angels game. Since we’d picked up two six-packs at Victory on Friday night, we had supplies for an impromptu tailgate party before heading in!
The park itself is beautiful, and since it’s only 4 years old, it was really clean. Naturally, it’s got all the nice food amenities, including a BBQ pit beyond right field, and we indulged in some Chickie and Pete’s Crab Fries.
Oh yeah, there was a game to be played too! The Phillies ended up not being able to pull out a 9th inning comeback, and the Angels won 3-2. Our seats were way up in the sky, but you could see just about everything, so no biggie.
After the game, we said our goodbyes to the VA contingent, dropped Dan off at the train station, and headed back home. One stop in PA for a snack, and we were back in Ithaca by 10pm. Said goodbye to Karl, picked up Adam’s dog, and got home by midnight. Adam took off, Matt and I returned the van, and called it a night.
A hell of a trip, we had a ton of fun, and remember, when in doubt, “…I’ll write it, and WE’LL DO IT LIVE!” Hit the picture link below to get to the whole gallery:
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