A Return to the City of Brotherly Love

May 13-14, 2012

This morning I loaded my bus at the NY Port Authority at 7:30AM. By 9:40AM I was back in Mt. Laurel where my Mom picked me up at the bus station. We then went to Home Depot to acquire a few more plants for Granny’s yard.

At 12:30PM Judy and Ben picked me up at Granny’s for the Phillies game. The weather at all three ball games this weekend was beautiful. The temperature at the Phillies game was pushing 80. Our seats were high up for this game but that turned out to be great because we had a nice light breeze and our seats were in the shade. I had a great time with Judy, Ben, Enyo and her friend Anthony.

Judy and Ben left me at Granny’s around 5:30PM. I took a short nap before Mother’s Day dinner that Judy graciously went home and made for us. It was an awesome meal. We had stuffed chicken, with really good mixed veggies and cooked apples.

After dinner I went to watch Ben play hockey. Earlier in the day he told me that he had a key and the pass code to put on the lights at one of Moorestown’s community parks. This seemed crazy to me. I’ve never heard of anyone having this type of access to a public park, so I wanted to see it.

As seen above the rink was fricken awesome. It’s like Ben has his own private playground. I think Judy though I was crazy with how cool I thought it was. One other funny element of the hockey match was that one of the goalies in the game is a current defenseman in the NHL. The other goalie was a kid who is now probably 17 but looks and is built like he is a small 10 year old. Needless to say Ben has a fun and diverse group of friends.

Monday morning I got up to go to breakfast with Beck, Mike and all the kiddos. We met at Chick-Fil-A. The kids played in the play structure for a good hour and a half and Beck, Mike and I had a very nice time chatting. After breakfast I went to the store to grab some things for Granny. Once I returned to the house to load up for the airport my Mom told me she wanted to stay behind because she didn’t think Granny was ready to be home alone yet. I wasn’t thrilled with the fact that this meant I had to deal with rebooking Mom’s tickets and that I’ll have to figure out how to do the office payroll... but that’s what you do for family.

All in I enjoyed the week. I had a lot of fun with a variety of friends, saw some fun parks and baseball games and best of all Granny did fantastically well with her surgery.

Until the next yet to be planned adventure,

Katy

24 Hours in the City That Never Sleeps

I was up at 7:15AM this morning to catch my flight to NYC. After landing in Newark, hitting up the United Club for snacks, and riding the Air Train and Amtrak into the city, I was checked into my hotel by 1PM, which left me ample time to meet my friend and get to the Yankees game on time.

New Yankee Stadium was a great tribute to Old Yankee Stadium. I didn’t thoroughly explore it, as I was with company, but the parts I did see were all that you would expect out of George Steinbrenner’s 1.5 billion dollar baby. The game itself was entertaining with the Yankees winning 6-2.

Later in the evening I decided to go to Carnegie Deli, an NYC icon to which I’d never been. I decided to order the “Tim Tebow” sandwich. It was HUGE.I only managed to eat about a quarter of it. After paying $25 for a sandwich I didn’t want to waste it so I packed up the left overs and gave them to a homeless guy on the street. He should have enough calories in that baby to last him at least two or three days.

After eating I walked back through Times Square and then hopped the subway back to my hotel. Now that I'm in bed it is past midnight, which means another night without enough sleep as I have to get up to catch my bus at 6:30AM.

Night,

Katy

24 Hours in the Steel City

Today I made my first ever visit to Pittsburgh, PA. I realized late last week that I had a certificate on United that was going to expire on May 12. After visiting Philly over 100 times I decided that it was just silly that I had never been to Pittsburgh and making a quick trip there would be a good use of my nearly free ticket. The Pirates are known to have one of the best stadiums in MLB, even if its team and attendance are both notoriously terrible.

Upon arriving in Pittsburgh I made my way downtown near the stadiums. I planned to take a tour of Heinz Field at 12PM. I had some time to kill before the tour, so I took my friend Carl’s advice and looked for the Andy Warhol Museum.

Parking in downtown is not particularly cheap. Most of the signs I saw said parking all day was in the $25 range with no in and out privileges. The $25 wouldn’t be the end of the world but I wasn’t 100% sure that I would leave my car downtown all day and I really didn’t want to pay twice. I drove around and eventually found a meter right by the baseball stadium and 3ish blocks from the AW Museum. When I got out to feed the meter I realized it was out of order. In Oregon when this happens you can park there free because there is in fact no way to pay the meter. I decided to roll the dice and hope the meter maids of Pitt followed this same rationale.

I spent 30 minutes in the Warhol Museum and realized that I would need considerably more time to thoroughly enjoy it. I decided that I would come back after touring Heinz Field. I walked the mile or so down to the football stadium and took the tour. The views were fantastic inside the facility as was the layout of its “Great Hall” which displays much of the Steelers storied history.

After the tour I walked around the river and to a restaurant called Primanti Brothers. Carl told me I had to try one of its sandwiches as they are one of the things for which Pittsburgh is known. Below is the turkey sandwich I ordered. It was delicious.

After lunch I walked back across the river to finish looking around the Warhol Museum. On the way I checked on my car to see that it was still parking ticket free, which thankfully it was. 

The Warhol Museum was quite interesting. I’m not sure how I feel about “Pop Art” but I will readily admit to respecting Warhol as a business man. Evidently he made screen printing a big part of his “process” because it was made for a quick artistic turnaround. I was shocked to learn that when Warhol died in 1984 he was worth $220,000,000.

It was 4:30PM or so when I finished the museum. I had about an hour to kill before going to the game, so I stopped in a bar, drank a Diet P, charged my phone and worked on this here blog.

The game itself was fun. The stadium was beautiful. I sat in the front row at an MLB game for the first time. On one fly ball I’m fairly certain the guy next to me prevented the first baseman from making the catch. I was watching the ball and when I looked to my right as it came down three Pirates were standing within my arms reach. The Pirates ended up losing the game 1-0.

After the game I made one final stop that Carl recommended. I drove over to the South Side. According to Carl the South Side has the most bars per square mile of anywhere in the United States. He recommended a few restaurants where I should eat but I was still full from my Primanti Sandwich.

I’m now back at the hotel and have to call it a night because I’m off to NYC early in the morning.

Katy

A New Hip

May 7-10, 2012

Mom and I flew out to NJ on Monday to help Granny with her hip replacement surgery. I don’t often blog about flight experiences but this one was noteworthy. It started off with a fired up old woman in the Eugene airport who announced to everyone waiting in the departure area that her husband had wet his pants. The adventures continued on with our flight from SFO to PHL. Mom and I were seated in row 7 on an Airbus 319. On those planes there is a video screen directly in front of the center seat. On this particular aircraft the screen didn’t want to stay down, which meant every six seconds or so it would cycle up and then it would cycle down. The flight attendant managed to get it to stop once. However, when I stood to climb out to use the restroom I tapped it and it started cycling all over again. The flight attendant nor I could get it to stay up or down. We were staring at having to watch this for four hours:

I knew I could fix this problem. I just had to figure out a way to MacGyver the situation. I decided to take my shoe lace off and try to tie down the screen... and viola!

Tuesday we helped Granny prepare for surgery by confirming all things were in order. For dinner we went to Jane and Pete’s house to celebrate Mom’s birthday. I had pineapple stuffing for the first time and now have a new favorite dessert dinner food. We were up super early on Wednesday morning to take Granny in for her surgery. She wanted to be to the hospital at 5:15AM, so this required a 4:15AM wakeup call for me.

The procedure was surprisingly fast. Granny went into the OR at 8:30AM. Mom and I went home during the operation but Granny called us from the recovery room at 10:30AM or so. We then made our way back to downtown Philly to see Granny. It was crazy. By 3PM in the afternoon she was already up and walking a bit. My mind is still blown that an 85 year-old can get a new hip in the morning and be walking by the afternoon. Modern medicine truly is amazing. Tuesday evening while Mom was still hanging with Granny I met a friend for drinks in the oldest bar in Philadelphia, McGillin’s Olde Ale House, which was built in 1860.

By the time Mom and I got back to Granny’s house at 9PMish I was exhausted. I went to bed early and slept in late. Thursday around 3PM Granny called to tell us I was allowed to pick her up. The check out process was pretty painless and by 6pm or so Granny was back in her chair in her own kitchen. The family (minus Jane and Pete) came over for dinner and we had a nice time together.

I’m off to bed early because I’m on my way to Pittsburgh at 4AM tomorrow morning to begin my adventure of three cities and three baseball games in three days!

Katy