travel log.
***just a warning, this entry is really, really long. but if you want to know about what Erica and i did in NYC and Philly, read on.***
we left monday morning at about 11 am to pick up our rental car. we wanted to get something mid-sized, preferably a Cavalier, since we did our 14 hour drive to florida in a cavalier and it was super comfortable. the only thing they had was a Ford Focus, which i've always sort of thought were crap, but we needed a car, so whatever. now, i don't mean that was the only mid-size car they had, that was the only car they had period. so whatever, we'll take the Ford Focus.
for future reference, the focus is an awesome car. comfortable as hell, great gas mileage, and it makes a mean belgian waffle. ok, that last part isn't exactly true.
anyway, fast forward past all the driving and stopping once or twice to get snacks. we get to the Lincoln Tunnel to go into New York City, that shit's kinda intimidating. i knew as soon as we got out of the tunnel we had to make a right turn, but i didn't realize we had to immediately make a right turn, with no way of getting from the lane we were in to the far right lane. so, we missed our turn. great. so we looped around a few blocks, through that infamous New York traffic. that shit is definitely crazy, and i'm sure all the taxi drivers thought they'd kinda bully the two white kids from Virginia in the Ford Focus, but believe me, i know how to drive in some shit. i handled that shit really well, except for the one time i almost ran a red light. but in new york, who gives a shit about a red light?
we found the convention center that Erica's hair show was at, and then found some parking like 2 blocks up (which, by the way, ended up costing us $45). get the the hair show, Erica gets her ticket so she can get her extra hours for school, and then we dip out into the streets of Manhattan.
we got in touch with her friend Steve to try and meet up with him and/or have him give us some directions to places we wanted to go. we tell him where we are, and he tells where the nearest subway station is, and where we should go to meet him. after walking like 7 blocks we get to the subway station, which smelled like piss (convenient, since you could see the piss on the floor), find a MTA map, and start looking for where he told us to go. which isn't on the map. so after debating for a bit whether we should call him again or what, we just decide to walk around for a while and check out what's in the immediate area.
we were right by Madison Square Garden, so we saw that. it's not really as big as i thought it would be, or at least it didn't seem like it, nestled amongst tons and tons of skyscrapers. but i thought it was pretty rad that i was standing right outside of a place where so much history has gone down. and someplace that they were taping a WWE event that night. although i didn't give a fuck about the wrestling, i was really thinking more of Ali vs. Frasier. we went into a Finish Line to see what kind of fancy sneakers NYC had in store for us, and after i briefly scanned over all the men's shoes, i realized there was either nothing i hadn't seen before, or nothing that i gave a shit about. erica, however, got a really hot pair of black and pink Nike Cortez. we later found out (after we had left new york) that all the shoe stores are on 8th, and we didn't go any further than 7th. one block. what a crock of shit.
we walked around for a while to see if we could find any vegetarian restaurants, and decided to just have some pizza. NYC pizza really is fucking awesome, i loved it. after we ate we walked around and took some pictures, a little graffiti, lots of random neat shots of buildings and shit, and some weird ass character that looked like something out of duckman that someone had painted and put up on a street sign post. came across a bum that was talking about stabbing people in the head, and ended up wandering through a common area of some fashion school, where some punk rock kid told us about a psychobilly show at the end of the month at the Pussycat Lounge which, evidently, is a "sleazy 50's type tittie bar that has music sometimes". sounds awesome.
so after about 2 hours of stomping around Manhattan, we decided to just head to Philly. we called Mike on the way, and figured we'd be there about 8. fast forward past more driving and getting gas (although i have to interject how we stopped at one of the rest areas that have restaurants and all that jazz on the Jersey Turnpike and had really, really good Starbucks drinks), and we get to Mike's street which is right off the interstate, so it's mad easy to find. parking on his street however, was not.
after looping around his block 4 times i finally just park it at the complete opposite end of the block that he lives on, but whatever. i ended up moving it in front of his house in like 15 minutes anyway. we chill for a bit, watch a little kung fu, and head up to south street to meet up with his friend Jaime to get some grub. Jaime works at Infinite, Philly's infamous piercing shop, so we roll up there and meet her and Kevin, who's one of the piercers there. we also find out while we're there that if we want anything, we'll get it at wholesale cost, so that rules. i just wish there was something there that i wanted. we went to this bar called Manny Brown's, a little tex-mex type of place that evidently has Refused on the jukebox. we sat and shot the shit for a while, i had some bomb ass bean tacos, and Erica had some chicken fajitas. we chilled there for a minute then dipped back to Mike's house. along the way he showed us where he got jumped and laid in a puddle of his own blood for an hour, unconscious. that's not on the official tour.
back to Mike's house, more chilling, and more kung fu. Erica and i finally crashed at about 2, knowing that we had a loooooong ass day ahead of us. mike worked from 12-10, so we had like 10 hours to kill doing whatever. the three of us walked up to Relapse the next morning, later than we had planned since all 3 of us were gonna grab some breakfast, but whatever. we chill at Relapse for a little bit, and Mike tells me that anything cd's that are on their label i can get for free, so i scored the newest Pig Destroyer, Origin, Buried Inside, and Mastodon cd's, in addition to a couple relapse drinking glasses and shot glasses, and a fucking sweet Amityville Horror snow globe that has a bunch of red liquid "blood" instead of snowflakes. i guess they got a bunch in as promos, so Mike hooked us up.
we went to South Street Diner to get some breakfast and kill some time, that place is pretty fucking good. fairly inexpensive, super fast service and awesome food. check it out if you're ever up there, it's down near the corner of second and south streets. after that it kinda becomes a blur of stopping in a bunch of stores along south street looking at shoes. Erica was gonna buy me the Run DMC Adidas from the Adidas store, but i figure they were like $100. and even though she didn't care, i knew i'd never wear them. and while i'm definitely about getting a shit ton of sneakers, i want to wear them. so we moved on, checked out some pretty hot shit at the Reebok store, and found some really hot New Balance at some random store on south street. i ended up not getting any shoes at all, but it's cool. i'm gonna find those New Balance online and get them.
we got a couple things here and there, and we stopped into Infinite again and hung out there for a bit. at this point we only had about 8 fucking hours to kill. we went into the Jinxed Clothing store and i dropped $137 on two shirts, a dvd, and a book. yikes. got some milkshakes from johnny rockets and killed almost an hour there, looked into a couple stores we hadn't checked out yet, then we went to No Ka Oi Tiki Tattoo, which is right next to Relapse. i got two crossed pirate swords under my ship (done by Jackie Brown, she's fucking awesome. if your in Philly and want to go get tattooed, check her out for real), so i've just about got my entire right arm filled. just a couple little parts here and there and the background.
we walked all the way up to the Sailor Jerry store, which was like a 7 or 8 block walk, and got there literally 5 minutes before they closed. got a couple shirts and some stickers, and the guy working there threw in a couple free cd's. all in all i was a little disappointed with the place, there wasn't nearly as much there as i thought there would be. there was a couple really cool button up western style shirts that i liked, but they were like $70 a pop, so i skipped over them for now. we walked back down to Relapse, asked Mike how to get to Gianna's, then headed there for dinner.
holy shit.
i had always heard about Gianna's from every vegetarian/vegan kid that has ever passed through Philly, but the last time we went up there they were closed. so i finally got to eat there, and while the sandwich i had (BBQ Freebird - fake chicken, fried onions, provolone cheese and bbq sauce) wasn't anything really hard to make, it was 1) huge, and 2) really fucking good. Erica had a Freebird Italiano (fake chicken, garlic, spinach and provolone) which was also really good, but was a little too much for her to eat since it was the size of a small child.
we spent the next hour or so sitting around Relapse making fun of people, then headed back to Mike's house, briefly stopping into Infinite to say goodbye to Jaime and Kevin. we get back, get our shit, and head home. The guy at the Wawa we stopped at called the ATM an "At machine". whatever.
we decided that we need to go to Philly more often, i love that fucking city. plus i think i might try to get one of my legs tattooed by Jackie, and she suggested that i get my horror sleeve finished by Dave Fox, who is also in Philly.
anyway, we got back at like 2 in the morning, and had to get up to have the car back by 10. so after 10 hours or so of walking around Philly, and roughly 6 hours of sleep, i'm fucking beat. and i have to work at 4 today. so i'm gonna go take a nap.
oh yeah, i found out right before we left for NYC that a girl i used to hang out with a lot died on friday. it really sucks, but it didn't really surprise me. she was into some scandalous type shit, so it was bound to happen at some point. i just feel bad for her close friends (some of whom are pretty good friends of mine, too) and family.
life goes on.
we left monday morning at about 11 am to pick up our rental car. we wanted to get something mid-sized, preferably a Cavalier, since we did our 14 hour drive to florida in a cavalier and it was super comfortable. the only thing they had was a Ford Focus, which i've always sort of thought were crap, but we needed a car, so whatever. now, i don't mean that was the only mid-size car they had, that was the only car they had period. so whatever, we'll take the Ford Focus.
for future reference, the focus is an awesome car. comfortable as hell, great gas mileage, and it makes a mean belgian waffle. ok, that last part isn't exactly true.
anyway, fast forward past all the driving and stopping once or twice to get snacks. we get to the Lincoln Tunnel to go into New York City, that shit's kinda intimidating. i knew as soon as we got out of the tunnel we had to make a right turn, but i didn't realize we had to immediately make a right turn, with no way of getting from the lane we were in to the far right lane. so, we missed our turn. great. so we looped around a few blocks, through that infamous New York traffic. that shit is definitely crazy, and i'm sure all the taxi drivers thought they'd kinda bully the two white kids from Virginia in the Ford Focus, but believe me, i know how to drive in some shit. i handled that shit really well, except for the one time i almost ran a red light. but in new york, who gives a shit about a red light?
we found the convention center that Erica's hair show was at, and then found some parking like 2 blocks up (which, by the way, ended up costing us $45). get the the hair show, Erica gets her ticket so she can get her extra hours for school, and then we dip out into the streets of Manhattan.
we got in touch with her friend Steve to try and meet up with him and/or have him give us some directions to places we wanted to go. we tell him where we are, and he tells where the nearest subway station is, and where we should go to meet him. after walking like 7 blocks we get to the subway station, which smelled like piss (convenient, since you could see the piss on the floor), find a MTA map, and start looking for where he told us to go. which isn't on the map. so after debating for a bit whether we should call him again or what, we just decide to walk around for a while and check out what's in the immediate area.
we were right by Madison Square Garden, so we saw that. it's not really as big as i thought it would be, or at least it didn't seem like it, nestled amongst tons and tons of skyscrapers. but i thought it was pretty rad that i was standing right outside of a place where so much history has gone down. and someplace that they were taping a WWE event that night. although i didn't give a fuck about the wrestling, i was really thinking more of Ali vs. Frasier. we went into a Finish Line to see what kind of fancy sneakers NYC had in store for us, and after i briefly scanned over all the men's shoes, i realized there was either nothing i hadn't seen before, or nothing that i gave a shit about. erica, however, got a really hot pair of black and pink Nike Cortez. we later found out (after we had left new york) that all the shoe stores are on 8th, and we didn't go any further than 7th. one block. what a crock of shit.
we walked around for a while to see if we could find any vegetarian restaurants, and decided to just have some pizza. NYC pizza really is fucking awesome, i loved it. after we ate we walked around and took some pictures, a little graffiti, lots of random neat shots of buildings and shit, and some weird ass character that looked like something out of duckman that someone had painted and put up on a street sign post. came across a bum that was talking about stabbing people in the head, and ended up wandering through a common area of some fashion school, where some punk rock kid told us about a psychobilly show at the end of the month at the Pussycat Lounge which, evidently, is a "sleazy 50's type tittie bar that has music sometimes". sounds awesome.
so after about 2 hours of stomping around Manhattan, we decided to just head to Philly. we called Mike on the way, and figured we'd be there about 8. fast forward past more driving and getting gas (although i have to interject how we stopped at one of the rest areas that have restaurants and all that jazz on the Jersey Turnpike and had really, really good Starbucks drinks), and we get to Mike's street which is right off the interstate, so it's mad easy to find. parking on his street however, was not.
after looping around his block 4 times i finally just park it at the complete opposite end of the block that he lives on, but whatever. i ended up moving it in front of his house in like 15 minutes anyway. we chill for a bit, watch a little kung fu, and head up to south street to meet up with his friend Jaime to get some grub. Jaime works at Infinite, Philly's infamous piercing shop, so we roll up there and meet her and Kevin, who's one of the piercers there. we also find out while we're there that if we want anything, we'll get it at wholesale cost, so that rules. i just wish there was something there that i wanted. we went to this bar called Manny Brown's, a little tex-mex type of place that evidently has Refused on the jukebox. we sat and shot the shit for a while, i had some bomb ass bean tacos, and Erica had some chicken fajitas. we chilled there for a minute then dipped back to Mike's house. along the way he showed us where he got jumped and laid in a puddle of his own blood for an hour, unconscious. that's not on the official tour.
back to Mike's house, more chilling, and more kung fu. Erica and i finally crashed at about 2, knowing that we had a loooooong ass day ahead of us. mike worked from 12-10, so we had like 10 hours to kill doing whatever. the three of us walked up to Relapse the next morning, later than we had planned since all 3 of us were gonna grab some breakfast, but whatever. we chill at Relapse for a little bit, and Mike tells me that anything cd's that are on their label i can get for free, so i scored the newest Pig Destroyer, Origin, Buried Inside, and Mastodon cd's, in addition to a couple relapse drinking glasses and shot glasses, and a fucking sweet Amityville Horror snow globe that has a bunch of red liquid "blood" instead of snowflakes. i guess they got a bunch in as promos, so Mike hooked us up.
we went to South Street Diner to get some breakfast and kill some time, that place is pretty fucking good. fairly inexpensive, super fast service and awesome food. check it out if you're ever up there, it's down near the corner of second and south streets. after that it kinda becomes a blur of stopping in a bunch of stores along south street looking at shoes. Erica was gonna buy me the Run DMC Adidas from the Adidas store, but i figure they were like $100. and even though she didn't care, i knew i'd never wear them. and while i'm definitely about getting a shit ton of sneakers, i want to wear them. so we moved on, checked out some pretty hot shit at the Reebok store, and found some really hot New Balance at some random store on south street. i ended up not getting any shoes at all, but it's cool. i'm gonna find those New Balance online and get them.
we got a couple things here and there, and we stopped into Infinite again and hung out there for a bit. at this point we only had about 8 fucking hours to kill. we went into the Jinxed Clothing store and i dropped $137 on two shirts, a dvd, and a book. yikes. got some milkshakes from johnny rockets and killed almost an hour there, looked into a couple stores we hadn't checked out yet, then we went to No Ka Oi Tiki Tattoo, which is right next to Relapse. i got two crossed pirate swords under my ship (done by Jackie Brown, she's fucking awesome. if your in Philly and want to go get tattooed, check her out for real), so i've just about got my entire right arm filled. just a couple little parts here and there and the background.
we walked all the way up to the Sailor Jerry store, which was like a 7 or 8 block walk, and got there literally 5 minutes before they closed. got a couple shirts and some stickers, and the guy working there threw in a couple free cd's. all in all i was a little disappointed with the place, there wasn't nearly as much there as i thought there would be. there was a couple really cool button up western style shirts that i liked, but they were like $70 a pop, so i skipped over them for now. we walked back down to Relapse, asked Mike how to get to Gianna's, then headed there for dinner.
holy shit.
i had always heard about Gianna's from every vegetarian/vegan kid that has ever passed through Philly, but the last time we went up there they were closed. so i finally got to eat there, and while the sandwich i had (BBQ Freebird - fake chicken, fried onions, provolone cheese and bbq sauce) wasn't anything really hard to make, it was 1) huge, and 2) really fucking good. Erica had a Freebird Italiano (fake chicken, garlic, spinach and provolone) which was also really good, but was a little too much for her to eat since it was the size of a small child.
we spent the next hour or so sitting around Relapse making fun of people, then headed back to Mike's house, briefly stopping into Infinite to say goodbye to Jaime and Kevin. we get back, get our shit, and head home. The guy at the Wawa we stopped at called the ATM an "At machine". whatever.
we decided that we need to go to Philly more often, i love that fucking city. plus i think i might try to get one of my legs tattooed by Jackie, and she suggested that i get my horror sleeve finished by Dave Fox, who is also in Philly.
anyway, we got back at like 2 in the morning, and had to get up to have the car back by 10. so after 10 hours or so of walking around Philly, and roughly 6 hours of sleep, i'm fucking beat. and i have to work at 4 today. so i'm gonna go take a nap.
oh yeah, i found out right before we left for NYC that a girl i used to hang out with a lot died on friday. it really sucks, but it didn't really surprise me. she was into some scandalous type shit, so it was bound to happen at some point. i just feel bad for her close friends (some of whom are pretty good friends of mine, too) and family.
life goes on.