Day 7 (8/25), Blistering Heat and a Wedding

Wedding day.

We awoke Saturday, alone in Maggie's house, she and all her family down on the Jersey Shore setting up for the wedding. We were left with directions on how to get to the wedding site, about an hour and a half from Philly in rural New Jersey. We were also informed of the casual nature of the wedding, as well as the heat, and told that shorts would be an acceptable style of dress, as long as they were matched with a collared shirt. As Nate and I were already well aware of our sensitivity to the heat, we had no problem donning shorts at the ceremony.

With traffic and pit stops, our drive took closer to two hours, getting us to the wedding about a minute before the ceremony began. Although we were given permission to wear shorts, it was very awkward to show up to the wedding late and in shorts, especially since we knew a total of four people there. Because we were the last to arrive, we were left with the only seats left. As it was an outdoor wedding, and the temperature was expected to hit 98 degrees, most of the seats were covered by a large tent. However, the seats we were left with did not get the shade many were able to enjoy.

The lack of shade immediately became problematic. It wasn't more than two minutes that I had an enormous sweat stain on my chest, back, and one in each arm pit. And it was at the four minute mark when I developed a stain on the crotch of my shorts (from sweat dripping off my chin) and one on my butt (from the accumulated sweat dripping down my back). While I can give my own lengthy and obscene description of the miserable combination of heat and humidity, I'll rather offer the readers an excerpt from Nate's journal, detailing the toture we went through:

"It was so fucking hot and humid. I was sitting there sweating, ridiculously. Sweat was pooling up in my ass crack, beading all over. A constant drip formed from my nose and chin. I can honestly say that I have never been so uncomfortable in my life. It was terrible. I sweat through my shirt, shorts, and my hair was part afro, part sweaty strips of hair glued to my sweaty, gleaming forehead. I sat with my head down, holding my head, and wiping the salty sweat that was obstructing my vision away from my eyes. While looking around and wondering why the fuck weren’t these people perspiring profusely, I mean I know they're locals, but that shit is natural, there is no getting used to that kind of weather, why are these people not sweating like me. I was beginning to get angry. Then came the mosquitoes, out in full force. So, here I am in New Jersey at some fucking wedding, I don’t know any of these people, why am I here enduring this shit. No amount of free food and alcohol will make up for this…Fuck it…I want to leave, but where do I go. Nowhere is the answer. I can’t leave, I’m trapped at this place and must tolerate the heat and bugs. The wedding lasted approximately 20 minutes. Seemed like it would never end. I don’t know what happened in the ceremony, no idea cause I wasn’t paying attention at all, just sweating while worrying about heat stroke and communicable diseases that these mosquitoes might be passing me. I hate those lil’ vampire fuckers. At one point in the ceremony I almost got up to walk away, maybe douse myself with water, maybe hydrate myself a little bit…but I realized that it would be too awkward and people were already staring at me like I was some kind of alien or freak of nature. Although it’s easy easy to assume that I wasn’t looking my best. So I’m angry, like really pissed off about my current situation. I was on the verge of losing my sanity and just start running around screaming obscenities. Luckily, I was able to keep my composure. I looked at Jeff, noticed that he is in a similar situation, and could tell the was on the same page as I, so that helped a bit. I don’t think I could have lasted 21 minutes, I would have lost it. The wedding ended, reception began, while the sweating and awkward stares persisted. I think I made an impression, not necessarily a good one, more like what the fuck is wrong with this guy and who is he."

To say the least, Nate and I had a little difficulty handling the heat and 800% humidity. It was so bad that I was forced to go to the car immediately after the groom (Maggie's brother) kissed the bride, where I sat in front of the air conditioner and drank a gallon of water. After rehydrating and cooling off, I went back to the wedding, at which point the reception had started. The site was an old farm not too far from the Jersey shore. The centerpiece of the rural site, called Bull on the Barn, was a crab shack that served local catches. Next to the crab shack was an outdoor bar. Both the crab shack and bar were surrounded by open land, fully vulnerable to the blistering sun and heat.

Upon my return from the car, I found myself a huge fan in the bar, which I took the liberty of monopolizing to the fullest extent. While I felt sort of bad hogging the breeze from the fan, it became obvious to everyone else that I was most in need of it, as my pale (now probably bright red) face and numerous sweat stains loudly stated that I was close to passing out.

When I was done sweating (due to dangerously low levels of water in my system), I ventured to the crab shack, where Nate, Stacey and I sat with Maggie's grandma. Nate and I attacked the crab with a vengeance, returning to the food line multiple times for seconds and thirds. Somehow, with my novice crab-cracking skills (I've never really had crab before), I managed to puncture the tip of my index finger with the crustacean's leg. However, after enduring the most miserable 20 minutes of my life in the sun, the pain from the cut was relatively small, and I just continued eating crab....and more crab.

After stuffing my gut with crab, I again needed to find a breeze somewhere. I departed the crab shack and headed back to the bar, in hopes nobody took over "my" fan. When walking to the bar, I found the most amazing discovery: the narrow walkway between the crab shack and the bar produced a wind tunnel that was equal in strength to the fan. So, to not appear selfish and anti-social, I hung out in the walkway and attempted to talk to the people who had to squeeze by me. After a while of being an awkward obstacle in the walkway, I decided to rotate between the fan and wind tunnel. This way, it sort of looked like I was mingling and not such a wall flower.

After a while, I grew restless. There were a few people playing horse shoes, so I checked them out for a bit. As it turns out, it wasn't horse shoes, rather it was a game called "quaits," I think. Similar concept, but instead of trying to get a horseshoe around a spike, you have to toss a weight onto a board with a target on it. The closer you get to the target in the middle, the more points you get. Apparently it's popular out there, because I saw tailgaters playing the same game in the parking lot at the Phillie's game (the next day). Anyway, the game didn't catch my interest enough, so I wondered around to the field in the back. There, I found a kid hitting a wiffle ball by himself. So, being the baseball lover that I am, I told him that I could beat him, and challenged him to a game. As it turns out, the kid (probably only 13) was pretty good. He hit a couple homeruns off of me and ran his score to 10 before I got up. After such a long half inning, my at bat finally arrived. I was intent on rocking this kid, outdoing his 10 runs by at least 2...and then quitting while I was ahead. Well, the kid struck me out three times before I was able to get my 4th run. Frustrated and defeated, I told the kid I needed to get back to my fan.

When the wedding ended, most headed to a beach house that the bride and groom rented on the shore in Fortescue, NJ. It was a beautiful location, reminiscent of some presidential vacation spot on Martha's Vineyard. Before the sun went down, we all decided to walk down to the beach and go for a swim. It was a good thing that I had been drinking, because Nate's warnings of hypodermic needles often being found on the Jersey Shore did not scare me as much as it should have. So, Maggie, her twin sisters and I jumped in and swam toward a reported sand bar some 100 yards from the beach. Maggie insisted that the waves breaking off the coast meant there was shallow water, thus we could swim out there and stand up. It took like 15 minutes to swim out there. Maggie found it first and, as I didn't believe there was a sand bar, scared the shit out of me when she started standing on water. Eventually I found the narrow spit of shallow ground and stood on water as well. It was pretty cool, I must say.

Anyway, we eventually swam back to shore and decided to call it a night. We gathered all our stuff, said our goodbyes, and headed back to Maggie's brothers house, as he and his groom had left town for their honeymoon, and we weren't up for the drive back to Philly. On the way to his house, we stopped at a hoagie shop/market called WaWa's. Here, we were able to custom order (by computer) our own Italian hoagies. Apparently my order was so far from what an Italian hoagie is, the lady, when receiving my order, rolled her eyes at me. Then, when completing my sandwich, handed it to me and said, "Here's your creation, whatever it is." Great, thanks lady.

Nate and I grabbed a bottle of whiskey to compliment our hoagies. When we got the house, we found multiple puddles of pee from the dog (Tuco...taken from the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) that had been sitting in the house all day. We maneuvered around the pee puddles, found a spot to sit, and scarfed down our sandwiches. Nate and I sat outside for a while, taking a few shots from the bottle of whiskey, before growing tired and returning to the house where we all crashed for the night. Despite the endured torture of heat and humidity, the day was actually quite nice. The wedding was mellow, down to earth, had good food and music, and the people were all very nice. For good and bad, the wedding in Jersey will never be forgotten.

Day 6 (8/24), Cheesesteak Love

After a beautiful sleep in a bed, I awoke on Friday with a pep in my step, and a hankering for my first Philly cheesesteak. After navigating our way through the (dumb) turnpike, and Philly suburbs, we made it in to the city well before noon. Our first stop was the Philly art museum. For art connoisseurs, I'm sure the museum is awesome. For movie aficionados, however, this place is mecca, for none other than Rocky Balboa once ran up the steps leading to the museum, where he so-famously proclaimed his love for Adriane. Standing atop these steps was like standing at the OK Corral or Pearl Harbor. Truly historic. Secretly, I wanted to run up the steps and pump my fists in the air. Unfortunately, the cheesy tourists who acted on their similar urge ruined it for me, and I simply soaked in the moment of cinematic history, while gawking at their Rocky impersonations. Oh, and as for the museum, we didn't go...it was too expensive. That's not to say our fruitless trip to the museum went without art, for a sculpture of the Italian Stallion himself sat outside of the museum, where fans can get up close and personal with ol' Sly for free.

From the museum, we headed to the historic core of old Philadelphia. This is where Liberty Hall is, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin's house, etc. In other words, a true slice of American History. After parking, we made our way to the main visitor center in old town. We were cut off, though, by a group of demonstrators who were holding a rally to stand up against the violence that has recently plagued the streets of Philly (for perspective, with an average of one murder a day, Philly will have more than 10 times the amount of homicides as Portland, OR). After watching the protesters and subsequent speeches in the park, we continued on our way. Before going too far, we decided to get some food. We hit up a street vendor who was selling cheesesteaks, hoagies, meatball sandwiches, and hot dogs. Not wanting to get my first cheesesteak out of a mobile cart, I opted for the meatball sandwich. After gobbling our food, we moved on and signed up for a tour of Liberty Hall. While waiting for the tour to begin, we gave ourselves a self-guided walk of the surrounding area. Although small in area, there was a lot to take in. We saw Ben Franklin's burial place (easily seen from the sidewalk, despite coming with a $5.00 entrance fee to the gated cemetery); the Liberty Bell; old cobble-stoned streets; and the first and second banks of America.

After getting our fill of history, we, upon the advice of Maggie's mom, went to the Italian Market. In its heyday, I can see how this would be an attraction, with local vendors selling fresh meats, fish, and produce. Now, though, there is little indication that the market is Italian, nor a busy market. While vending stations do exist, and the sidewalks are lined with brick buildings painted in the colors of the Italian flag, the only remains are storefronts selling cheap clothing, candies, and not so fresh fish. At the end of the worn-out strip of wooden vending stations, Pat's and Geno's beckoned with their respective claim to cheesesteak superiority. Pat's, named after Pasquale "Pat" Olivieri, is the reputed home of the original steak sandwich, first created in the 1930s. Geno's, however, lays claim to the first steak sandwich to have cheese on it, originally started by its owner, Joe Vento shortly after Pat made the steak sandwich popular. As they face each other on opposite corners of the same intersection, it's hard to decide which to go to. We eventually went with Pat's. As you wait in line at Pat's, there is a huge menu on the wall that has step by step instructions for ordering a steak sandwich (convenient for the apparent hordes of tourists). The first step in ordering is deciding if you want onions or not. If you do, you order a steak sandwich "wit" (not with). Then, if you want cheese, you have to specify which kind (American, provolone, cheese whiz, etc). I'm told that the most authentic cheesesteak is ordered with cheese whiz. So, when I approached the window to order, I asked for a "cheesesteak wit and wit whiz." I've since learned I could have simply said, "Whiz wit," and that would have sufficed. Aside from the joyous delightment of eating a cheesesteak, Pat's offered some entertainment as well. For example, the lady who ordered after me, apparently from out of town, approached the window without fully reading the instructions, as they clearly state that you must know exactly what you want, and how to order it, by the time you get to the front of the line. So, when she said she wanted a cheesesteak and asked the guy at the window what was good to put on it, he responded (in the best Italian, South Philly accent): "You have to tell me lady. I'm busy...you're gonna have to get to the end of the line." Wow! I simultaneously hated this guy and wanted to be him at the same time. Although very stereotypical, and not necessarily the norm, this was the type of character that I grew to admire while in Philly...straight to the point, in your face flare. While seemingly brash, it is without pretense and bullshit...awesome.

Anyway, we still had more to see in Philly, so we walked back to the car to make sure we didn't have a ticket. Along the way, we went in and out of small side streets to check out murals and some street art. When we got the care, we checked the tires to see if parking police had marked them with chalk (for we were in two-hour parking and I thought that's how they keep track of who's been there). We would follow this routine every hour and half until we figured we were safe for the evening. We spent the afternoon and most of the early evening on South Street, a 10-15 block stretch of record stores, tattoo parlors, clothing stores, smoke shops, and bars. We met up with Gibby, my best friend since kindergarten, who flew down from Boston to hang with us for the night (he was originally supposed to fly in at 2pm, but got delayed til closer to 5), at the Blarney Pub. After catching up briefly, and having a few drinks, we left to find a more divey spot off of the main strip. We found a spot a few blocks away called the Friendly Lounge, which, ironically, was bar tended by a grumpy fuck. Actually the dude wasn't that grumpy, he's just not used to non-locals coming through there. As we sat there for a few drinks, we were told of how the neighborhood has changed for the worse and that we should not venture any more east than we already had. The bartender, and one of the local patrons, turned out to be cool dudes in the end, but not very welcoming, so we headed back to South Street. As we were leaving they suggested a couple bars that might be more to our liking.

Back on South Street, we found Tattoo Moms (as recommended by the grumpy bartender and his friend). Not only did Tattoo Moms serve $1.00 PBRs, but they also had grilled cheese sandwiches and party favors on all the tables. Pretty good combination, if you ask me. After a few drinks, Gibby realized it was time to catch his train to New York, where he was staying for the weekend before going back to Boston. He said our goodbyes, put him in a cab, and headed back to the car. Unfortunately, our method of checking for chalk on the tires was flawed, for we had a $27.00 ticket. After bitching about the ticket, we hopped in the car and headed back to Maggie's place. Since Maggie did not come with us (she was with her family preparing for the wedding the next day), we had to do our best to follow the same directions she gave us...but backwards and in the dark. Naturally, we got lost and drove through every suburban township on our eventual return to her house. Part of the problem was that her house lies in one township, while the houses across the street from her are in another. So, with the street having two different postal jurisdictions, it also had two different sets of numbers. In other words, while we were looking for the 500 block of Welsh Road, the addresses on the other side of the street through us completely off, as they were in the 1000's. Great! We eventually figured it out, made it home, and crashed in front of the TV while watching the Departed.