Philadelphia 8/16/08

I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and ended up leaving the house at 6:00 to catch the train from Ronkonkoma to Penn station at 6:40. Surprisingly there were a ton of people on the train which I was not expecting since it was so early on a Saturday morning but it was a typical ride on the LIRR. I got to the city at 8:05 and went upstairs to pick up my Amtrak tickets and then got on the train to Philly at 9:10 and was on my way! The picture above was taken on the Amtrak train.

The train ride was actually really nice and only an hour and a half long. The inside of 30th Street Station was beautiful! I explored around there for a few minutes and then Jeff called me.

Him and I made a plan the night before that he was going to pick me up from the station around noon when he brings his friend Damian there to go back to nyc. However, on the phone he told me that they were all by Independence Hall and he wanted to know if I wanted to meet them there. So I said yes and asked one of the security guards how to get there and if there was a bus that went to that area. He showed me a map and it turns out it was just down the street that the station was on and that it was only about a "15 minute walk". Sounded good enough and keep in mind that I was very quickly so I figured it would take me no time. Well, turns out the walk was over a half hour long and Jeff and I kept calling eachother and all I could say was "5 more minutes". the outside of 30th Street Station

Market Street, the beginning of the trek to Independence Hall

City Hall

Independence Hall

Anyways, eventually I get to Independence Hall, called up Jeff and he said they were sitting in the park behind the building. So I walked over there and finally saw Jeff, Gary, Damian, and their poodle Charli! Hugs were exchanged and then Gary asked if we all wanted to go grab lunch. The 5 of us walked for a while until we found this cute little cafe called Gigi that had tables set up outside so we sat down there and had a really nice lunch. The food was really good; I had a chicken caesar salad (Jeff did as well) and the waiter was really nice, oh and Gary and Jeff wouldn't let me pay so that was extremely nice of them. While eating this old guy was attempting to parallel park right next to us and he failed miserably. It took him forever to just figure out that he had to actually turn his wheel to get his car into the spot. What made watching this guy awesome was that we all just kinda stared at him and then looked at eachother and cracked up. I'm surprised no one spit out their food or drink from laughing so hard. In conclusion, lunch was fun.

We finished lunch a little after 1:00 so Gary and I needed to start going to the theater for Spamalot. On our walk back to the city hall area, there was this random guy who was dancing on the sidewalk and was trying to get people to join in with him. Jeff and I broke out a dance move for like 4 seconds and then proceeded to laugh a lot. We parted ways with Jeff, Damian and Charli and the plan was to meet Jeff back at their hotel after the show. Gary and I started walking towards the theater and he was telling me a lot of random facts about places around the city, he knows his stuff! He took me into this Macy's that used to be some other department store, the name escapes me, but it's like going into a palace or something. The architecture inside was gorgeous and it was also home to the world's largest working pipe organ. When we got to the theater Gary told me to wait by the stage door after the show and he'd come get me and whatnot. I still had a few minutes to waste so I ventured into this small mall which once again, was freaking gorgeous inside and had 2 chandeliers right at the entrance. 1:40 came around and I went back to the theater to get my Spamalot on.

The Kimmel Center where Spamalot is playing until the end of August

The show was great. I saw it on broadway the day before Les Mis closed just because Gary told me he was joining the touring cast and I wanted to see what he was getting himself into. I have to say, the tour (though I'm quite biased because Gary is King Arthur) was much, much better than the broadway version. Gary was a fantastic King and he had the audience in the palm of his hand. In my opinion, with Roger DeBris from The Producers being the best, King Arthur may just be his next best role possibly ever. He was really great!

After the show, I waited about 30 seconds or so then Gary came out of the theater and we started walking back to the hotel. I think we were talking about Europe mostly haha. Anyways, when we got back to their hotel, Gary called Jeff to see if he was coming outside to meet us but he told Gary that he was paying bills and that we should just go up to the room. So we went upstairs to their room to hang out for a while. We watched a lot of CNN, I drank some strange Italian soda they had ( but it was very good), and we played with Charli.
Gary walking in front of Charli haha

For a while now Jeff and I settled on a plan to get cheesesteaks and italian ices when I came to Philadelphia so that was our idea for dinner. There was a marketplace not to far down the road that they said had a lot to choose from but they closed pretty early so we left Charli asleep in the room and went out to get dinner. When we got to the market, pretty much everything there was closed or closing but there was a nice italian restaurant so we got a table outside to eat. We started off with this really good salad and then proceeded to eat our weight in pasta. All of us were extremely full haha. Once again, they said that the meal was on them but I kept insisting to pay at least something. But Gary said that he was going to wait until we went out to a very expensive restaurant and then I could pay for everything because this would simply be a waste hahaha. I managed to have a bus boy take a picture of us right before we left, too bad it's not in focus really.

We left the restaurant and headed back to the hotel. However, not much longer after getting back did Gary have to leave to go back to the theater and do the 8:00 show. I grabbed a picture with him right before he left and then he told me that he'd see me again when they got back to NY, yay.
Gary left at about a quarter to 7 so that left me with just about an hour to hang out with Jeff. We talked for a bit and then we decided to verse eachother in Word Twist, a game which I have not been able to been him in for several months now actually. I lost by 2 freaking points, 2! Ugh. It was fun though.

That would be Jeff's gameface.

Oh yeah, I put up Charli's hair , she really didn't like it at all though haha but it was cute while it lasted!

Jeff told me that he was glad I came to Philly instead of Raliegh or anywhere else because we actually had time to hang out, which was nice. Before I knew it, I had to get ready to leave but Jeff and I managed to take a few pictures before heading outside.

Jeff got Charli and the 3 of us went outside to catch a cab right out of the hotel. While waiting on the sidewalk a bunch of people started coming up and freaking out about Charli and how cute she was haha. We finally got a cab and I gave Jeff a hug goodbye and we decided that we definitely would get together in Ny soon. It sucked to leave but I had a really nice time with everyone and a great day.

The Amtrak back to NY was delayed 2 hours and then once getting back to Penn Station I had to wait another hour until there was a train back to Ronkonkoma. I didn't get home till after 2 am. Ew.

Overall, I had a really great time with Gary and Jeff in Philadelphia. Making a trip to see them has been in the works since February when I was originally going to fly down to Orlando over spring break, and then since that didn't work I was going to try Raliegh, NC but that just never went through. Philly was much easier and it was worth the wait.