The day after we arrived in NYC we went to Rock the Bells on Governors Island, just south of the Brooklyn Bridge in the East River.
I had been to the show in Vancouver last year and it was awesome. This year one of my all time favorite hip hop acts, A Tribe Called Quest, were performing in their home city and there was no way I was going to miss it.
DJ Premier did an intro set and he was followed by three other hip hop legends, Slick Rick, Rakim and KRS-1. At the beginning of Rakim's set I managed to sneak backstage and hang out for a while, getting some pics with Method Man and having a chat with Primo (DJ Premier). I scored a Ol' Dirty promo shirt from his son and a Phife Dawg T from one of his groupies.
Lauryn Hill came on before Tribe and in my opinion, totally destroyed the old school vibe, yelling and screaming over a set of hard rock tracks that were unrecognizable and not at all what you would expect from her.
Tribe lived up to all expectations and played a set of tracks entirely from their first two albums to the crowds delight.
Wu Tang were next and got everybody hyped up with another old school set. We didn't make it through to see Snoop's set as we were suffering mild sunstroke and dehydration after 11 hours in the 35C (95F) heat drinking mostly beers and Monster.
The view from the ferry on the way to Governors Island
After a week in Boston I got a $3 'Megabus' ride (2 hours late but you can't really complain) down to New York and met up with my mate Ben who I lived with during my exchange at Cortland Uni in 2002. We jumped straight on another bus at Penn Station and went to Philly. Jordan who was the Dept. head of the ski team at Camp Vega was nice enough to pick us up and have us stay at his family's place for a couple of nights.
We went straight from the bus station to meet a couple of his friends at a bar downtown then we all went to the famous Geno's for a Philly Cheese-steak. Unfortunately I ruined mine with excessive amounts of the hottest hot sauce known to man.
We went back the following day and sampled the wares at Pat's which is Geno's most fierce competition and located right across the street. Jordan had ordered for us at Geno's but now it was our turn to learn the propper etiquite whern it comes to ordering a Philly Cheese in Philly.
Expect to order your meal in two phases. At the first window, you will order your Philly cheesesteak. At the second window, you order French fries, other sides, and your beverage.
Skip the friendly greeting at the window and don't expect one. Your Philly cheesesteak order should consist of exactly three words. The first word is a number, indicating how many cheesesteaks you want. So, if you want one, the first word is "One." The second word indicates the type of cheese you want on your sandwich. The third and final word is either "with" or "without," indicating your preference for fried onion. So, an order for the most authentic Philly cheesesteak would simply be, "One, whiz, with." That's it.
Take your cheesesteak, which will be handed to you in a matter of second. Move down to the second window, where you can order other items and pay for your meal.
I got it right, got my cheese-steak and could actually taste the steak this time which was great!
Jordan had to go to class from 6-9pm so we dropped him off and drove around exploring north-east Philly for a bit, taking pics and playing some pool at a random bar. We then met up with one of Ben's old bosses from Qatar for an Italian dinner at Radicchio Cafe which was pretty darn tasty!
Jordan met up with us later on and just after midnight we drove right up to the top of the 'Rocky Stairs' at the Philly Art Museum and took a bunch of pics and watched as random groups of drunk people showed up to do their own reenactments of the famous scene.
We also got some great pics of the boat houses of Boathouse Row which are all lit up year-round at night with Christmas lights.
The next day Ben and I walked around downtown and had an awesome mini feast at the Reading Terminal Market before hoping on a bus to NYC.
The week after finishing camp I spent a week in Boston with my cousin and her family and managed to make it to a Red Sox game. Normally these games sell out well in advance and to purchase tickets online from a reseller like StubHub or from a scalper can get really expensive and I didn't want to shell out $80 + for some average seats.
I met up with 3 other people who were pretty random acquaintances... Katlynn who we met in Denver on our US road trip, Jesse who I couch-surfed with in Boston a few weeks earlier and a girl from Chicago who was couch-surfing with him for a couple of nights. We were all keen to go but none of us had tickets. The weather was pretty foul though and the game was delayed a couple of hours and after having a beer and a bite to eat at the House of Blues across the street from Fenway Park we hit the streets and took advantage of the poor weather to bargain a scalper down to $15 for each ticket.
We walked around for about 10 minutes then found 4 seats just out of the rain on 1st base behind the Red Sox dugout... sweet! Apart from a 45 minute rain delay in about the 3rd innings the weather held out. Oh, they beat the Toronto Blue Jays in case anyone was wondering?
