OK, so we are on our 6th year of celebrating St Patrick's day in another city and we are in search of the best St Patrick's Day in America. So far, we have seen Boston, Savannah, Chicago, Hawaii and San Antonio. We decided this year to go to Philly and combine it with our home town tour of each other's home -- JoAnna grew up outside of Philly. Shawna worked in Hartford the week before so flew in on Thursday at 8:30pm. John and JoAnna flew from RDU and arrived at about the same time, while Keith had to get the flight from Denver so arrived past midnight.
Accommodation:
Hyatt Penn's Landing - Nice hotel across the highway from Old City. The hotel does not have a Regency Club.
Activities:
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| Scrapple |
Friday was the official "stalk JoAnna tour". In order to get this part of the tour wrapped up in time for the UVA game, we had to get up at 6am and pick up the rental car just after 7am. We headed out the Schuylkill Expressway to the Classic Diner in
Malvern where we had our very first
scrapple experience. Unfortunately we looked up scrapple on Wikipedia so knew what we were consuming ahead of time - expressed as "everything but the oink". Our next stop was the house of JoAnna's sister, Leah - she was not home so we just took a picture in front of the house. We drove by Maplecroft Dairy where Jo's family used to get milk, then went to the
Baker Park YMCA where she swam.
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| In Front of Leah's House |
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| At the Mill House |
We then went to
Audubon where we saw the Vaux Lane house, where Jo grew up - 6 kids, 2 parents, and a small house - cozy! We then zoomed over to
Mill House, the first house that
John James Audubon lived in when he moved to the US. Since it cost $4 to get inside, we bailed. The next stop was the local strip mall where we saw the barber shop, Tony's Pizza, and the local Wawa. The next stop was the Orchard Lane house, which is just around the corner from
Audubon Elementary School. We rang the buzzer at the school and John tried to explain that we were with an alumni and wanted to see the place, but apparently four 40-year-old people hanging out an elementary school is considered weird! So, we had a quick look around the outside and then bolted before the cops showed up....
We then moved on to
Arcola Intermediate School and
Mathacton High School. Following that, we went to
Markley Farms Swimming club where Jo used to work. One of the last stops was
St Teresa of Avila church where we saw the new church, the old church, and where Leah went to school. We then headed to
Valley Forge National Park where we jumped out of the car and saw some re-creations of the cabins that Washington's army used for the long winter.
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In Front of St Theresa of Avila Church
Looking Like Sad Kids Waiting for Our Parents |
After our tour of JoAnna's childhood, we had to head back for the UVA game which we ended up watching at the
Red Zone, a sports bar in old town. While the bar was great, the game sucked as UVA lost. Following the game, we went back for a nap before going back to old town to watch the first part of the Lehigh/Duke game at
Khyber Pass before meeting Juli and Tom (Keith works with Juli) for dinner at Cuba Libre. While at dinner, we found out that Duke also lost. After dinner, we moved on to
Dirty Franks bar, a dive near Juli's place. We called it a night after that in order to save room for more drinking the next day which was St Pats!
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| Fergie's Pub |
On Saturday, we slept in for a while before meeting Jo's dad and brother for lunch at the Down Home Diner in
Reading Market. We then tried to go to
McGillin's pub, the oldest in Philly. But the line was a mile long so we headed over to
Fergie's Pub, only a couple of blocks away. While there was no line to start, it quickly became packed, so we used that as a sign not to move for the rest of the day. Most of the time we just chatted, though did meet Tara and her friend who was looking for men with good teeth. Multiple pitchers of
Yuengling later, it was 7pm and time for dinner. So, we headed out to Villa di Roma, an old Italian place with butcher paper table cloths. Jo tried to get the waitress to share the best item on the menu - it was not to happen. Since we had a full day of drinking, we decided to go back to the hotel while John, JoAnna and Nick (Jo's brother) stopped at another bar for one more drink.
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| JoAnna with her Brother and Dad at Fergie's Pub |
On Sunday, we did absolutely nothing. We slept in until Leah brought us breakfast to our hotel on the way to working a game at Drexel. After Leah left, we all relaxed and then John and JoAnna left for the airport. We had a couple of hours to kill before we had to leave so we grabbed a late lunch in the hotel and relaxed some more.
Restaurants:
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| Classic Diner in Malvern, PA |
Classic Diner - In Malvern, this diner is very cute. We tasted the scrapple and then had eggs benedict and yogurt with granola. The food was yummy.
Cuba Libre - A Cuban restaurant in Old City of Philly. The food was very tasty. Keith and I started with the pulled pork empanadas and the guava BBQ ribs and then we shared the churrasco dish. And, of course, we also had sangria!
Down Home Diner - A nice diner located in Reading Market in downtown Philly. We shared the corn chowder and the philly cheese steak sandwich.
Villa di Roma - An old but tasty Italian restaurant in downtown Philly. We shared the spaghetti with meatballs and the veal in brown sauce.
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JoAnna and Nick Attempting
to Get Rid of Hiccups |
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