Day 3: Sunday – No Sleep ‘til Brooklyn!

We arrive on campus early so I can (what I now affectionately call) Run the Crum. He drops me off at the Scott Amphitheater to run the trails around Crum Creek, which lies at the bottom of a ravine that runs through campus. It’s absolutely beautiful, and has plenty of roots, rocks and mud to make the run a fun, if not a slightly hazardous experience. At one point I slow to a gingerly walk when the muddy trail nearly sends me careening into the creek.

Along the way, I come across the remains of an “office space” moment (I’m going to assume it’s a student rather than a teacher, but you just never, ever know).



I take a few minutes to cross the creek on a log, but wind up crossing back after the path on the other side leads nowhere. I eventually reach a road, take the uphill side and wind up at the mall we passed on the way to campus (I think it’s the King of Prussia Mall). Macy’s looks as good a turnaround as any, so I run to their door and then start making my way back. Or at least try to. I take a wrong turn (or fail to make a right turn) and end up near a railroad trestle. Crap. I’m lost.

I call my sweetie and yes, he knows where the trestle is (apparently it’s the make out spot on campus), but no, he doesn’t know which trail I should take to get back (if he’d spent less time studying and more time making out, he’d have useful life skills like slipping a girl the tongue on the first date rather than <ahem> pecking them on the cheek and also know which trail would get me out of the forest). I (logically) take the largest trail and call him again when I emerge from the woods. Turns out I’m right near Sharples, where everyone has met up for breakfast. Mmmm…breakfast! I’m muddy and starving.

We say our goodbyes after breakfast and head back to the car. Along the way, we pass the ginormous Adirondack chair outside Parrish Hall (there’s a few dozen normal size ones on the lawns around campus), that I’d been patiently stalking for a photo op, but an endless stream of little kids have been playing on it all weekend. We’re finally able to kick the kids off it long enough for pictures.


Alumni weekend is over (at least for us) and we make our way to downtown Philly. Street parking is impossible, so we park in a nearby overpriced parking structure and begin our quest for a Philly cheesesteak (it’s not like the Holy Grail ‘cause, you know, we’re in Philly). We find a place where the walls and grill counter are filled with articles and pictures of wrestlers. Mmm…nothing like looking at pictures of large sweaty men in tights mauling each other to work up one’s appetite.

We take in the Liberty Bell museum, where I try in vain to avoid a woman who is reading every single word on each display to her eleven or so year-old daughter. She has one of those voices that you just can’t tune out and try as I might to get away, she keeps reappearing. Now I don’t know, maybe the kid is blind or something, but if not, then for humanity’s sake, please let kids read for themselves.

We get tickets for Independence Hall’s last tour of the day (barely), and in two hours get a crash course in the life and times of our founding fathers and the beginnings of our nation.

The last thing we plan to do before leaving Philly is to pick up a few bottles of wine as a token of thanks to his brother for graciously putting us up for 3 days. Unfortunately in Philly, they only sell it in package stores, not grocery stores. Aaargh. We locate the closest one. Closed. The door lists the address of a nearby store that’s open on Sundays. We race back to the car, but get stuck in traffic almost immediately. Sigh. It’s quicker to run than to drive at this point, so I offer to do so.

This is a big mistake.

I’m out of the car, criss-crossing through the streets of Philly, and almost two-thirds of the way there when I round a corner and feel my ankle roll inwards at a 90 degree angle. The panic hits. I somehow think I can still save it, and I sprain my other ankle twisting myself in the other direction. I realize I’ve failed a split-second before I hit the pavement and throw out both hands just in time (injuring both my wrists as well). It was stupid, ungraceful…and witnessed. The guy walks over to me and asks if I’m ok. I roll over and tell him I’m fine, thinking to myself why, WHY can’t I just learn to fall down?

Turns out the package store closed at 5 (of course), so not only have I sprained my ankles for nothing, but we now hitting the New Jersey turnpike towards Brooklyn well into rush hour. I endear myself to (and by that I mean annoy) my sweetie with multiple renditions of the Beastie Boys’ song. I am hilarious.

Traffic is ok, at least until we hit the George Washington Bridge. I call his brother to get directions.

Brother: Have you hit the BQE?
Me: What?
Brother: Have you hit…
Me: What the hell is the BQE?
Brother: You don’t know the BQE?!?
Me: No, I’ve never been here before and I don’t speak freaky-deaky Dutch!

After translating his alien code (it’s short for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway for the only one or two other humans on this planet besides myself who don’t know what the BQE is), and navigating through Brooklyn, we finally get to his brother’s place, where we find it’s incredibly easy to find street parking.

He and a friend surprise us with a trip to the ChipShop, a local English food joint (it also doubles as the CurryShop, as Indian is also a popular food choice in Britain), for dinner. Us girls both get the chicken n’ chips, my sweetie gets bangers n’mash and his brother gets beans on toast, which looks as bland as it sounds, but he finds very, very tasty.



We walk home in the drizzly rain. The swelling around my ankle begins to deflate my hopes of running Central Park, but I rigorously ice my ankle overnight in the vain attempt to minimize the injury.

Tomorrow: Museum Fight! Subway the hard way. F**k the f**king Yankees. John's St. John's Tour. Empire State on the cheap. Sushi! Sexxxy Party visits the Mothership. Turks are nice. More rain.