Philadelphia, I Love You

As I proclaimed in a recent Facebook status update, I have country roots, and I have urban roots. If you have been hanging out here for any length of time, you know my country roots lie square in the Wild and Wonderful beauty of West Virginia. (Although to be fair, it's not that reeeeally that country where I live. Wait, never mind. Yes it is). It took me a while, but I grew to love it here and here is where I shall remain for the foreseeable future.

My urban roots on the other hand, were not established until the ripe age of 17 when I went off to college, fresh-faced and clueless about most of life. I chose to attend Eastern University, just outside of Philadelphia. Nice suburban campus, twenty minutes to downtown. By the time I went to college, I had spent more time in foreign countries than I had in big cities, so count me in as a wide-eyed wanderer. My very first memory of a big city still leaves me amused and confused to this day. See if you can explain this one:

First Saturday morning on campus. I was piled into a van with a bunch of other freshmen, headed to begin our semester of required community service. It was my first venture out in my new city and I was craning my neck out with window when I happened to spot THIS scene on the sidewalk:  It was early morning. There was a very handsome young man walking down the street. Head held high, shoulders back, walking with a purpose. He had no shirt on, nor was he clad in pants. He did have a very nice briefcase, very nice dress shoes (wingtip perhaps?) dress socks, and boxers.  He was also carrying a briefcase. He did not look to his right or his left, he was on a mission. This man was definitely very secure in his near-nakedness. I was instantly mystified. Who on earth does this?  Nobody else in the van seemed to really care or notice, but I needed this to make sense.  I came up with two scenarios.

1) His clothes has been stolen after a one night stand. He was on his way home and had no money for cab/bus fare. 
2) He had just been robbed, was really embarrassed about it, and was attempting to pass his outfit off as the new normal. I am telling you, there was no shame in his game. That man was confident,  head held high and no clothes on to speak of, and a briefcase. 

Wooowwwwww. This place was wild. I was HOOKED!
And that is the moment where I threw off my country roots and embraced the city life. I quickly declared my major as urban development and began attending classes on EU's downtown campus.

Philadelphia is where I learned to:
A) Love all things food.  From Pat's Cheesesteaks on the gritty south side, to Penang in Chinatown, to the pretzel factory at midnight, my love affair with food was cemented here.
B) Drive like a woman on fire. Philly traffic is where my hatred of gridlock reached epic and fiery proportions, and I learned to weave, cut people off, honk my horn, and slam on my brakes with the best of them
C) where I learned that white girls can actually dance if they just follow the beat of the music.  18 to party, 21 to drink nights at various clubs were in abundance, and I made sure to frequent them as often as possible. Especially on school nights, so that I could ensure academic success.

Ahhh Philly, I love you.

I love to return as often as possible and last weekend was one of those opportunities. We had a wedding to attend and it was very nearly like old times. I ate cheesesteak, thoroughly enjoyed Malaysian curry and roti canai at  Penang, and my husband was white-knuckled in the passenger seat beside me as I determined to beat everybody else on I-76 to where ever they happened to be going.

I have lived in Washington D.C and Atlanta since college, and while I love both of these cities, neither holds quite the pull that Philly does for me.  I embraced it all- from the 'hood to the grit to the glam, I had found a place I loved.

And still do. 

What about you? Where do you love to go back to, and why?

A few random pictures for you

Occupy protest. Don't see this in WV.

City hall with William PENN at the top. Thanks Jonathan Hobbs for the correction to my glaring oversight.

The beautiful bride and crew at Bartram's Garden

A Little Shame and Embarrassment Abroad

We have all been there. Embarrassment happens and we find ourselves scarlet-colored and shame-faced. The moments that happen abroad though, can find us with an extra deep hue of red and sense of mortification.

"What if they think all __________(insert nationality) act like this?
"What if they think I am THAT tourist?"
"Why is there toilet paper coming out of my pants in the middle of this bus station?"

I bring you three of my most embarrassing moments, all experienced on foreign soil.

1. The "I don't care if you're kosher!" incident.
This one occurred at the ripe age of 14, a time when not many of us know very much about life or love, or about the kosher diet of  Jews. The location was Israel and I was on a tour with my mom, best friend, and some members of our church. It was the second time out of the country for both me and my best friend and we were living the life. We thought we were pretty hot stuff and we took that hot attitude wherever we went. Including to lunch one day, where my friend attempted to order butter to go with his bread. Acting appropriately as only teenagers can,  it was our assumption that our every wish would be granted, in life and especially in restaurants. Imagine our shock then, when the nice lady serving our lunch denied the request for butter in an incredulous tone-"But we don't serve butter. We are kosher!" This little piece of information was digested by both of us with confusion and a sense of  indignation. But..... but....WE are not kosher, therefore our need for butter should be fulfilled!  Right? Of course not. We were in their country, eating their food, abiding by their customs. Ahhh, fourteen year olds are clueless, aren't they? My friend decided to voice his outrage by informing anyone within earshot....(brace yourselves)....
"I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE KOSHER!"
Oh. No.He. Didn't
Did he just announce that for the whole kosher restaurant to hear?
Affirmative.
Odd looks ensued. The nice lady huffed. It seemed like all conversation within a two mile radius stopped.
I wanted to crawl under the table.
She probably spit in our food.
 I may have been just 14, but I did know that  telling someone that their religious dietary restrictions mean nothing to you was ummmmm....crossing the line.
Shame face.


2. The "Lost in Translation" incident.
I actually devoted a whole post to this one-my second post ever on this blog. It was my first time in Myanmar. I was living the life, thinking I was pretty hot stuff and generally behaving as without a care in the world. If that sounds similar to Embarrassing Moment #1, it is, except now I was 24, not 14. Burmese is not a language I ever intend on learning, let's be honest. There are way too many circlely looking letters and tonal sounds. But I thought I should at least master a few phrases. I happily learned "Let's go!" and used it quite liberally-on public transportation, amongst the group I was with, and towards the Burmese friends I made. I did this for approximately eight days before one of the aforementioned friends kindly and finally informed me that the way I was pronouncing it actuallllllly meant something else.
What, pray tell, did it mean then?
With a giggle, Mii Mii whispered to me on the crowded bus "I have black teeth!"

Well isn't that just fantastic?

3. The "Inappropriately Dressed" Incident.
A few years ago, I spent two months in southeast Asia. I hung out in Thailand, Myanmar, and hopped over to India, but most of my time was spent in Bangladesh. It was my first time on that side of the world and each experience was wilder than the last. I attended quite a few weddings while there and was happy to do so-I loved dressing up in a sari, watching the dancing, and eating the food. Loved it. Imagine my surprise one evening when I out for a little neighborhood stroll with a friend and we heard a commotion coming from a nearby home. Of course, we just had to find out what was going on and craned our necks to peek over the wall. We quickly realized it was a wedding and tried to scoot on past.

Too late.
We were spotted and exuberantly invited in. I was wearing sort-of clean sweatpants and a green hoodie with a rainbow on it. My hair was a hot mess, as it usually is when I am in foreign countries. My friend wasn't looking much better. Going into the wedding was absolutely unthinkable and we thanked them and pointed to our clothes and attempted to continue on our merry way.
They wouldn't hear of it and after approximately 15 minutes of polite arguing, we realized that we would need to attend the stranger's wedding reception or risk offending said stranger and possibly an entire country.
Siiiiiigh.
Our reluctant acquiescence was met with exultation and we were led into the reception where everybody, and I do mean everybody, was dressed to the 9's and looking beautiful and magical.
Everybody except us. I tried to slink past the guests of honor, never making eye contact, looking wildly around for the first corner in which I could hide. It's bad enough crashing a wedding, but crashing one in SWEATPANTS?!
Not gonna lie, we did get a few looks that night. Ones that I read as "Oh look at those poor ratty Americans. Don't they have any better clothes?" But mostly, the wedding guests were thrilled to have us join them. We stayed as long as was possibly polite and then hightailed it out of there.

I sent telepathic apologies to the bride on the way out.

What about you? What are your most embarrassing travel moments? 

The hair and sweatshirt. Same trip, but on a more appropriate occasion.