For the last few years, rather than continuing to acquire Stuff that we can barely fit in the house, we’ve tried to get the kids experiences for major holiday. For SteelyKid, that means live musical theater, and for The Pip, sporting events. His biggest rooting interest is Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks, so last year he and I went to Madison Square Garden to see them play the Knicks. This year’s MSG trip for the Bucks was on Christmas, though, so the tickets were outlandishly expensive, and their game in Brooklyn was the next week, which was also ridiculous, so we ended up opting for Philadelphia in late February (the Bucks had already played their only games in Boston before we bought the tickets). It was a 1pm Sunday start, which theoretically could’ve been a day trip, but in practice would’ve been way too much driving for one day, and anyway, a little bit of tourism is part of the point.
The Pip and I are both early risers, so we set off around 8am on Saturday to drive down to Philly, getting in right around lunchtime. Our hotel was right next to the Convention Center, so we made our way to the Reading Terminal Market (the number one food recommendation of all the people at work and online who expressed an opinion) to get sandwiches at Tommy DiNic’s (roast beef for him, roast pork for me). These were, as advertised, very good, especially after four hours in the car.
For the afternoon, we opted to do a little historical sightseeing— he’s doing US history in seventh-grade social studies— and wandered down to the Independence Hall area to see old stuff. The weather was a bit chilly, and The Pip is one of Those Kids so had only brought shorts and a light sweatshirt, so we kept it moving, opting not to stand in the big outdoor line for the Liberty Bell museum, but doing a quick swing around the old buildings. We stopped through the Museum of the American Revolution, which was small but well put together, then headed back to check into the hotel.
Said hotel was not in the greatest neighborhood, but being on the edge of Chinatown was right next door to a branch of a well-known dim sum place, so we opted for dinner there. The Pip has long been a super picky eater, but in the last year or two has started to get more adventurous, so agreeing to try Chinese food was a big step. I had a bunch of little dumpling things, as one does, he mostly ate General Tso’s Chicken (the house version of which was more of a soy sauce/ umami kind of flavor than the lurid orange of most takeout places). Definitely a good meal, and nice to add another cuisine to his palate. After dinner, he watched basketball on tv in the room, while I headed to the hotel bar for a few beers. The place filled up with Flyers fans who were annoyed that the lobby bar a) only had Michelob Ultra in cans, not on tap, and b) ran out of cold cans, so the bartender had to fetch room-temperature ones from the back. I was not that sorry when they managed to Google up a different place where they could enjoy the median of mid beers on tap.
Sunday morning, The Pip expressed a desire to see the Rocky stairs, so while I was skeptical of the plan given the chilly weather, we headed out to walk up the grand boulevard to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and climb the steps. It was a brisk walk, but we made it with no trouble; he refused to hop around with his fists in the air, though. We both agreed that relocating the statue from the movies to the bottom of the steps was a travesty, though. Do better, Philly.
We obviously needed to acquire cheesesteaks at some point, and rather than pay stadium prices, opted for an early lunch at Pat’s. Yes, this is the super touristy option, but we were, after all, tourists, and decided to just lean into that. I had expected to spend a good deal of time driving around looking for parking, but there was an open spot half a block away (The Pip was duly impressed with my parallel parking skills), so the whole process was pretty fast. I did guess wrong about where to start my order (there was literally nobody else there) and got the window slammed in my face by the fries-and-drinks guy, but I think some element of surly service probably an essential part of the Philly experience.
The cheesesteaks were more or less as advertised: giant sloppy sandwiches (I got mine with onions peppers and mushrooms, his just meat, both of us with the Cheez Whiz, because when in Philly…). Add another item to potential Pip menus in the future.
Thanks to the surprisingly easy parking and basically no traffic, we were very early getting to the game, so got a lot of time to walk around and admire the Wilt Chamberlain statue (which is very cool). A mildly surprising number of Giannis jerseys in the crowd— maybe one in every 15-20 fans sporting Bucks colors. As I said on Twitter, I have to offer grudging respect to the one dude who showed up in a Celtics jersey.
The Pip had a Bucks shirt on but a plain hoodie over it, and since our section was mostly Philly fans, he kept the sweatshirt on. Our seats were at one end, toward the back of the lower level— we’d be a bit out of frame to the upper right of this screenshot of the last play of the first half:
(Our seats might well have been visible in a moderately wide shot from the end by the Sixers bench, but I couldn’t find one in the highlights online…)
When I bought the tickets, I expected this might be a meaningful game, featuring an epic clash between last year’s league MVP, Philadelphia center Joel Embiid and past MVP Giannis, but Embiid tore up a knee a few weeks ago so was out for this one. As a result, the game was never all that close, and the crowd was relatively subdued. This was a little disappointing to me as a not-strongly-affiliated person, but probably for the best, as The Pip does not take losing well, and would’ve been miserable on the drive home if the Bucks hadn’t won.
They did win, though, behind strong performances by Damian Lillard, Bobby Portis, and The Pip’s boy Giannis, who ended up one assist short of a triple-double. He was really pulling for Giannis to pick up that last assist, but they cleared the bench with about three minutes to go, so we got to see Thanasis Antetokounmpo score instead. Which is also kind of a treat…
The highlight of the fan experience was probably the two old guys behind us who were basically doing the barbershop scenes from Coming to America. I’m not sure whether one of them was actually a Bucks fan, or had just adopted them for the day to trash-talk his friend, but they kept up a hilarious stream of commentary through the middle part of the game. (Sample: “See, now that’s what we need to do, run some plays for [Sixers star guard Tyrese] Maxey.” “Plays?!?! Plays?!?! What he did there wasn’t no play! Nobody set him a screen, he didn’t pass to nobody. That ain’t no play. Your team ain’t got no plays!”) A great diversion during some slow and sloppy stretches in the third quarter.
On the way home, Google Maps sent us on a weird route through rural western New Jersey, but it was scenic and the drive went smoothly. Got back in plenty of time for me and The Pip to be ready for school Monday morning.
All in all a very good weekend, many thanks to all the folks from Philly who chimed in with tips. The Pip’s overall review of the city can be summed up in two comments that he repeated a bunch: first, “This is basically like NYC, but less crowded,” and second “Yeah, I could see myself living here when I grow up.” A good time was had, it was good for my ongoing neck problems to spend a weekend away from the computer (which I am screwing up by typing this trip report on my Chromebook as I proctor an exam…), and all is well.
And to close us out, here’s the post title explained in case it wasn’t obvious:
And that’s my weekend report. Posting here will continue to be sparse because typing is really bad for my neck and shoulder, and I have a ton of actual day-job work to do. If you want more of this kind of thing, once I get some help (I have a physical therapy appointment at lunchtime today), here’s a button:
And if you’d like to tell me which of the many other cheesesteak places we should’ve gone to instead of Pat’s, the comments will be open: