Adventure #23: Jordan's Trip to Philly

"Together forever, never apart. Maybe in distance, but never in heart." - Unknown

December 4 - December 7, 2014

The first weekend in December was when Jordan took his trip to Philly. I dropped Jordan off at the airport and cried basically the whole way home. Luckily I had to go to school and teach, so it took my mind off things for a while. I don't know why, but I was soooo nervous about Jordan traveling across the country and going through this whole interview process alone! I just wish I could have been with him! Jordan of course was fine and made it to Philly and back safely. Because this was Jordan's trip, I'm going to let him write about it:

well, this is dumb..... Yes, that's how I'll start this thing. Honestly, this is probably gonna be a terribly long rant by me, so do yourself a favor and go ahead and skip until you see it's Kristen writing again.

Got on the plane from slc to philly... check
Immediately open up the skymall and look for things no one would ever buy.... check

I had this secret plan of mine to talk to somebody about the gospel, so naturally I traveled in by biggest BYU shirt, because then hopefully I could use it as a conversation starter and mix in the church and the gospel somehow. and it worked! while i was eating a chicago style hotdog, in chicago mind you (my layover), i was sitting down next to an elderly couple, and they noticed my shirt and said "hey, you go to byu?" i was stoked that my plan had totally worked! and of course, to my luck, they were LDS too.... not that that's bad, it just wasn't my goal haha. so we talked for a long time, they were going on a mission, and after i told them how i was working at the MTC, they didn't give me a spare second. we chatted almost my entire layover. so that was both fun and exhausting. 

Chicago hot dog rules

And the delicious Chicago dog itself.

As I arrived in philly, i was pretty excited to be back on the east coast, to be back home. it was the first time i had been back to the east since i graduated highschool.... 7 years ago. our friends Marcus and Lana are from the philly area, south jersey to be exact, and Lana's brother trey, came to pick me up. He is absolutely the best guy ever, classy, witty, clever, gentlemen, basically your all around good guy. I say that because people say we are the exact same person :) So trey was my personal tour guide! he drove me around the heart of the city and explained a bunch of the history, which was awesome. I had never heard the story of william penn before, i had only heard the name, so it was a blast to hear about the different streets, and landmarks. Loving history, i would've been more than content just talking about the sites. We drove past the liberty bell and independence hall... fyi, it's just like it was in National Treasure :)

We were going down these one way streets that big cities have, i hate them, and came across a ballpark in the middle of the concrete jungle, barrels were lit with fires and guys were outside chatting it up and staying warm, it was just like the movies... loved it. And there we made the stop to Pat's cheesesteaks. Holy hannah.... seriously just talking about it is making my mouth water, these cheesesteaks are unlike any other. The idea of the cheesesteak itself is awesome, but having one at one of the most famous places for them... man ALIVE. i cannot describe how good it was. i think i had 3 of them before flying back. I'm super excited to have kristen try one, and then waste a couple bucks buying one for a little girl who is just going to throw the steak on the ground and get all the cheese all over her cute little face. Seriously, that's one of the things i look forward to the most about being out there in philly! They have their own way of ordering and their own little culture, it was different, but i love that difference, it was such a breathe of fresh air!

Cheese steak menu

Pictures of all the notables that have eaten at Pat's

Instructions for ordering

Ok, so dont hate me, but honestly im going to keep talking about food, cause well, i really really like it. So after eating my first phily cheesesteak, we went to WAWA!!! for anyone that doesn't know, wawa is like the michael jordan of gas stations, the others can imitate all they want(kobe) but it just doesnt get better! They have these awesome hoagies that they make, and man, they have these shakes that are just incredible. So we went and got a shake, the next day we went and got hoagies :) WAWA i love you so much! i can't wait to be reunited again! 

The picture of the gas pumps below is because in jersey, they don't let you pump your own gas! they had these guys sitting out in those booths, just waiting for people to get gas. you give em your card and say how much you want, and voila! they do it... that was different!
so that night i got to meet lana's family, the Sikahemas, maybe kristen has said a few things about him already, but the Sikahemas are awesome. Her dad played football for byu and the cardinals, packers and eagles, and is now a sportscaster for the philly area. her mom is awesome, a total sweetheart. they took ridiculously good care of me, so much so that me and trey ended up staying up til about 1 in the morning eating chips and homemade salsa (another mouthwatering moment) while watching behind enemy lines.... man i was spoiled rotten! 

So i woke up at 6:00 the next morning because, well the whole point of me going out there was to interview with the Temple School of Podiatry. i mean, that is my future career and all. So i got up bright and early, shined my shoes, ironed my shirt, and trey drove me up to the school and dropped me off. The school building itself is definitely old, i was a little surprised at how old... I was thinking to myself... geez... this place is ragged! but everything besides the architecture was new, so that curbed my pessimism. So i sat there for about 10-15 minutes all by my lonesome waiting for the other applicants to show up. I was kinda hoping they wouldn't show, or they would all show late, that way they'd make me look good :) but i also was freaking out thinking i was in the wrong place, i reread and reread the invitation a hundred times to make sure. 

So just as the dean comes to greet me, another applicant shows up... rats... and then as we walked to his office, the other 2 applicants showed up too.. bummer. It's kinda rude for me to say this, but after listening to the other applicants, and by looking at some of their wrinkled clothes and "just woke up" faces... i felt pretty dang good about my chances! they were a bunch of wierdos; kinda makes me think if i am that wierd as well and just completely oblivious.... but there's no way. So we meet with the dean, a super cool guy, but for sake of length, we'll just say he was awesome. He tried to sell us on the city, the things to do, and lifestyle etc. then we went on a tour of the school, meet some students and i was overall impressed. even though the place itself looked worn down, the quality of things, and the education seemed to be on point. but let's be real, i kinda had my mind made up we were gonna go here if we got accepted anyway. it wouldnt have mattered much what happened.

All ready for the interview

So we had lunch, philly cheeseteaks of course, and waited for our interviews, the most stressful part. One by one the applicants went and came back... and of course i was last. awesome. as the interviewer called my name we went for the handshake. ALERT: i am super judgy on a lot of things, and one of those things i judge the most is how people shake hands. So i don't know what happened, but either he pulled his hand away a little at the last second, or I did, but what happened was the equivalent of an atomic bomb to my pride. I ended up giving him the limp, dead fish handshake. the one where you wonder if the other person really has a pulse or not. and not only that but it was like the queen elizabeth kind where it's only the tips of your fingers really touch....

 

my thoughts exactly! man! i felt doomed! i immediately started panicking, i had already blown my opportunity before it even began!.... well at least the food was worth the trip... so in the interview i then felt i had to do SOMETHING to make up for that terrible handshake! but it just kept getting worse... the interviewer would ask a question, and i'd answer, and he'd interrupt me... i was totally caught off guard. he would tell stories about other mormons that had gone to the school, mormons that he knew when he was a podiatrist etc. but he really didn't let me talk... i was really freaking out, until i realized i could peek at the marks he was giving me. i would maintain eye contact with him, and as soon as we would put his head down to write, i would look too, and see my ratings. For each category, he marked the furthest right option.... which was either a REALLY good thing... or a REALLY bad thing. 

I realized that, and on one of the times he looked down and i was able to get a glimpse of which it was.... and count your blessings it what a really good thing! I felt SO relieved, but still nervous.... because... well, you just never know. So after he had told some other stories about himself, we left and i made sure, ABSOLUTELY sure, that i gave him a good handshake. in retrospect, i was much more nervous, and still freaking out, not sure if i read his paper wrong or what, if i really did a terrible job or what. but looking back, i didn't need to be so nervous. So that was that! they told us we'd find out if we were accepted or not in just a few days.

I was excited to get that over with, i ended up being able to meet up with one of my best friends from highschool, jon dillard. he is going to the podiatry school there, and was around, so after he took me to his apartment in Chinatown, which was pretty cool. i had never even seen a china town before, much less walked down one. Instantly memories from "big trouble in little China" came to my mind. His apartment building looked pretty rough on the outside, but the inside was like a penthouse! SUPER nice, two balconies.... wood floors... man, just incredible. And so i think thats how all things in philly are, rough on the outside, and still possibly rough on the inside, but also possibly really nice on the inside. IT was awesome to catch up with him, talk about life get some advice from him. It was really short though, so once we're out there ima make sure to spend some good time with him!

After he left for work, i had an hour or so to burn before trey came and picked me up. I walked down to ben franklin square, everything is named after ben franking by the way, and just walked around a nice little square and people watched, even ran into SWOOSH, the philly eagles mascot! that was cool! and then just talked to kristen on the phone the entire time, talked about how things went, feelings and all that jazz. It was awesome to just be excited about bringing her out there, i think she will love it, i sure hope so, or else ima feel bad for dragging her all the way across the country! 

Franklin Square

Swoosh!

After i called my dad as i walked towards the heart of the city and got to tell him about it. The last time i had walked the streets of a big city I was in Bogota Colombia. And there i always, always, was on the lookout for would be muggers. so naturally, i went right back into that mode. i analyzed each and every person to the right and left, front and back of me. Looked at their hands, if they were reaching for anything, looked at their faces to see their intentions and their focus and demeanor... it all came right back to me. I started judging the streets by how many ways i could run if somebody came, i took wide turns around corners so i could see them before they saw me.... the whole 9 yards came back to me. but honestly, after about 10 minutes of that, i finally snapped out of it.... at least partially. I just took in the city, and just kinda let myself be a tourist and look around and what philly had to offer. IT was the first time i had felt safe in a big city... which was a new feeling for me, but it was more than welcome. I still have my reservations but i'm so incredibly excited to walk Kristen and our little kids down the city and tell them about the history of it!

Down the street from City Hall

City Hall

Just chillin in Santa's sleigh

Back at the sikahemas, we went out for italian food at a little ma and pa shop, it was great, and again they treated me like royalty... i felt really bad all i could give them in return was some of their favorite sweets. Honestly, the rest of friday night is a blur, i remember being with trey and hanging out, o yea!! we played pounce/nertz/13 down for a good little while and watched another movie. yup, another great night, but more than anything i just felt relieved that the interview was done, and just relieved in general...

Saturday morning trey drove me around some neighborhoods that we would potentially live in, some places that were good areas, and cheap areas for us poor students. and then he dropped me off at the airport...after a quick trip to WAWA's of course :) i sure miss trey... what a stellar dude... just absolutely wonderful :)

Driving around New Jersey

Last visit to Wawas

The flight home was fine, no troubles whatsoever.... except that i missed my flight. For whatever reason, the plane leaving from philly to chicago got delayed, something about the fuel tank... probably no big deal. so they gave me the option of possibly making my flight back to utah, staying over night in chicago if i didn't, or catch a flight the next day and spend the night with the sikahemas. I didn't want to have trey come all the way back and get me, and i REALLY REALLY wanted to see Kristen and get home to her, so i opted to throw up a prayer and hope our plane would somehow make it. I got to chicago, sprinted off the plane, and sprinted, literally-just like the movies, to the flight, i was 10 minutes after departure time and they knew our flight was delayed.... they said there was a chance. And alas, my prayer was answered in the negative... the plane had left. i would be staying the night in chicago... So i called Kristen... she cried... i felt bad... and therefore went into one of the airport stores and bought an overpriced teddy bear for her. 

The airline gave me a hotel and transportation, that was nice. I asked the driver if there was anywhere near that had a good chicago style pizza, and just to my luck, one of the best pizza places was just a few blocks. So i braved the cold, seriously...cold and windy don't mix, it was like rexburg all over again, and walked the few blocks to Giordanos pizza. I grabbed a seat, ordered a pizza, an entire one because apparently you can't just do slices of chicago pizza. realized i'd have to wait 40 minutes. but luckily, a bulls game was on! i ended up sitting at the bar, eating chicago style pizza, in chicago, while watching the chicago bulls play.... yea it was pretty awesome! but luckily enough i didn't get robbed on the way home, and somehow the flights worked out the next morning and i came home safe and sound, with a teddy bear in my arms for my distraught wife.... the pregnancy hormones she claims... It was a great trip, but i can't wait to do it all again, but with Kristen this time.

Ordering pizza at Giordano's

Eating Chicago pizza and watching the Chicago Bulls game in Chicago

Kristen: I was so glad Jordan had such a fun trip to Philly! Man, I missed that kid so much while he was gone! It sounds so ridiculous, but that was the longest Jordan and I had ever been apart. I was especially bummed when he had to come home a day later because of delays. I was totally fine Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday because I just kept busy. The worst was Saturday night because I thought that Jordan would have been home by then. But honestly, I'm just glad he made it home safely. All in all it wasn't too bad, and it made it all worth it when I heard how awesome his trip was. The bear helped, too. :)