Last Monday after I posted my blog, it started to snow again. Not wanting my car to be stuck for another month, I spent a few hours (with snow falling and a separated shoulder) digging our cars out of the back yard. After the cars were out, Chad and I borrowed a free standing fire pit from the extreme make over house and started a fire in our backyard. We cooked hot dogs, smoked cigars and just enjoyed the company of our roommates and the warmth of the fire as the snow fell around us. It was a pretty great night and reminded me a lot of being back home in California with my friends (except for the snow falling of course).
Tuesday we had our first day of camp for the week. The day went well and I had my basketball class which also went relatively smoothly. Playing basketball with the kids all week with a injured shoulder really gives me a lot of respect and admiration for football quarterbacks who play through a separated shoulder. It hurts just shooting a basketball. I can't imagine throwing a football as hard as I can down field and getting tackled by 280 pound defensive ends. I can't remember what I did Tuesday night because I have waited too long to write this and so much has happened since.
Lookin at me like I'm crazy (prob cuz I am)
The roads in Camden have been covered in snow for the past month and for some reason the city does not plow or salt them. Because of this, two Urban Promise buses got stuck while taking kids home from camp on Monday. With the roads (especially the narrow side streets with cars parked on the sides) so difficult and dangerous to drive on, all of the after school programs were canceled on Wednesday (except for mine because my director hates canceling camp and a lot of our kids walk home anyway).
While I was stuck in California, I missed my favorite street leader's birthday. Because he seemed somewhat disappointed that I missed it, I decided to take Eman and his friend to dinner after camp. We went to Friday's where we ordered the the course meal deal thing and ate more food than should have ever been able to fit in our stomachs. The meal only cost about 60 bucks for all 3 of us which seemed like a great deal for how glutenous we were able to be. After I took them home, I jumped in the car with a few other interns and headed into Philly for a concert at some bar. This is the second time that I had seen Rachel's sister's band (they are called Turning Violet Violet) and I enjoyed them even more this time than I did the first time. I also had a espresso beer that I really enjoyed but can now not for the life of me remember what it was called.
Eman
At the concert
Thursday we had camp as usual and I taught a lesson about forgiveness (with the a little help from my director) and I can't exactly remember what I did Thursday night.
On Friday I hung out around Urban Promise most of the day until the evening when some of the other interns and a couple other people that work for Urban and I decided to head into Philly to find a Karaoke bar. We were told about some Irish pub that had karaoke, so we headed there first to check it out. Jessie was driving the van and we decided to drive down the alley where the bar was to see if there was a cover charge. As we got to the end of the alley we came to a small one way street with the one way we were allowed to go blocked off. We quickly darted down the street in the wrong direction, expecting to pull back out onto the main road before a car came the right way onto the street. When we got to the main road, that too was blocked off. Jessie then decided to drive around the road block, over the curb, to get onto the main street. By the time I was able to inform her that the car she was about to cut off was a police officer, it was too late and the officer quickly turned his lights on and got out of the car. I rolled down my window, as I probably have more experience talking to cops than most, and he walked up and asked me what the hell we thought we were doing. I explained to him the predicament we had gotten ourselves into and as it turns out he was the nicest officer on the planet. He said,"Well lets get you outta here then." , moved the road closed signs out of our way and blocked traffic allowing us to pull out. I can only assume that this happened because we had a cute girl driving the car and will now forever assume that cute girls catch every break and resent them for it.
After all of this we finally parked near bye and headed into the bar. There was a two dollar cover charge which we all payed. I then ordered a drink just before realizing that this extremely over crowded bar did not, in fact, have karaoke. We asked one of the bouncers of there was a karaoke bar near bye and he told us that the closest one was in Chinatown. I quickly finished my drink and went to close out my tab when I was informed that there was a minimum of ten dollars to pay with a credit card. I ordered another drink, quickly finished that one as well and then I closed out and we walked to Chinatown.
After asking some random girls on the streets of Chinatown, we finally were able to find the karaoke bar. We walked into this sushi restaurant and headed up the stairs to one of the coolest karaoke bars I have ever seen. We got ourselves a private room (thanks to Jesus (Castro not Christ) for paying for that), did some sake bombs and sang Karaoke for a couple of hours. I had an absolute blast. After we left the bar we went to a diner and got breakfast at 2 in the morning before heading home and going to bed.
Street sign in chinatwon. We had no idea what not to do in order to avoid a 300 dollar fine.
On Saturday I went grocery shopping for the house and then helped clean the walls of our kitchen, which we are sort of remodeling, so that they would be ready to paint. I was supposed to go out to the bar with some people who work for Urban Promise and some other people from Camden but I wasn't really feeling up to it so I just watched a movie and went to bed.
On Sunday I watched basketball on TV for most of the day and then headed over to the other intern house to see what they were up to. Jessie had some friends from college in town and they were about to head to Dirty Franks when I showed up. I tagged along with them to Dirty Franks and when we got there they were about to have a Jenga tournament at the bar. Just for fun, Jessie's Friend's boyfriend and I decided to enter the contest. We both ended up winning and advancing to the semi finals which will take place in two weeks. The guy that I played in the first round was absolutely ridiculous. Apparently he was one of the favorites to win the tournament. He used all kinds of crazy "jenga terms" like swing out sister and uptown sally. He also introduced himself as No Look Eric. It was extremely hard to keep a straight face while playing him, as he seemed like a character out of a bad B action film, but I actually managed to win.
This week should be a little less eventful than last week but if it's not I'll do my best to force myself to write a midweek update. Also be looking forward to hearing about the Jenga Semi Finals in two weeks.
We had a little scare last week when the school district threatened to cancel spring break due to all the snow days, but they ended up deciding against it. Our spring break trip is going to be to California and we need lots of donations to be able to fund this trip (about 13,000$). We also need people in the San Gabriel Valley/Inland Empire/Orange County areas to help us out by either providing a place for us to stay or cooking us a meal. There are going to be 22 of us (14 kids and 8 adults). Please let me know if you would like to help in any way.
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