Brewery, piggly, devilry

I am unsurprisingly exhausted after a packed Philadelphia summer weekend. Tom borrowed John-Carlos' bike (fixed-gear, which let us blend in with the native population of Northern Liberties), so we were able to break new grounds in City Exploration. Saturday morning, we hit up the R5 punk rock flea market. Honestly, it was a little disappointing--I went in with the intention of picking up some early Christmas presents, but this edition was heavy on the ironic 80s t-shirts and cassette tapes and light on anything I might actually spend money on, although I did buy something for my brother. Oh, and I received the gift of feeling superior to emaciated hipster clones. The sacred gift of judging others--I feel blessed to experience it so often.

We then biked north through Fishtown in search of the Philadelphia Brewing Company--they give brewery tours on Saturday afternoon and I've been meaning to check out the place. It is really, really awesome. We rolled up and made our way to the taproom, which is a huge warehouse space with a bar in one corner, a table in the middle, and plenty of free beer. We drank some Kenzinger and Walt Wit and then--the tour! I just can't believe that all you have to do is SHOW UP and they feed you beer AND talk to you about brewing it for a whole half hour. What a fantastic world we live in.

Okay, so the rest of Saturday--stopped by a probably haunted bookstore, saw what may be the only working copy of Star Trek Voyager: the Video Game (Seriously, Dave and Buster videogame buyer? I don't think you thinking long-term with that one), then came home and collapsed till dinnertime (first time at Cochon--pigalicious!). Then beers with Scooter at my local Devil bar. There are FAR too many devil-themed bars in Philadelphia for me to remember their names. Much easier simply to refer to them as "That devil place," as in "Let's meet at that devil place near Rittenhouse" or "Why don't we go to the devil place in South Philly?".

Overall, highly satisfactory. And perhaps the best of all--Tom bought a bike of his own! This means many more Philadelphia adventures in the future, both for him and for YOU when you come visit me and borrow his bike. Oh, and on that note--this evening I finally biked down to FDR Park and saw the lagoons, the gazebo, and of course the skate park. It'd be an excellent place for a Yogaball tournament...