Labor Day in Philadelphia and Manayunk
Less than 12 hours after my mother left for Los Angeles, my friend Peter arrived from Los Angeles. (We figured out they were on the airport tarmac at the same time, but couldn’t have seen each other). He had spent a few weeks out West and was stopping in Philly to help me settle in and to make sure my new house met his stamp of approval before going back to Germany Tuesday night.
As soon as he arrived at the house, he decided to start helping me assemble my furniture. Now I could understand why Ikea had been so much cheaper than my first bedroom set in D.C.—the labor. The furniture I bought in D.C. had been pre-assembled. We did that work on our own. Well, Peter took charge of the project; I just made sure the pieces we were assembling matched the diagram.
We finished two pieces, and then tried to go out to that same local Italian restaurant. It was already after 10:30 p.m., though, and the bar was open but the restaurant was closed. I knew of a diner that would be open (Silk City) but it was at least 15 minutes away by car. We settled instead for me “cooking” dinner (i.e. opening the package of food from Trader Joe’s market) while Peter prepared the salad.
Monday was a holiday in America, Labor Day. Instead of celebrating time off from work or having a barbecue, we labored over putting together the remaining three pieces of furniture. We finished around 3:00 p.m. I suggested we walk to a restaurant at 40th and Spruce that I knew. I didn’t say it at the time, but I wanted something with sit-down service because I’d be paying for lunch to thank Peter for his help.
We walked into Copacabana. Peter ordered Mexican food (the last he would get for a while), and I ordered Buffalo wings (chicken wings in hot sauce). When I ran out of water, I asked for some more. The waiter said “sure”, then went off to do God knows what. I only know he was running in and out of the restaurant, and not stopping at any table he was serving in between. Let me add here that there were only three tables occupied at the restaurant at this time. It almost felt like our being there was interrupting their personal business.
I didn’t want my food to get cold, so I kept eating wings till my mouth was on fire. The guy at the next table said something to a second guy, but it took me asking a THIRD guy to finally get some relief. I’ve never been a demanding customer, and I’m usually religious about giving tips, but this time I only left a 10 percent tip where 15 percent would have been the minimum.
Manayunk
As with my mother, I didn’t want Peter to spend the whole weekend taking care of me; I wanted him to get some sightseeing in as well. But first we had to make one more Ikea/Lowe’s run to finish a mirror-hanging project, which involved drilling holes and measuring and leveling and everything that Peter hates in home improvement. I thought it was a fun adventure, but he says that’s only because the project ended with a properly hung mirror and not three giant, irreparable holes in the wall.
It was well after 9:00 p.m. He had never seen the boathouses lit up at night on the Schuylkill River, and neither one of us had ever been to Manayunk, a town outside of Philly with a reportedly hip Main Street. Anne agreed it would be a good place to go.
I didn’t realize it was 15 miles outside of Philadelphia; I must have confused signs for “Manayunk” with “Mann Music Center”. By the time we got to the exit it was after 10:00. Anne had said “you can’t miss it”, but of course I did and we lost another 15 minutes finding the interesting part of Main Street in Manayunk.
We parked and walked along Main Street looking for a place to eat. Many places were already closed, or had never opened because it was Labor Day. The streets seemed practically deserted. One place was busy but expensive. We found an Irish pub, but they weren’t serving food. We walked past a Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream that also had a hamburger stand, but I thought Peter should have a nicer dinner experience than that. We found a very divey bar where the bouncer said food was being served, but by the time we asked the woman tending bar for the menu, she said the cook had already taken off.
Just as Peter was saying “I hope we get back to Ben and Jerry’s before it closes”, we arrived in front of its window and saw that the chairs had already been put on the tables, a sign that the restaurant was closed.
We walked back towards the car. There was one more place we hadn’t tried yet, though—the U.S. Hotel. It looked pricey, but it seemed like our last hope. We walked in, and of course they weren’t serving food either. However, the nice people inside gave us driving directions to the Manayunk Diner. We had a lovely dinner of a Philly cheesesteak and a tuna melt—at 11:00 p.m. It was a lot of food to eat so late at night, and it wasn’t in the most interesting part of the city. I still had to be up and out of the house early for orientation. But, somehow I managed (and I think Peter managed too) to laugh at these little misadventures of life.
Tags: dining, holidays, Pennsylvania/New Jersey, Travel, U.S.
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