How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Image Credit: Allison Krumm/Phillyist

I used to love giving these speeches in elementary school. Mostly, because my family had awesome summer vacations. At first we'd go camping down in Cherrystone, Maryland (where the tasty, tasty crabs come from) or stay at my uncle's house in Ocean City, New Jersey. As my brothers and I got a little bit older and more able to tolerate long car trips, we ventured into the wilds of Canada, staying on a Native reservation on the French River in Northern Ontario.

As an adult, this summer was filled with a day job and Phillyist relaunch prep, but it had its fair share of seasonal fun, too. First off (here's where you can feel free to be insanely jealous): I spent six minutes with Sir Paul McCartney. Okay, so that might be a stretching the truth a little bit. I did, however, get to take some pictures of him at the first of his two Philly shows.

Here's where I won't stretch the truth: I was a bad friend to Geekadelphia. I'll admit it. I went to Piazza purely for the free OK Go show and maintained my firm "no foursquare" stance during their valiant, yet failed attempt at a Super Swarm. I regret nothing. OK Go was amazing. (Sorry, Geeks. I still love you).

In complete contrast to wanting to stay and watch the entire two-to-three hours of Sir Paul McCartney's concert, or wanting OK Go to go a little longer, I literally ran away screaming from the hipsters at the Mann Center during MGMT. A sea of glow-stick-carrying, marijuana-smoking kids swarmed the stage in their short-shorts and cowboy boots, and I bailed. Hard. MGMT is not good enough live to be worth hanging in for all that nonsense.

As for the rest of the summer—I hit up a couple of Phils games, dos Union games, too. I got my culture on in Clark Park with a the hilarious cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream (Note: just because a play is performed in open air, does not mean you should talk through it!) and went on the Baltimore Avenue Dollar Store to score a $1 ticket to a fall preview of a Curio production. And, blissfully, almost every weekend I jetted down the Expressway to lounge on the beach at Ocean City, New Jersey, the shore town of my childhood. All in all, just as summer should be.