A Day at PPL Park

Yesterday marked a historic day in the city of Chester, PA.  18,000+ fans- a good amount of them inebriated- descended on PPL Park for the first ever Philadelphia Union home opener in the new stadium.  Most fans rocked the classic, sponsor-free navy and gold kits, scarves and jackets, while the squad took the pitch in the new white kits with the BIMBO brand across the chest.  I'm going to skip the jokes on this one.  Not because I'm taking the moral high road, but because I left PPL Park with three loaves of fresh Bimbo Whole-Grain white bread.  For free.  You don't bite the hand that feeds you, or make cruel jokes about them no matter how easy it is.  Anyway...

Nsisong and I. Somehow, we both ended up wearing the Navy XXI.  Cue the twins jokes...

The Red Devil. That's really just Chewy showing off his limited edition XXI shirt that is gone forever. I don't even have one.

 

The first half was quite boring and uninspiring, but I was too cold to even really focus on the football being played.  My mind was about a half-mile down the road where our rental car was parked.  Inside were our coats, scarves and hats that we foolishly left behind to warm up the interior of the Toyota Corolla and not our freezing bodies.

At half time, we quickly rushed to the Union Gift Shop which seemed to be the only place in the stadium that was heated.  Thank God.  Chewy contemplated dropping some serious cash for a jacket, while Nsisong and I contemplated spending the second half watching the rest of the game inside the shop.  We decided to take the manlier option and I was elected the man to walk a half-mile out of the stadium to grab our outerwear.  Luckily, I returned before any serious action took place in the game (save for Hassli's sending off in the 57th minute).

The breakthrough came in the 77' as Sebastian Le Toux passed the ball across the face of goal to Carlos Ruiz who slotted it home.  The crowd erupted into a thunderous chant of the best torhymne in the MLS.  DOOP! DOOP! DOOP! DO-DO-DOOP-DOOP-DOOP! The atmosphere electrified and the only evidence of the freezing cold was the steam that escaped our mouths as we sang into the night.  The game ended in a 1-0 victory and the Union recorded their first ever winning streak in the MLS.  This team is going onto great things. I can feel it.

The man who refused to give me his jersey. Je n'oublierai pas cela, Sebastian...Je n'oublierai pas...

We stopped to snap a quick photograph before we headed back into the city for some much needed dinner.  Chewy, our Norwegian-Polish brother had never tasted African food so we took him to one of the best spots in Philly for some african food.

Senegalese Delicacies

We drove back into the westside of the city to Kilimanjaro, a Senegalese-restaurant that has an amazing selection of lamb, beef and chicken.

Fried chicken.

My beef kebab and kouskous dish. Delicioso. Fried Plantains. Known as "dodo" where I'm from.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  Just look at Chewy's face.  I couldn't stop laughing at his reaction after he tasted the food.  He'd never tasted anything so spicy.  Poor kid had no idea what hit him.  Be careful what you wish for, Chewy.

The night did not end here, but I'll end the blog post on this note.  I'm pretty sure you all know what goes down on Saturday nights....ZzzZzzzzzzz

Thanks for reading, and in case you didn't know, I'm a semi-finalist in the Union's "DOOP design contest" Please vote for me, because if I win they'll manufacture and sell the shirts to Union fans. How cool would that be?! Vote HERE Mine is the "Vintage Hand-Drawn DOOP":