Ballpark #16: Citizens Bank Park

Being a Mets fan, I've avoided paying a visit to our biggest division rivals over in Philly since I started this goal of visiting every Major League ballpark.


Philly sports fans (or should I say phans) have a reputation for unruly behavior and starting fights just about anywhere they go. My first experience of such fanaticism was at the Mets second ever game at CitiField in 2009 against the Phillies when the Mets scored a home run and my friends and I had beer thrown at us for standing up and cheering. So, needless to say, I was a bit hesitant to make the journey over to Citizens Bank Park.

When I went to Yankee Stadium last summer and almost left the park before the game even started because of such horrendous treatment on the part of just about every single person at the stadium, someone left a comment on my blog telling me that if I was going to have that attitude about every team I dislike, that I shouldn't bother visiting every park at all.

Well, let me tell you something, I don't have that attitude about every ball park and I loved Citizens Bank Park.

We didn't have the best seats, but they were $9...can't beat that!

See, I don't understand the Yankees/Mets rivalry. There is no such thing. We play each other all of 2, maybe 3 times a year in Inter-League play (which should be done away with) and it doesn't count so whenever I wear a Mets shirt on the subway and some Yankee fan tells me I'm rooting for the wrong team, I just don't get it.

Now, the Phillies/Mets? That's a rivalry. The rivalry is arguably one of the hottest in the National League (as is often depicted by some rather violent pictures of Mr. Met and the Phanatic beating up on one another).

Source

When I got home from DC on Wednesday afternoon and The Pilot picked me up from the airport, we decided to make our way to Philly for the night to catch the Phillies/Nationals game (an up and coming rivalry within the National League).

As I've been going from ball park to ball park, I've been rating them from best to worst based on a number of factors: the actual stadium itself, the hospitality of the stadium's staff and employees, the fan base, the food and overall experience. So far, Pittsburgh's PNC Park is my favorite park. I knew Citizens Bank Park would be different as soon as we got there.

Driving into the parking lot, the young man who we paid for parking was one of the friendliest people I've ever talked to. He greeted us with a huge smile, thanked us for coming to the game, asked us how we were doing and told us to enjoy ourselves.

Once we were parked and started to make our way inside, we were stopped by a guy from ESPN who wanted to film us walking into the park. The Pilot was wearing a Nationals hat and they wanted to get a shot of some Nationals fans walking into the park. (I haven't been able to find the video but we'll see!)

Photo courtesy Philly PhanPhoto

Once in the park, we took a loop to walk around and see the park. Right away, I was impressed. The park was beautiful. They had a restaurant with outdoor patio seating (with a crazy long line that kept us from grabbing a bite), an entire play ground for kids and plenty of room to walk around and see everything. The only downside, you can't really watch the game while you're walking around the park which you can do at a lot of the other stadiums I've been to (like Pittsburgh, CitiField, etc.)

We grabbed some food and beer and hung out at ballpark's beer garden before making our way to our seats. They had a great selection of beer and while enjoying our drinks before the game started, we started talking to an awesome guy about the game. When he saw my boyfriend's hat, he made a few, friendly jokes about us being Nats fans, but when we told him where our loyalties actually lied, he pretended to call security (all in good fun of course). Then he said, "Well let me be the first to officially welcome you to the Phillies ball park" and spent the next 10 or so minutes telling us all about the park, asking what we were doing there and recommending the best food and drinks in the park.

At the Beer Garden!

Philly fans? Unruly? Definitely not. The ballpark was very family-friendly and we had a blast! We stood in line for an inning and a half for the oh-so-famous and oh-so-fabulous crab fries, got some Turkey Hill ice cream in a helmet cap and watched the Phillies blow the Nationals away.

In a near relationship-ending move, The Pilot bought himself a Phanatic.

We had a great time and the stadium is beautiful...not to mentioned packed, which was really surprising for a Wednesday night game that called for thunderstorms. I think I might even consider it one of my top 10 favs but hey, I'm only at already at 16...which means I'm more than half way there! 16 ballparks down, 14 to go! Let's see which one will be next!

Have you been to the Phillies stadium?

Or, have you been to the stadium of your rival team and liked it?

From the Flight Deck...

Last week, Two weeks ago, I gave you all free range to ask The Pilot questions about what it's like to take to the skies on a regular basis for work. Some great questions came out and The Pilot is here to answer them!

(Sorry it took me so long to turn the reigns over to him. I was busy doing things like graduating and running relays and he was busy flying planes.)

So without further ado, here he is!

Kelly asked "What do you do to keep your calm when something unexpected happens on a flight?"

"Scream over the intercom that we're all going to die. No, but seriously, everything is training based. If you're trained properly enough, you're trained for the unexpected so if something unexpected happens, you just take a breath and trust your training and deal with the issue."

Cait wants to know where your favorite place is that you've flown to.

"Well my favorite airport to fly into is Washington Reagan International and that's mostly because of the awesome river visual approach that, coming in at night time or even during the day, you get to see the White House. It's a very challenging approach so it makes it fun flying when everything else is so similar, so it's fun. My other favorite place to have a layover or an overnight is Canada. I really like Ottawa, Toronto and Quebec City, those are probably my top 3 favorites. The people are very friendly, they're very pretty cities."

Holly asked why you wanted to become a pilot and what you love most about it now that you are.

"Top Gun. Nah, I'm just kidding. From a young age, you know, my first trip on an airplane, going to an airport when I was young, just getting on a plane, the whole experience was a blast. It was something I really liked, looking up at the sky; playing baseball as a kid, you're always looking up to the sky and seeing all these planes flying overhead, it's just...the thrill of flying is something I've always had, something I always thought I'd be good at. Now that I am a pilot, every day is different. It's never the same, but it is what I thought it would be and to train so hard for so long and finally being here just makes it...achieving your goal is just so great."

Christine asked if you are nervous flying...especially when I'm in the airplane...(which I think is an excellent question)

"No. Never. I'm never nervous, when Christy's with me it's more exciting, I want to try to have a good landing and just be very smooth, but that's the way I fly anyway, so it doesn't matter whether she's in the plane or not, it's just the way I fly. I want to make it comfortable for the passengers, so if that's the way I fly, there's nothing to worry about."

Meghan asked how you stay awake/alert on flights and if you get nervous in bad weather?

"Well, since I don't drink coffee and I'm not a coffee drinker, I tend to drink a lot of caffeine soda. That tends to be my way of staying up or alert. But a lot of times, just being able to talk to the other pilot about life or just the day in general, just kind of keeps you up."

"Once again, it's not nerves, it's excitement. Bad weather...all it is is really just another challenge that gets you up. Like I said, you train so hard that, going through bad weather is nothing, it's just another daily routine. But there's no other experience like popping out of the clouds at 300 feet and seeing a runway in your face, it brings on the excitement so I'm never nervous about it. 

RoseAnn wants to know you handle turbulence and if it ever freaks you out?

"My very first flight ever, I was up with an instructor and we had just taken off and we hit a little bit of turbulence and I looked over at my instructor real quick and he was cool and calm as a clam, like nothing ever happened and I think from that moment on, I was very calm with turbulence. It's just a nuisance more than anything. It's just annoying. It's like driving in a car down a bumpy road, you do it, it's annoying."

Lastly, when we were all at the Mets game on Wednesday, Susan asked The Pilot if you really need to turn off your cell phone when you're on a plane...

"Yes. It may not necessarily be for the instruments themselves, like they say, but it is a FAA regulation and not complying with that could be a felony, technically, but with the effects of instruments, my experience is that, when people do have their cell phones on and have service, it does create a static noise in my headset when I'm trying to communicate with ground control. That's my experience with it. Do I know if it necessarily affects other instruments? I don't know for sure, but it is annoying to hear some rattling going on in your headset because someone left their cell phone on." 

Thanks for answering everyone's questions!

How do you feel about flying? Are you a nervous flier or do you get excited about boarding a plane?

Have you ever met a pilot? 

If you have any other questions, feel free to leave them in the comments!

So I Graduated...

It's official. I can now add the letters 'M.S.' to my name.

Last week, I graduated from New York University with my Master's of Science in Global Affairs. My coursework is done, my thesis is done and I've finally graduated!

I had had some hiccups as to whether or not I would attend graduation and commencement for reasons but when I did make the decision to attend, I'm so glad I did!

On Monday, we had our graduation ceremony for my school at the Grand Hyatt in Midtown. This was the ceremony where they played pomp & circumstance (although they didn't start playing it until after all of the graduates had processed...rude), we walked across the stage to receive fake diplomas and they threw balloons at us so we could all celebrate by not throwing our hats in the air (I didn't understand that one).

Shaking hands with the Dean (and yes, I bought this picture)

My mom and my aunt came to graduation with me and after a loooong ceremony, and some cocktails and h'ours d'oeuvres, we made our way to Madison Square to have lunch at Eataly! I had never been there before and knew that the market/restaurant was right up all of our allies, so off we went.

I had an amazing pasta pomodoro that I devoured within minutes. Seriously, this pasta made me feel like I was back in Rome  (Sorry, I was too busy eating to take pictures of my food for the blog, plus, you've all seen pasta before.)

At this point, it was starting to rain but I knew I wanted to take pictures in my cap and gown under the arch in Washington Square...how could I not? It's the center of NYU's main campus and I've walked under it a hundred times to go to the library or to work, so it was a definite must!

I did it!

Fast forward to Wednesday for NYU's official commencement ceremony at Yankee Stadium. My mom came back along with my sister, my niece and The Pilot for the ceremony. We all got on the 4 train and made our way to the stadium for graduation number 2.

 

Yankee Stadium was an absolute sea of purple. If you've been following this blog for any amount of time, you know that Yankee Stadium is probably the last place I would've chosen to culminate the end of my graduate career but you know what? As much as I hate the Yankees and their stadium, the baseball lover in me had to admit that it was pretty damn cool to be graduating in a Major League Baseball stadium.

Purple EVERYWHERE!

The stage was at 2nd base and we sat in the 100 level.

Sonia Sotomayor was our Commencement speaker (which is honestly, the only reason I went), and she gave a great speech. I tried to duck out a few minutes early to avoid the crowds getting out of there but they only had one gate open (for close to 50,000 people) and getting out was an absolute nightmare.

When we finally made it out of there (almost an hour later), we made our way to the Upper West Side for lunch at Pappardella.

Fantastic UWS restaurant!

It wouldn't be a trip to the UWS without a stop at 16 Handles for dessert...which my 11 year old niece had a field day at. From lunch, we took a walk to Lincoln Center and then over to Central Park before my family left for the day.

All in all, it was a great week to graduate. We got so lucky with the weather as it was supposed to downpour all week. It's so nice to finally be DONE. Getting my Master's was hard work...much harder than I ever anticipated it to be, but I did it and I couldn't be happier!

Reach the Beach Relay: Team Need for Speed

I have an odd way of celebrating things.

When I finished my thesis, I took off to Spain to run a marathon.

When I graduated with my Masters, I took off to Massachusetts to run a 200 mile relay with a bunch of strangers...kind of.

Don't be surprised if when I get my first job post graduate degree, I go off and run an ultra that weekend. I'm kidding. Maybe.

I signed up for Reach the Beach: Massachusetts a few months ago when Sarah tweeted that she was looking for runners to join her team. Soon after, I posted that we were looking for a few more runners to join us and got Emily and Gia to take the bait and run Reach the Beach with us.

Thursday morning (I know, I have a whole week to recap you guys on), after a busy morning, I met Emily and Gia at the Bolt Bus stop to bus our way to Boston's South Station, cab our way to Boston's North Station to meet up with one of our teammates, and then train our way to Fitchburg, Massachusetts...which is in the middle of nowhere.

Friday morning, Sarah picked us up with her husband, Ruddley and our teammate Eric to head to the start line and start our 200 mile journey. We met up with our teammates in Van 2: Jen, Jill, Carrie, John, Andy and Stacy. After a brief orientation about learning how not to die on the race course, we sent Ruddley off and hopped into our van to head to Transition #1 and start the race.

I was Runner #6 so I had quite a bit of time before heading out for my first leg.

The Start Line

andy and sarah...we all look so...clean

There wasn't much time to decorate our van so we didn't get around to it until Emily headed out for her leg when we had some down time.

Our official Twitter hash tag plus all of our Twitter handles...

Legs to check off!

I was getting super nervous before my leg started, especially when some of the roads we ran on looked like this...

Handing off to Sarah...and not quite understanding why she was bent at 90 degrees...

...but once I headed out for my first run, I felt awesome! The run was challenging but nothing Central Park or Madrid training hadn't prepped me for. It was listed as 6.71 miles but ended up being around 6.85. It's pretty much impossible to run the tangents when you're running across traffic lanes. When my watch hit 6.5 and I saw Assumption College, my transition area, I started sprinting...up and up and up and up until finally, I reached transition and handed off to Jill.

Feeling strong on Leg #1!

Leg 1 is DONE and Van 2 is OFF!

With about 4 hours to kill while Van 2 took over, we went and got some food before heading to the 2nd major transition area and resting up for a bit at Hopkinton State Park.

It started getting dark slightly before Ruddley headed out for his second leg and I started getting really nervous about running in the dark. By the time Gia went out for her leg, it was pitch black. I knew I would be starting my 2nd leg somewhere around midnight and had thought about running in the dark but I hadn't thought about running on rural back roads with absolutely nothing around but trees. By the time I headed out for my 2nd leg, I was terrified. Donning my headlamp, reflective vest, and 4 blinky lights, I was lit up like a Christmas Tree but I still couldn't see past the 2 feet in front of me that the head lamp offered. I was trying to run as fast as I could to get the run over with me. When I felt like I had gone about a mile, I looked down at my watch only to find that I had run 0.35 miles...and I started crying. I hated running at night and was just freaking out. I felt completely alone out there. There was one runner ahead of me who I lost pretty early on and through the rest of the leg, I never saw another runner. Just before Mile 1, saw my van and called out to Emily to come join me. About half way through the run, she hopped back into the van and Gia ran me in.

For me, this was the absolute worst part of the relay and the one thing that leaves me hesitant about running another relay. I was so thankful to have such awesome teammates to get me through that leg of the run. When we finished, we headed to our next major transition area and went to sleep.

We transitioned around 5:30am and sent Ruddley off on his 3rd and final leg. I slept through his and Gia's legs (sorry guys) and woke up to cheer on Eric, Emily, and Sarah before running my final leg.

My final leg was a beast of a run. 6.6 miles on some serious up hills. Holy hell was it tough. I found a girl who kept me on pace for about half of the run before passing her and finishing strong. That run was tough. My legs felt surprisingly fresh but it was hot out and those hills were brutal. I was trying hard to run hard and fast. I was in a groove and my legs were just moving on autopilot. I couldn't slow down or speed up. I was just going. I passed my teammates at one point and heard Eric say that I looked strong which made me want to run even harder. When I finally made it to transition, I was flying. I wanted so badly to be done...but I felt on top of the world. I had done it. I had finished the hardest leg of the relay...and I had finished strong.

Climbing a mountain Running up a hill of Leg #3

The final hand off

Once I finished my final leg, we were off to the beach! We made our way to the Finish Line to wait out our teammates in Van 2...which we did by eating burritos and drinking $4 beers. (Making runners pay for beer after finishing a race should be illegal.)

We reached the beach!

Celebratory beers!

When our 2nd van go to the beach, we eagerly headed to the Finish Line to await Jen, our final runner, and run her in to the Finish...so that we could officially reach the beach as a team.

The Finish Line!

Running Jen in to the Finish...in sweat pants and sandals...

We had done it. Team Need for Speed finished the Reach the Beach Relay in Massachusetts in 30:04:23 (average pace 8:59).

My Stats
Leg 1: 6.84 miles in 1:01:49 (9:02 pace)
Leg 2: 4.16 miles in 38:11 (9:11 pace)
Leg 3: 6.60 miles in 1:00:50 (9:13 pace)
Total Run Time: 17.6 miles in 2:40:50 (9:08 average pace)


Overall, Relaying was an awesome experience and I was lucky to have such an amazing group of people to run with. A huge thank you goes to Sarah, our Team Captain, for organizing the relay. To anyone not afraid of the dark, I highly recommend running  a relay...if I can bribe you to run my night legs, I'll totally join you.

I'll be back this week with regular posting including graduation recaps, the answers to your questions for The Pilot and more! Stay tuned!

The Week Ahead

Monday - Graduation Part I

Tuesday - Mets versus Brewers at CitiField!

Wednesday - Graduation Part II

Thursday - Shippin' up to Boston!

Friday-Saturday - RTB!

Monday - DC Bound!!!

It's going to be a busy week but it's going to be crazy exciting!
What's on your schedule for the week?