Ok so this is way over due and the videos to go along with it are even further over due! But here it is, here is how my time on the Metro tour went:
The night I left for the trip, I managed to get 1.5 hours of sleep ... I can never sleep before a big day. This is beyond annoying. I woke up at 2am. Loaded a youtube video, then left Cincinnati by 3am. First stop was Herndon Virginia, more specifically Josh "Enminem" Katz's house. I stopped in Maryland and slept at a rest stop for almost 2 hours. That rocked ... kinda. But after a long, zombie-ish drive I arrived around 2pm.
It was raining ... of course. In my life it rains at least 50% of the time. Always. Everywhere. Even inside my own house. Rain all the time.
I met up with Metro, Chris McNugget, and Company at Josh's house. Josh got home from school soon after and we spent the rest of the day filming in a hurry. We filmed at Josh's house for WWR18, and we literally only had time for two takes, then we were gone. We skated at an indoor skatepark in Baltimore called Charm City. We sat in traffic forever, both there and back. We headed back to the Katz's residence where Josh's parents were nice enough to cook dinner for everyone.
What felt like the fastest day ever was of course now over. We left Virginia and got a hotel in Maryland. The next day was amazing. So amazing. It was raining in Maryland unfortunately, so we headed up to Philly. It's the third time I've skated this city in the last year and I seriously don't get tired of it!
We started with FDR, one of our country's more popular skateparks. It was a lot of fun. Chris and Ratface killed it! I had fun skating a little bank thing with Daniel Dubois. After FDR, we skated the spot that almost killed my kidney's. I tried to get ReVenge but I was skating new shoes and I just didn't have control of my board for flip tricks that day. Bummer. Ryan Young was trying a very insane front board to 10 foot drop. He almost had it but broke his board. I got to have a pretty rocking convo with Brett Novak too, who if you haven't heard of him he's a very talented videographer/artist ... a better way to describe him is a video Jedi. Seriously, youtube "Kilian Martin" and watch those skate videos. They are beautiful.
Next up was Love Park. This place is normally a super bust but we were lucky enough to skate a full session. It is arguably the most famous skate spot of my generation, possibly of all time. I got a few whatever tricks and Ratface did something pretty crazy that I can't speak of! After Love, we hit up Pats for their world famous Cheesesteaks, and we were on the road.
The next day we got a late start and drove to New Jersey and ended up staying in the Jersey Shore ... yeah that Jersey Shore. We basically drove all of this day.
We woke up the next day and Chris Mcnugget helped me film a few quick Falling Skateboard clips on the Jersey Shore boardwalk. We got two falls then got kicked out by a very unhappy bike cop who had already talked to quite a few of us about not having skateboards there. I had no idea, I apologized, ate some Italian sausage on the boardwalk, and we were off to Hackensack New Jersey where we met up with a Zach and Stephen and their friends. I tried some hippie jump off of some stairs, over a saw horse and took quite a few slams, eventually lost a section of my thumb and called it quits.
We went to Zach's house, celebrated his Birthday with his family who were awesome. We chatted with them, ate the pizza they got for us and had an all around great time. We then took off to the big city. For the first time in my life, I was in New York City. And it was insane. It didn't feel real.
We woke up the next day and it was such a day. Unfortunately I was super sore from the hippie jump so I didn't get to do much skating. We took the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan, skated two famous skate spots, ate New York pizza, and got to visit Ground Zero just hours before 9/11/11. That too felt surreal.
After the long New York day I had to head back toward Ohio. I said my goodbyes, which wasn't too sad because I knew the guys would be visiting me in Columbus only days later.
I stopped in Scranton Pennsylvania to sleep over night. I was so psyched. I know that the TV show The Office wasn't filmed there but it's definitely set in Scranton. So I woke up the next day, and checked out a lot of the places that they talked about in The Office and finally continued on my journey home.
After a very fast 5 days, I got home and had a mellow night with the girlfriend. I have no idea if anyone actually read all that, haha, but I hope it wasn't too boring. I had an absolute blast on tour. All the footage from it will be up soon!
I just wanted to thank everyone: Joel, Daniel, Ratface, Chris, Darren, Travis, Ryan, Garick, and Brett: It was awesome to meet all of you guys and I can't wait to have a round two!
So I'm done, here are mass pictures and a quick video from the tour. Later blog readers! - Andy
Being from Cincinnati ... this is a new one.
Enminem gets interviewed!
Pats = Best cheesesteaks ever!
WaWa should be the only convenient store in the entire country. Best place ever.
Some of the best burgers in America. Thank you George Allen for the heads up!
New York City. It's a shame I didn't get to get some good pics of the city.
Chris stole my guitar at every spot. He can play pretty good though!
This pigeon had to be sick, which is unfortunate. But he would have let me pick him up I'm pretty sure. I shot this about an inch away from him!
My first time in the subway. pretty cool.
This better be used in a ReVenge ad some day.
The two beams of light from Ground Zero. We were there the last time they went out ... I think.
Yeah the mall at Steamtown has a Dunder Mifflin store! haha it rocks!
This look familiar?
Ah Rainy Columbus, this is what I got home to. Of course.
