Jersey Is as Jersey Does

Over the long Memorial Day weekend, I let my inner Jerseylicious self free. All big haired, bronzed, beach bummin', aviator-wearing, careless, Jersey girl me. Or my nerdy Pittsburgh-y version of that. Which includes big hair as in my red, curly, long hair swelling to its fullest extent from the heat and humidity, bronzed as in burned, beach bummin' for four hours next to a fifty-five degree sea, but, okay, I was wearing aviators and careless and experienced a weekend of new things.

Most importantly, no trip to Jersey would not be complete without a festival of alcohol. The New Jersey Blues and Wine Festival, hosted by the New Jersey Wine Growers Association, was the real reason Boyfriend and I ventured our Iron City selves across the state, through enemy territory (Philly-land), and landed dead-smack in the middle of Jager-ville. My sister, Carinne, recently went to every winery in the state and entered to win a free trip to Italy, which was to be announced at the festival.

The weekend was spent doing appropriately Jersey activities. Other than the wine festival, I popped my Jersey Shore cherry, walked down my first boardwalk, where we found ourselves surrounded by Zombies for the annual New Jersey Zombie walk (of course we pick the Zombie Walk day to go to the Shore), participated in a strongman game (not all big fatty arms me, that's laughable), found where Springsteen is from, and I found my very first starfish. And Carinne was rated 17 in the country in Buzztime Trivia. It was amazing. And that was just Saturday.

The wine festival was on Sunday and it was my first wine festival ever. Coming from a long line of winos, it's pretty remarkable I have never found myself at a wine festival. But, alas, it was true. Minus the overbearing heat (95 degrees and unbelievably humid. Insert sweat-like-a-dude here), the fest was quite enjoyable! There were tents upon tents of wineries there with all-you-can-taste wines for free. There was a cover you had to pay to get in, but my poor college kid self was ecstatic. It is pretty much the only place I did not take pictures over the weekend; I was too busy being happy about the festivities.

Not to mention the wines! As the heat was killer, the Sangria and sweet wines were life-saving. Unbeknown (is that a word?) to me, New Jersey is known for their blueberries, so the blueberry wine was a-flowing! I had also never had blueberry wine before, and I could not get enough. Delicious. I spent the afternoon in a gluttonous haze of hot weather, wine, and junk food while picnicking in New Jersey's Natirar Park, which is absolutely stunning. If you are in the area, I highly recommend going for a jog in the park. It is fantastic.

Afterward, we had a very enjoyable evening feasting on take-out Chinese food and Sushi. It was marred only by my extreme dehydration and my inability to remember the term "General Tso Chicken," as told everyone that I wanted, "Oh, I don't know what it's called, but it's my favorite chicken. I know it starts with something in the military..." If you never want to read my blog again, adios and I do not blame you.

Monday, Boyfriend, Carinne, and I explored historic Morristown, NJ just the tiniest bit. It is one of the most quaint, gorgeous, historic towns I have ever been to. I definitely want to go back and satiate my history nerd desire to explore the town and see the National landmark of the town Fort Nonsense (Oh, Jersey).


Boyfriend and I finished our weekend visiting one of his friends from school in West Chester, PA. We did not have enough time to explore the second historic town of the day (the suburbs of West Chester are on the battlefield of Brandywine Creek and is not far from Valley Forge. Actually, Boyfriend's friend's family home is on a part of the Brandywine battlefield. You have no idea how unbelievably jealous I am), but I was dying to explore. My nerdy history self was quite disappointed in the lack of exploration on this trip. However, I still managed to snap some unusual and interesting pictures of West Chester.


This is a statue called "Old Glory."

This is the second unusual building of the day. Morristown had a building for "Weights and Measures" that we did not know its purpose. This one is equally as mysterious. Farmers and Mechanics? Is it a secret club? If so, they need to work on their subtlety. What do they do in there? Discuss cows, hounds, and tractors? In which case, are lovers of country music allowed in?


This is the menu at a local restaurant in West Chester. Which is a suburb of Philadelphia. As in, the Philadelphia Flyers. As in, one of the Pittsburgh Penguins biggest rivals. I spy a Penguin on their menu. Not a Flyer. Unfortunately, I don't know who it is. It kind of looks like Miroslav Satan (look at those eyebrows-holy hell), but I really can't tell. Regardless, I am in awe of the epicness of the failure of Philadelphia.

And that was my Jersey getaway, not so much summed up as dissected and explained in excruciatingly minute detail, complete with a large amount of poorly taken pictures. I think I don't blog enough so my few posts are unreasonably long.

Fist pump.