two balls and a cop car

by the title of this post you are probably confused.  the last couple of days have involved all of the above.

the first ball.  i am not referring to sports, but instead to our first themed formal event.  it was held on a boat near penn's landing.  even thought it was on a boat, the boat never departed from shore - sounds kinda lame, but it was actually fun.  the theme was red and blue - penn's colors.  when you entered the red and blue ball there was a big banner with wharton written all over it, similar to a red carpet event.  it was quite fun and the time flew by.




second, the usc football game.  FINALLY the trojans came to the east coast - super exciting!  although the weather was quite fickle - rain, sunshine, tornado warning (and subsequent game delay), no rain then finally rain again, it was fun going to a new stadium and seeing friends.  i was surprised that there were more than usc fans than syracuse fans and that the stadium was not full.  we also had fun tailgating in the parking lot ahead of the game.    while the trojans did beat cuse, they need to step up their game a bit.

i can now say i have been in the back of a cop car.  by the way, you can't open the door from the inside of the backseat.  it totally makes sense, but i had never thought about it before.  ok, now for the story.  i was in a cab going back into philly, when the cab driver got a flat tire.  he didn't know he got a flat tire, but i smelled burning rubber and the car started to shake a bit - i told him to pull over.  instead of pulling over to the right on 95, he decided to stop in the left hand lane.  turns out that the back right tire was flat - pretty hard to change a tire facing traffic.  after about 10 minutes a cop car pulled up and escorted the taxi to a shoulder about a quarter of a mile up.  i didn't feel safe going in the cab so the cop let me ride with him.  he used his microphone and lights and all!  once we pulled over it took the cab driver about 45 minutes to change his tire.  even though he claimed to have called the company twice to send a replacement cab, no one showed up.  i even called and they claimed that someone was on their way.  just as he was about finished, one of my classmates actually saw me and pulled over on the highway to check in on me.  he ended up taking me home - super nice of him.  the cab driver not only had the nerve to ask me for the fare (he put me in harms way, made me wait an hour and didn't take me to the city), but also followed us and threatened to report us to the ppa. ridiculous.  also, he went to my building (knowing where my destination was) and sat outside in his car.  how insane is that?  when in philly do not take phl taxi.  there are plenty of other cab companies.  at least i got a cool view while i waited.