Grand Prix Providence should be a great event for magic players and fun for all those involved; if you have the opportunity to go and play magic I wish you good luck. While you are in Providence there is plenty to do when you aren’t playing magic and some great restaurants within walking distance of the Rhode Island Convention Center. The Providence Place Mall is close by and has more stores than you can count along with an Imax theater above the food court. For those of you fortunate enough to spend some time in Rhode Island relaxing while slinging spells I have some awesome things for you to do as well.

After a long day of turning cards sideways and side-boarding all I really want to do is stuff my face with delicious food. It seems you could stand outside the convention center and throw a rock and no matter which direction hit a restaurant, but I’ve done some research and there are some great places to eat and some that you might not want to visit.

Murphy’s Deli  & Bar has been serving up juicy corned beef since 1929 and catering to the other elements of the Irishman (or woman) in all of us. It started out as a lunch based restaurant but now serves dinner and is open late for when you have those Bloodthrone Vampire munchies. They have a vast array of sandwiches and burgers that will make your mouth water. Most every dish comes with their famous pickles and smiling service.

If you want a reasonably priced burrito with fresh ingredients than you should stop by Cilantro Mexican Grill. They never use processed foods and always keep everything healthy, keeping a limited menu size to ensure the quality stays excellent. Cilantro cooks their corn tortilla chips fresh every day and adds a hint of lime. They have three different kinds of salsa and if you aren’t in the mood for a burrito then you can try one of their tacos or quesadillas. With the option to choose whether you want chicken marinated in a spicy adobo sauce or pulled pork along with steak or tilapia, you’ll always get exactly what you want and can select all the finer things for your meal.

10 Prime Steak & Sushi brings the best cuisine from east and west together to complete a great dining experience. They have a plethora of sushi rolls many of which are a blend of unique flavors like the Crunchie Munchie, a fried coconut shrimp roll topped with tempura crab, honey truffle aioli, and chives. Their steaks are aged to perfect tenderness and melt in your mouth; while there sides are much more than an accompaniment. If “Death by Butter” smashed potatoes doesn’t sound as delicious to you as it does to me they have many other choices like Bacon Mac & Cheese.

The Providence Place Mall is the most expansive place to shop in Rhode Island, offering more than 170 stores to browse and buy from. There is a Newbury Comics there selling music, and books related to music and comics. It provides more than you could ask for in the way of all your comic-related needs. They also have magic boosters available for purchase if you want to host a private draft back at the hotel.

There is a Dave & Buster’s located above the food court housing a huge assortment of arcade games where you can play skee-ball to your heart’s content(I always do). They have a ton of star wars games, and you can even get a deal where you get an entrée and ten dollars worth of coins for $15.99.

Providence Place also has an Imax theater and an extensive food court if everyone in your group has different tastes or you can’t decide where everyone wants to eat. It even has a place for foreign currency exchange for all of you who are travelling.

If animals are your thing you can visit Roger William’s Park Zoo that has been open since 1872. It’s the third-oldest zoo in the nation, housing over 1000 animals with upwards of 300 species.  You can drop in and see the wallabies in their Australasia exhibit, or go to the Tropical America exhibit to take a snap-shot of a crocodile.

If you’re looking to enjoy the nightlife there are some great places nearby like Ultra the Nightclub. It offers a great mix of dance, techno, and top 40 songs to listen to and the DJs there are ridiculously good.  Its open on Thursdays from 10pm to 1am, Fridays from 10pm to 2am and Saturdays from 10pm to 2am. Their location is 127 Friendship St, Providence RI.

Another great nightclub is Colosseum at 180 Pine Street, also in Providence.  They play a variety of music including mash-up, hip-hop, house and Top 40. The club is split into two parts The Ruins, which is a live music venue, and Mythology where the DJs keep you dancing.

If you want to get around with public transport www.ripta.com is a great resource that you can use. It has a trip planner which allows you to select multiple destinations and look up the times and fares. It also has a section that shows you a map of all the places you can get picked up and dropped off and even has a quick find feature if you get caught in a last minute rush.

For more information on what the weather will be like this weekend, click here.

I hope all of you enjoy your time at the GP and got some useful information from my article.

–Jacob Schroeder

We checked the showtimes at the AMC but as fate would have it, it was that wonderful time when everything started thirty minutes earlier, and nothing would be starting for an hour. We didn’t have that much time. So our journey continued as we walked down Broadway until we came upon Cafe Eighty Two. We were both hungry so this would achieve several of our objectives. I was surprised, and a little disappointed, at how quickly our food came out. I realize that normally it would be a good thing, however as I was trying to milk my comfy seat for as long as possible, this certainly wasn’t helping. My grilled cheese (see below) was absolutely delicious. I plan to go back to Cafe Eight Two for a grilled cheese every time I visit NYC, thank you fate!

Another slight detour- During Worlds: Memphis 2008 Tim Landale and I ventured out into the city in hopes of finding a grilled cheese. We were successful in finding such a place; I ordered my sandwich, then Tim ordered his. Somehow Tim, and everyone else we were with,  got their food before me. This made absolutely no sense as we ordered the exact same thing, but no big deal. He demolished the food and returned to the counter to order another one. At this point I mentioned that I still hadn’t received mine. He managed to get his second one before I even received my first! So as I sat in this NYC cafe I sent this picture to Tim Landale as we have a tradition of both enjoying delicious grilled cheeses and try to do so while enjoying each other’s company as much as possible.Tim hurt his knee and had to have surgery so he hasn’t been at too many events, but every time I eat one I think about him and the fun times we had that weekend. Thankfully Tim has been doing better and I would see him later that weekend.

The time had come to go meet up with Ben Hayes so we returned to the cold windy streets once again. The three of us made it to Katz’s right on time, which of course meant before almost everyone else. When we walked in we were handed a food ticket which would be presented at the register when we left. As the “host” of the event Steve Sadin was already there, accompanied by Patrick Sullivan and Gavin Verhey. The others joined us soon after including BDM, Gerard Fabiano, Matt Boccio, AJ Sacher, Drew Levin, Nick Spagnolo, Lewis Laskin, Matt Ferrando and a few more that I don’t know as well.

As we were about to leave, Ben Hayes realized he had lost his food ticket. After a few moments of panic Patrick Sullivan pulled an “extra” out of his pocket like it was no big deal. Gerard’s ticket had also gone missing, but Gerard didn’t panic. In his typical fashion, he simply talked to the manager and convinced them that he hadn’t eaten and therefore shouldn’t have to pay for anything. I don’t think that everyone could pull this off, but then again, this is Gerard. With the ticket situation under control it was time to make plans for the rest of the evening. Ben wasn’t feeling well so we headed back to his place, joined by Bing Luke. The rest of the group headed out for some drinks. (I’m told there is video from their evening of fun but I have yet to see it myself). We hung out for a bit at Ben’s, they playtested a little, we ordered pizza and it was time for bed.

Friday was pretty low key compared to the rest of the week. I visited with Kitt’s grandparents before grabbing lunch, then headed over to Ben’s with all my stuff. Ben still wasn’t feeling well, so while he slept most of the day I caught up on the latest episode of Survivor, read a little more of The Diamond Age and listened to Pandora. Later, Yoni Skolnik arrived to join casa de Hayes. With the tournament in the morning I went to bed around eleven, while the others stayed up for awhile playtesting, finding cards for their decks, etc.

Saturday morning arrived and it was time for another adventure. The four of us hailed a cab downtown to wait for Josh Jacobson to pick us up. Rather than taking a train, Josh offered to drive us from the city to the site in Edison. We were a little concerned about being able to fit five people and all of our bags into Josh’s not-so-large car, but we were successful. The site was as you’d expect, full of people trying to decide on last minute card choices, looking for that obscure uncommon that they think is the sick tech, chatter about the bar-hopping that had been done the night before. It was the start of another awesome weekend!

Round one was about to start and AJ mentioned he still needed three Jaces. Fortunately we live during a time when anything is possible. I hopped on Twitter sending out the request, and shortly thereafter Thea Steele told me AJ could borrow hers if he still needed them. This is such a wonderful community to be a part of. I had never met Thea or her husband Justin Treadway but we’ve interacted on Twitter in the past. We spent some time chatting about various things and Justin even gave me one of his Nope shirts. Little did he know just how perfect that was, as it would save me from having to do another load of laundry before my trip home.

During lunch on Tuesday BDM had asked if I planned to make cupcakes for this event. Before I could even answer, he told me was planning to make several dozen cookies and if I wanted to I could pass those out instead. How could I refuse such an offer? I found Brian who happily handed over the bag of dark chocolate-cherry cookies. As I was giving Rashad Miller a cookie, Jacob Van Lunen also wanted one. Apparently he hadn’t heard me say there were cherries in these cookies, as he is allergic to them. If you watched SCGLive that weekend you know he was ok. He managed to spit it out and no harm was done. This is part of the reason I try to stick with the traditional chocolate and vanilla, harder for someone to accidentally eat something they are allergic to.

The event hall itself was chilly and I didn’t have the luxury of going outside for reprieve. On the way to the site I made a mental note of the Starbucks at the hotel nearby. Joshua Ravitz likes him some Starbucks, so at least once a tournament we go together for a yummy beverage. He finished his match with some time to spare so we hopped in his car. It was heartbreaking. Apparently the Starbucks is only open Monday through Friday. This makes no sense to me as it is in the lobby of a hotel and resulted in us driving back empty handed. On Sunday Josh, being the super awesome person that he is, drove to the mall and brought me back a delicious hot chocolate. I couldn’t go as I was the coverage runner, so not only did he go alone but he also went in the pouring rain. I look forward to repaying Josh for this favor at an event in the future.

Saturday had come and gone quickly. With the unfortunate two-hour delay (ok not ALL of it went quickly) the entire top 8 would be played Sunday morning. While no one in our room had made top 8, I wanted to be there to support my other friends who had. Congrats to Patrick Sullivan for winning the Standard Open! You can find photos from the Standard portion here.

Sunday was another action-packed, fun-filled day. In addition to the usual festivities we were introduced to the young superstar AJ Kerrigan during a feature match on SCGLive. Later I caught AJ and Gerry chatting. These types of interactions are wonderful to watch and what I think this game should be about.

Most of the day was spent waiting for Alix Hatfield to finish his current match. After the swiss rounds were over we headed back to the city. There was something wrong with Josh’s GPS, although he refused to say that it was “broken” even though it wouldn’t work, which resulted in a bit of a scenic route home. It was still raining and at one point we drove through a street so flooded Josh wasn’t sure we’d make it. I realize I’m dealing with gamers who like to be risky, but I’m not sure if I was driving that I’d risk my car or the chance that I’d get stuck in the middle of the road. Anyways, we made it but had to pull over several times to check the GPS on the phone trying to find our way. Finally safely back at Ben’s house we watched the rest of top 8. And by “we” I mean I fell asleep several times throughout the top 8 and couldn’t believe that it was still going on each time I woke up. Congrats to Alix Hatfield for winning the Legacy Open! You can find pictures from the Legacy portion here.

Monday was here again and it was my last day in the city. I met up with Kitt’s grandma to take her to the doctor. The difference in her spirit since the last time I saw her (only three days prior) was remarkable. She was happy and smiling, much more relaxed, and obviously in significantly less pain. Her doctor appointment went well, again the cancer was improving. I couldn’t have asked for better news as I was about to return home. I took her back to the apartment, said my goodbyes, and with tears in my eyes, made my way towards Ben’s.

For my last night in the city, Ben, Izzy, Gerry and I met up with Steve Sadin, Drew Levin and AJ Sacher for dinner. Those three had attempted to go see The Daily Show, but it hadn’t worked out. While they were waiting however they had a discussion that they were nice enough to share with us over dinner. Name the best Johns ever. They briefly told us who they had already discussed. Obviously Jon Stewart came up, as well as John Hodgeman and John Oliver. We threw out names like JFK, Jon Bon Jovi, John Bonham, John Lennon, John Steinbeck, etc. I’m sure there are some greats that we missed, but it was a fun conversation none the less.

After dinner Ben was very excited to take us somewhere. It was cold and I needed to use a restroom so I was really hoping it was worth it. We arrived at Video Games New York and while I think it was worth it, I knew I couldn’t truly appreciate how cool this place was. I took some photos for those of you who are more in the know about these sorts of things.

I woke up Tuesday morning with a smile on my face. I couldn’t wait to get back home and see Kitt, sleep in my own bed and slightly less important- have my laptop once again. I arrived at the Tampa airport to find my handsome husband with a fresh haircut and a new outfit; this made it a tad harder to recognize him, but I could never mistake his smile. We walked outside and the wonderful Florida heat engulfed me. I was home!

I want to thank Kitt for all of his encouragement, support and understanding. I am so fortunate to have found such a wonderful man and blessed to spend my life with him.

Drew and his family were so accommodating and I hope that one day I can show him the hospitality that was shown to me.

Thanks to Ben, Izzy and their parents for allowing me to crash at your house. I can’t wait for the next time Kitt and I are in NYC so we can take you guys out to dinner.

Lastly, thanks for reading this. It has been an experiment, one that I hope you enjoyed

I had insisted that Ben didn’t need to accompany me, so I was very happy when I managed to get to the apartment on my own. I had never been in the city without Kitt, but I knew this area pretty well from our previous visits. Last summer Kitt and I went up to NY to visit Lula while she was sick, and even though I saw her struggling then, it was still difficult to see her current condition. The doctors had good news, she was getting better. To see a little bit of light back in her eyes was wonderful. She still has a long road ahead of her, but it was progress.

After bringing Lula home, I stayed for awhile to do some laundry and help them out with a few things around the house. When I left Florida I only expected to be gone for four days and packed accordingly. Bringing cupcakes took precedent over packing extra clothes, shoes or even my laptop. This would make my extended stay a little more difficult.

Remember that Easy Mac that I bought back in Virginia? I was getting hungry since I didn’t eat lunch, but didn’t want to leave because I was waiting for Lula’s sister, Elfi, as she was coming to stay for a few days and I had never met her. I opened up the Easy Mac and then realized they didn’t have a microwave. It’s just pasta right? I found a small pot and went to the stove, suddenly alarmed that it was a gas stove and I had no idea how to turn it on. Yes, I realize this is embarrassing on many levels, but it is what it is. I called Kitt and after laughing at me for several minutes, he helped me get the water boiling. In case you ever consider trying to cook Easy Mac on the stove, I wouldn’t recommend it.

After Elfi arrived I headed over to Kitt’s aunt and uncle’s place where I would be staying for the week. Kitt’s cousin Evan was home from college for spring break, another bonus of coming to visit this particular week. I spent some girl time with Kitt’s cousin Ella, finding out how her freshman year of high school was going so far. After ordering some pizza I decided to call it a night and fell asleep by nine o’clock.

Going to sleep so early has its consequences; I was awake by six o’clock. After checking Facebook I durdled around for a bit, then Gerry picked me up and we started our adventure downtown. Lunch at Hill Country with Ben Hayes, Brian David Marshall, Zvi Mowshowitz and Steve Sadin was on our agenda for the day. I opted to play it safe and ordered the Longhorn Cheddar Mac & Cheese, which was by far the best I’ve ever had. It is possible that my Easy Mac experience the day before influenced my judgement, but based on the decision that 3 of our 4 sides would be the Mac & Cheese, that seems unlikely.  After lunch I was in for a treat as we all headed to Billy’s Bakery. BDM was nice enough to share his slice of Ice Box cake with me. The NYC gamers have a tradition that when someone wins a tournament they have to buy cake, and often it is this delicious Ice Box cake that I had the pleasure of tasting.

While Ben and BDM headed back to work, Gerry, Steve and I headed in the direction of Steve’s “mansion”. After at least forty-five minutes of walking we arrived at a typical NYC apartment. The place was nice, although there wasn’t much space in the common area which included the kitchen, bathroom, a computer desk and two folding chairs. We hung out for a few hours with Gerry and Steve telling old stories from various tournaments. At one point, Gerry mentioned how I had never eaten a pear, and wouldn’t you know, Steve just happened to have some pears in his fridge. I couldn’t pass up this opportunity! I tried it, it seemed very similar to an apple, which sounded alarms in Gerry’s head, so he had to taste it as well. Gerry decided it was a bad pear and that I couldn’t count this experience as trying a pear. I wanted a second opinion so we passed the pear to Steve, and he quickly ate the entire thing, disagreeing with Gerry’s assessment. You may be wondering if “passing the pear” is code for something else, but I promise this was a literal pear and no Khalni Hydras or the like were involved. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, we grabbed dinner, met up with Ben Hayes and headed home.

There’s not much to report regarding Wednesday day, however Wednesday night was a lot of fun. I headed over to Ben’s and he took us to a nice Italian restaurant called Regional. Our waitress was very interesting, rather flighty or as Ben put it “high as a kite”. She was very excited to tell us the specials, seemed proud that she could remember them all, and even offered to tell us the specials from the night before, obviously biting off more than she could chew. Eventually Ben decided on the “special with all the seafood in it” as she couldn’t remember the actual name of the dish, Gerry ordered lasagna and I ordered spaghetti. As we were discussing the menu, Gerry joked that when he ordered the lasagna she would roll her eyes and sigh, implying he wasn’t sophisticated enough to order something else, and sure enough that is exactly what happened. It is important to note that when she finally brought Gerry his Coke it was accompanied by a pink flex straw, similar to what you would give to children. Dinner was delicious and very entertaining. As I am trying to expand my palate, I thought I would try one of Ben’s uneaten baby tomatoes that had been covered in various seafood. While I can’t say I enjoyed the taste, I’m glad I tried it. For dessert I ordered plain vanilla ice cream, emphasis on the plain part. When it arrived it has several blueberries on top, one more thing I had never eaten. Now in my own defense, I’ve had blueberries in my smoothies, but I had never eaten a raw blueberry on its own. The four or five that I consumed that night weren’t enough for me to decide if I liked them or not, but at least I could check one more food item off my bucket list.

As we walked back to Ben’s we were trying to decide on a movie to watch or something else to do since it was still pretty early. Ben’s sister Isabel (aka Izzy) was having a playtesting session back at the house so we knew there was gaming to be had if we wanted. Gerry casually suggests Twilight, and Ben causally says he’s never seen it, but wouldn’t mind watching it and is pretty sure Izzy has it at home. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I happen to like Twilight so I wasn’t opposed to this idea, but found it hysterical that they were both seriously considering it and I didn’t have to do any convincing. We were in luck! Izzy did in fact have Twilight, we had found our source of entertainment for the evening. I don’t think Ben and Gerry “liked” the movie, but there was talk of watching the other two movies later in the week, so it couldn’t have been THAT bad.

Slight detour- The first time I watched Twilight was Sunday night after GP Tampa Palmetto. Liz Lempicki had convinced me to read the books, but neither of us had watched the movie yet. Sitting in my living room Liz and I were very excited. The same could not be said for the rest of my house which included Kitt, Michael Jacob, Patrick Chapin, and Gabriel Nassif, that is until MJ started chiming in. At one point we were all laughing so much we had to pause, we couldn’t let MJ miss another opportunity to crack a joke because our laughing was drowning out the TV. I don’t recall the exact quote but “mindless nulls” were involved. This was by far the most fun I have ever had watching a movie.

Ben was once again kept up past his bed time, considering he had to go to work in the morning. Thursday was guaranteed to be exciting as Sadin had scheduled Pastrami with Gamers at Katz’s Deli.

When I had first talked to Glenn about flying into Roanoke I was told the drive to DC would take about 3 hours, well worth the money I would save. With Evan driving quite a bit over the speed limit, I thought we’d make it less time. I decided to use the GPS on my phone to get a better idea of our arrival time. To my surprise, despite the fact that we had been driving for an hour and a half, we still had two and a half hours to go! At first I thought the GPS on my phone must have been acting up, but sure enough the exit numbers were matching. This was a little disappointing, but at this point there was nothing I could do. Finally we get a mile from our exit, our destination should be no more than ten minutes away. DC rush hour traffic had different plans for us and after sitting in traffic for about 45 minutes, we finally arrived at Drew Levin’s house. Drew had been nice enough to offer me a place to stay, even though he was already playing host to AJ Sacher, Gerry Thompson, Ben Hayes, Chris Anderson and Alex Bertoncini. This was quite the crew! As you may already know, Drew had high hopes for their performance at SCG DC.

Later in the evening Drew started preparing dinner. He was making Cincinnati chili and corn bread. It is no secret that I am a very picky eater so I made sure to pick up some Easy Mac from the gas station during our trip to grab milk for the corn bread and Dr. Pepper for AJ. As soon as we got back to the house Drew started boiling water for pasta. I’m not THAT familiar with chili recipes, but I had never seen anyone eat it with pasta. All that really matters is that I now I had food to eat and could save the Easy Mac for later. Dinner was ready and the plan was for all of us to eat at the dining room table. Drew and I got our food, sat down and started talking…expecting the others to join us shortly. As much as I was looking forward to all of us sitting down at the table together, it gave Drew and I chance to talk and get to know each other better. I’m sure the playtesting that was done during dinner was integral to the success that would come later that weekend.

Fortunately Drew’s parents have a house large enough to sleep all seven of us. Drew and AJ were in his room, Alex and Chris shared Drew’s brother’s room, the bedroom in the basement had been shotgunned by Gerry and Ben, leaving me with the room in the attic. The room was perfect for me. I felt like a little girl with my own life-size dollhouse.

Saturday morning came way too soon, but we had a tournament to get to! Saturday was a lot of fun. I did my MTGMOM duties, passing out cupcakes and taking photos, met some awesome new people and even signed a Carnifex Demon! You can find the photos from SCG DC on my Facebook. We were at the event hall pretty late on Saturday night, with both Alex and Gerry making top 8. And since both of them won their quarterfinal matches, we would need to be at the site first thing Sunday morning. We managed to get out of the house Sunday morning only fifteen minutes later than our scheduled departure time. It is always exciting to have friends make it deep into a tournament and sure enough Gerry and Alex won their semi-final matches, going on to meet in the finals! Gerry was victorious! You can watch their match here.

At some point on Saturday night I had the crazy idea to go to NYC for the week and then hit up SCG Edison the following weekend. I hate being away from Kitt for any amount of time, much less the four days it takes for me to go to a GP or an SCG Open alone. The SCG Invitational had been my first solo event, and it had gone really well, so I wasn’t too worried about going to SCG DC without him. However, if I went to NYC for the week, it would be the longest we’ve ever been apart (in our more than eight years of being together!). Now I know some of you have to be rolling your eyes here. You may not think of it as a big deal, but for me it was. I had given this idea a lot of thought, or at least as much thought as is possible in 24 hours, and had decided it would be a good idea. Kitt has family in NYC, his grandparents and his aunt and uncle. His grandmother, Lula, has been very sick with cancer. This was an opportunity for me to spend some time with her, bringing her to doctor appointments, helping relieve some stress from the rest of the family, while also allowing me to attend SCG Edison.

Kitt was surprised I was asking, but was supportive. We called his mom and his aunt to make sure they thought it would work. I called the airline and was able to reschedule my flight without a fee. Gerry and Ben were taking a bus from DC into the city on Monday, if we took an early enough bus I’d be able to take her to her doctor appointment. It all came together, better than I could have expected.

As you can imagine I was a little distracted by all of this on Sunday so I don’t remember much. After the swiss rounds of Legacy were over, we headed out to get some dinner, eventually deciding on Fuddruckers to meet up with Tommy Ashton, Stephen King, Adam Prosak, Jacob Burns and John Moore. Once seated, our table included me, AJ, Drew, Matt Lackey, Gerry and Chranderson, while Ben joined the other table. Out of nowhere Gerry asked John Moore who he thought was the scummiest person at our table. John Moore was chosen to answer as he would have the least perceived notions regarding the people involved. Prosak snapped answered that it was me. Gerry thought for sure the answer would be AJ, but to his surprise John decided it was in fact Gerry himself. There was no good answer here, AJ was offended that Gerry expected it to be him, Gerry wasn’t thrilled at being chosen, I wouldn’t suggest trying this one at home.

When we got back to Drew’s we watched the rest of top 8 and then passed out. The rest of my journey would start in a few hours.

June 11-12 Denver, CO
June 25-26 Baltimore MD
July 16-17 Cincinnati, OH
July 23-24 Seattle, WA
July 30-31 Pittsburgh, PA
August 13-14 Richmond, VA
August 20-21 Boston, MA
September 10-11 Atlanta, GA
October 1-2 Indianapolis, IN
October 8-9 Nashville, TN
October 22-23 Baltimore, MD
October 29-30 Houston, TX
November 5-6 Los Angeles, CA
December 3-4 St. Louis, MO
December 9-11 Charlotte, NC — Invitational