Weekend Trip to Philly

The past couple of years, Ben and I have started a tradition of taking a quick weekend minivacation to explore a city.  This year we considered going back to New York, but I had never been to Philadelphia and it's closer and cheaper, so we decided to go there instead.

We stayed at the Penn's View Hotel in the Old City. The location was great, within a few minutes walk of all the historical sights, tons of restaurants, and a subway station. This was the view from our tiny (as in 8 inches deep and too scary to actually walk out onto) balcony.

The first night we arrived at dinnertime and set out for the closest place we could find.  We ended up at The Plough and the Stars, which was a little loud but otherwise fine.  We got this delicious appetizer spread to start.

And then I failed to take any more food pictures.  Oops!

Saturday we set out to walk across town to the Rittenhouse Square area, where Ben's mom lived in the 70s. It was a pretty day, although extremely windy and about 60 degrees, so not fantastic weather for wandering around.

City Hall is pretty impressive.

We saw a second LOVE statue, the first being outside our hotel in Montreal last fall.

In Rittenhouse Square.

The neighborhood around there was very cute and old.

This is where Ben's mom lived!

For lunch I had wanted to go to a vegetarian dim sum place in Chinatown, but they were closed for the holiday.

I don't know why I'm always surprised in Chinatown that there are actual Chinese people and shops there. I guess I expect it to be a tourist attraction rather than a real neighborhood.

Anyway, we walked to Reading Terminal Market for lunch instead.  It is jam packed full of every type of food you can possibly imagine, and also a million people. 

After walking around for a while we decided to stop at the first place we could find that had seats available, which turned out to be a Cajun place.  I made a passing stranger take this picture of us. Benjamin was thrilled.

The food was delicious!  I got a jambalaya bowl and Benjamin got a blackened chicken sandwich and cajun fries.

In the afternoon we saw a lot of the historical sights, including the house where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.

We passed by the Liberty Bell Center but the line was huge so we did not go in.  You can see it through glass, though.  You can also see Benjamin's reflection in the bell!  See his blue visor?

We went on a tour of Independence Hall.

George Washington sat in that chair on the left!  That very chair!  I almost cried when I saw it.  Ah, America.

I have gotten two new really comfortable pair of shoes over the past couple of months, some Naturalizer flats and a pair of Born sandals, that I thought would be great for summertime vacation walking.  GUESS WHAT they were both horrible.  I had to buy some tennis shoes at Ross Dress for Less.  I guess I'm just going to have to come to terms with being an unfashionable tourist.  Hopefully not quite this unfashionable at all times, however.

We went over to the Christ Church graveyard to see Benjamin Franklin's grave, which was very exciting.  There isn't much I love more than an old graveyard.

That night we had a tapas dinner at Amada, which I highly, highly recommend if you are ever in Philadelphia. It was fantastic. Fortunately we did not have a car.

On Sunday we met up with my friend Lauren for brunch.  

And then Lauren and I got matching tattoos. For the past 11 years I've been part of a group of friends who met on the internet circa 1998-2002, and recently we thought of the idea of having a secret internet friend tattoo that we all share.  So far two people had gotten it already:

And now Lauren and I were up. Our appointment was for 12:00, but no one was there when we showed up!  We waited around for a while and then decided to leave a note and go to the tattoo shop up the street instead.

When we got to the second place, however, they seemed really concerned we were going to lose the deposit we'd put down at the first shop, so we sent Ben back down there to make sure they hadn't arrived.  And, of course, they had. So we went back and they were really apologetic and gave us $10 off each, so it all worked out.

The tattoo itself took, I am estimating, fifty seconds.  I'm a huge wimp and expected it to be terrible but it really wasn't that bad.

OMG.

I have had a few moments since when I'm a little freaked out about having a visible tattoo for the rest of my life but it's really small and unobtrusive, plus it gives me a nice feeling about my awesomely great friends whenever I see it. Yay!

So anyway, after that Lauren dropped me and Ben off at the Eastern State Penitentiary for a tour.  It was built in the 1830s and used as a prison since the 1970s, but was then allowed to decay almost completely until they decided to start opening it to the public as a tourist attraction.  I don't know that I've ever been anywhere that has so thoroughly disintegrated and left open without being cleaned up or repaired. Some parts obviously had been, for safety reasons, but most of it looked like this:

Those walls are tall!

After the prison tour, we walked over to the Art Museum, where we got a little snack but did not pay to see the art.  The weather was perfect.

We did not run up the Rocky steps, although we sat and watched quite a few people doing it. Humans are such nerds. There was a long line of people waiting to get their picture taken with the statue.

We also went into the main library for a while, which is pretty great.

Then we spent the rest of the afternoon doing this in Rittenhouse Square Park.

Our last dinner was at the Dandelion Pub, and was fantastic. We didn't have one bad meal in Philadelphia, really.  Great all around.

Now we are HOME and I am glad.