Gawd - I've added a few more photos and now this post is long and unwieldy but I can't be arsed breaking it up - totally understand if you only get part way through - that's if anyone is actually reading this anyways...
I squashed a penny. As a wide-eyed kid visiting America at the tender age of 10 years old - I loved NOTHING more than testing out all the different 'candy' and paying good money to flatten out a penny with an imprint of whatever monument we were visiting. I got my 'kid' on today and squashed a penny with an imprint of the LOVE statue. Philly has a 'Love Park' with a version of American artist Robert Indiana's LOVE sculpture.
As I said previously, Philly is FULL of mural arts. I said there were over 3000, well actually there are over 3000! including an amazing series called a 'Love Letter for You' (makes my heart melt). I'll post more on that later. So we took a trolley tour to check them out. (Mural Arts website - check it out)
'Fall'
'Winter'
Frank Sinatra mural.
The story-teller mural.
'The Franks' outside a bar called Dirty Franks. FRANK Sinatra, Aretha FRANKlin... etc.
Stephen Power painted a number of murals along a train line in West Philly. They read like a love letter from a man to a woman. My heart melts. Here are but a few pics - check out the website for more. I'm saving my favourites.
A public square near the Love Park where they have oversized game pieces. We had fun playing. It was a little ironic as we were only talking about dominos the day before, trying to figure out the rules and how you play them/win?
Fresh off the bus from New York, a friendly Philly fella gave us a run down on some cool things to do in Philly. One of them was to eat at the Greek Cart - cheap good fresh food - sounds like a winner to me! He told us the street corner on which to find it but no real other details. So I looked it up on Yelp to find out that it was known as the Mediterranean Food Cart and it had rave reviews. We set out one evening, craving greek food, and searched high and low for the cart. A lovely stranger asked us what we were looking for and said he didn't know where it was but if it was a cart it was probably only a lunchtime thing. So, we set out again a few days later...AND... we found it!
The Greek guy's name was Konstantinos and he was a funny fellow. There was no menu and no prices. Basically you just ate what he gave you. Hilar. Now, I'm one of those slightly OCD people that doesn't like to mix my food together. For example - in a baked dinner I like to sort out the vegetables in quadrants so my peas to mix with my roast potatoes, or my gravy to go on certain vegetables. So when Konstantinos gave me a box filled with cous cous with lettuce, tomato, blueberries (!), Greek yoghurt, felafel and chargrilled chicken all mixed together, with flat bread sitting in the sauce going soggy, I was a little freaked out. In the end, it was so yum - regardless of being mixed together.
After lunch I found some $1 fire crackers on sale at the 7/11 and I just HAD to buy them and let them off in the street. It was so much fun. I felt like a 10 year old boy.
We found a juice bar at the Reading Terminal Markets that was sooooo good. My fave combo was carrot, pineapple and apple. I've been craving it ever since we left Philly.
It was hot, so we were cooling our feet in a fountain.
The Big Sissa wasn't concerned about the 'no swimming' signs. 'Other kids were doing it too!'
Nom. How could you not want to go into a shop called sweet ending. It promises only good things, like, a sweet ending.
Inside was frozen yoghurt (0% fat - so it's basically like eating air, pretty much) in so many flavours with a gazillion toppings and additives. Then you pay by weight.
I saw this and had a little giggle. Not sure why.
These little fellas are all over the States on zebra crossings. It's like gorilla stencil art.
Over to the Philadelphia Museum of Art - commonly recognised as the home of 'The Rocky Stairs'.
Of course I had to have a run up the stairs. I really wanted to wear my grey tracksuit - but alas it was 50 billion degrees so no deal. NB: I don't actually own a grey tracksuit.
The Museum has a cast of Rodin's Thinker. So I did some thinking.
Gig time!
We got to the venue a liiiittle early so we killed time playing in the photo booth and drinking beers.
The venue was super cute and very intimate. It had a balcony area over looking the stage and room for around 50 people on both the ground level and also on the balcony.
What a better start to a seedy morning than munching on a cupcake! This one was Banana Split flavour. I didn't eat it. I ate the caramel pecan and sweet potato cupcake - it was delic.
Chilling at the movies. We saw Cyrus. I thought it was great.
Lunch-time beers. Does life get any better? Hehe. I stumbled (not literally) into this cute little brewery and asked the maitre de if they offered tasters or samples of their beers. She shrugged her shoulders and said 'I dunno. You might have to ask at the bar' (clueless). Sitting at the bar were 2 other people with exactly the same idea as me, with tasting glasses lined up in a row. Maybe the Maitre de was new? As an aside, classic customer service here in the US though - no one has any idea what is going on in their place of employment and don't seem to care that much either. I suppose if you got paid $4.50 an hour you wouldn't care much either.
My little ducklings lined up in a row of lightest to darkest. Most disgusting would have to be the Coffee and Creme two from the right. Spew. It as the consistency of Guinness and tasted like... wait for it.... coffee and cream a beer. Third from the left was my fav.
Wandering through the old town - 7 of the signatories to the declaration of independence were buried in the grounds of Christ Church.
Elfreth Alley - the oldest continually inhabited street in the USA.
The Macy's building in downtown Philly is gorgeous.
I did a historic walking tour later in the week and this was my guide. Haha. It should have been a group tour but I was the only one, so it was a one on one. I felt kind of sorry for the guide wearing these clothes in the heat - it was about 30+ degrees.
We went to the Mutters Museum of scientific and medical oddities. It was grossly fascinating.
This is a photo of a collection of items swallowed from the late 1700's. There were plenty of safety pins (how do you accidentally swallow a safety pin?), coins, Jacks, battleships and game pieces.
Dinner at Buddakan with Big Sissa's pals from the Berra. All sporty cyclists competing professionally in the States. We fell in love with Buddakan in NYC and found out that the owner, Stephen Starr, actually had a series of restaurants in Philly (where they started). So we tried out Buddakan #2 (Asian fusion) (still friggin awesome), Morimoto (modern Japanese) and El Vez (Mexican). Nom. So so good. There were still 7 or so more to try!
A photographer stopped randoms on the streets of Philly and took their picture for the chair seat covers. How funny if you came into the restaurant and got to sit on a chair with your face on it.
The Big Sissa hates japanese food (I know right? whaat!) So I took myself off on a lunch date to Stephen Starr's modern Japanese restaurant Morimoto. I hung out with the Japanese chefs at the sushi bar and had a degustation menu. SO GOOD. But also, lets just say I don't need to eat fish for a VERY long time.
El Vez mexican dinner. The guacamole was to die for. It was served in a giant mortar & pestle.
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