Philly- the city of brotherly love (literally)

One of Spencer's selling points on getting me to move to the East Coast was to be able to take day trips with him when he had demo's in other states. He had a few appointments in Philadelphia this last weekend, so Charley and I tagged along. I pictured Philadelphia way different than what it was.. I thought it was more ghetto and trashy (maybe I'm just used to New York) but it is actually a really clean city and everyone there is super nice! It is called the City of Brotherly Love and it really is! Everyone is super nice and we got so many people helping us out, offering to take our picture and show us where to go. It was a fun weekend trip! 

   Friday morning we woke up and ate breakfast at Sabrina's. It serves these famous stuffed French Toast... they are huge and YUM!

Then Spencer went to his meetings for the day and Charley and I walked along Kelly Drive. It's this really cool pathway that goes along the water and up to Fairmont Park. Fairmont Park is huge and is really cool. It has a zoo, a "please touch" museum, the whispering benches, water works park and some really cool statues. Charley and I walked along it for a few miles and we got to see some rowing teams racing! There were some big ivy-leauge schools there, so it was fun to watch. 

 Then we met back up with Spencer and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Rocky statue and steps.

 We of course had to walk up the 72 steps! 

 We then walked along Franklin Blvd which is really cool! The whole city is really walk-able and easy to get around. 

And went to the Rodin Museum to see the "Thinker" statue

 And then we went to JFK Plaza to the LOVE park to see the LOVE sculpture.

Saturday was a fun filled day to see all the historic sites! We went to the Historic Square Mile where everything is and saw the Independence National Historic Park, Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Presidents House, Constitution Center, Franklin Court and the tomb of the Unknown Solider.

 Waiting for our tour to start. We went into Independence Hall where the Constitution was signed.

 Here is the room where the constitution was signed. It's cool because they said that 90% of the brick and 70% of the wood is still original!

 The sun on the back of the chair represented the rise of a new Nation. 

The Liberty Bell! 

 Franklin's Court was really cool. He was loaded with money and you could tell from where his house used to be. There is a huge "ghost structure" where it used to be with cool facts around his court.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The flame is eternally burning for all the unknown soldiers buried at that place during the Revolutionary War. 

 Then we went into South Philadelphia and got a famous Cheesesteak at Pat's. There are two famous cheesesteak places right next to each other, Pat's and Geno's. Pat's is the original and he is the one who invented the cheesesteak, so we decided to go there. The line is super long at both places. They say that there really is never not a line and it is open 24 hours! 

 You have to be ready to order and know what you want since the line is so long. They have a sign to show you how to order and if you don't order right, they send you to the back of the line! You basically have to choose which type of cheese you want (cheese-wiz, provolone or american) and if you want fried onions. They really move you along and tell you to have your cash out and ready! 

Last thing we did was go up to North Philadelphia to a place called Fishtown. There was a kite festival going on with food trucks and lots of people flying kites! It was fun to relax and let Charley crawl around before we went back to New York. 

It was a fun weekend getaway! Next on the bucket list: DC, Boston, Rhode Island, Maine, Palmyra and Vermont!