Philadelphia

I went to Philadelphia for the first time over Labor Day weekend. It was a fantastic trip. I felt like I had gone to another country or something…

My buddies Trei, Michael and I left early Saturday morning. We took the metro up to Union Station in D.C and caught the early train to Philly. It is only a two hour trip. We passed the time geeking out about work stuff.

Once in Philly we caught a regional train downtown and checked into our hotel. We booked a place that was smack in the middle of town. From this base of operations we able to head up and down and all-around…

We did the tourist thing mostly, seeing some fancy sculptures at the Rodin Museum and eating tasty diner food at the open 24 hours and delicous Metropolitan III diner and cocktail lounge. We also visited and ate good eats in the nation’s third-largest Chinatown and, of course, we checked out the Liberty Bell.

Checking out the Liberty Bell was kinda strange because they have installed all sorts of security around it. To get into the sterile cant-touch-the-relic room you first have to remove your belt and go through an x-ray machine…

The town is walkable and full of bikes. The weather was perfect and so the many squares were full of folks lounging and such. It is definitely a place where you can just “show up” without a plan (as we did) and just walk around discovering things. One of our favorite discoveries was the Famous Fourth Street Delicatessen. We stumbled upon this place while walking around the record-store rich South Street area. The food was tasty-delicious and the portions were overwhelming. I probably lost a couple years of life eating the pastrami and eggs, but it was worth it…

Anyhow, the trip culiminated with a baseball game. On Labor Day we caught the Phillies versus the Astros. It turned out to be a perfect day for a game; and since the Phillies are in a wild-card hunt, the whole city turned out. We got to witness 10 innings of crowd driven, people jumping up and down for it baseball.

Also, the hot-dogs were only 1 dollar. Dollar dogs! I ate 3. I wish I could have eaten more!

Anyhow, here is a clip