Visiting The City of Brotherly Love — Life as an Americanadian

Oct 28

Oct 28 Visiting The City of Brotherly Love

Next stop on the East Coast trip? Philly! My hotel was in the historic area of town so I was able to jump right into American History mode first thing in the morning. I was only in Philadelphia for the day so I had to try and fit a bunch of stuff in. Per usual, I didn't make much of a plan for this stop of the trip but relied on my tried and true method of wandering around until I found stuff I liked. After a quick Starbucks stop, I found myself at wandering around things like Betsy Ross' house and Benjamin Franklin's grave... history like whoa! I kept up with the history lesson with a visit to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall (and other crazy important historic buildings). I wasn't into doing the tour inside Independence Hall (there was a high number of obnoxious and loud people in line) so I headed over to Washington Park before stopping by Fat Salmon to get my sushi fix (yum!).

Happily full from delish sushi, I headed downtown to JFK plaza to see the famous LOVE Statue and then continued down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway past the Rodin Museum and Logan Circl before finally getting to my ultimate couldn't-miss-it spot of the Philadelphia Art Museum. Well technically not the museum but rather the steps in front of the museum as I was determined to reenact the famous Rocky running up the steps scene- super original idea right?? No one has ever done that before *insert eye roll emoji*. After taking pity on me attempting to use a timer app to take a picture of myself running up the stairs repeatedly (good workout), a very nice woman from Mexico took my pics and then I did the same for her- good fellow traveler karma on both sides. After that thrilling photo shoot, I beelined back to the very impressive city hall for my 4:15 appointment to go to the top of the tower. We went all the way to the top- right under William Penn's feet- and it was an incredible view (and such a pretty day!).

My last stop before picking up my stuff and heading to the train station was to search out an important food item. Earlier in the day, a woman saw me sitting looking at a map and figured out I was a tourist- she recommended that I check out Reading Terminal Market for good food. Thanks to her kindness, I found myself at the end of the day waiting for my very first Philly Cheesesteak to get wrapped up to go. It was awesome!! How have I never eaten one before?!?!? Life fail!