8.21.04

So, continuing my Philadelphia story.

On Sunday, we started our day by wandering around the Art Museum area. This is the neighborhood seen in the photos below. We loved this area. It was really nice and had a mix of people--young, old, singles, families, etc. . . This is definitely the neighborhood at the top of our list for purchasing a home.
We stopped and had brunch at another Moroccan place called Figs. I had a very excellent Eggs Benedict. Note that the breakfast served was not really Moroccan, although Micah had his eggs with some sort of Moroccan stew.
After brunch, we toured the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Wow, this place is huge. There were many pieces there that I was unaware of them having. I won't list all the artists, but will say that you cannot see everything in one day. At least not well.
Then we walked up to Fairmount Park. It is a very large park, but unfortunately we were hot (very humid) and tired (after the museum.) We walked back towards Center City. We had trouble catching a bus because there was a very large musical festival going on. Not sure what festival, but the music was not up our alley. It seemed to be a mix of gospel and r&b.
We grabbed the 23 bus and rode through North Philly. This area has seen better days--or maybe it hasn't. It almost looks like a war-torn village. Not a pretty sight. I am not sure how safe it is there, but I wouldn't wander around at night. The destination of our bus trip was Chestnut Hill.
Chestnut Hill is nice if you want to live in Mayberry. We hated it there. It was TOO perfect. It gave me the creeps. As soon as we stepped off the bus (end of the bus line), we started looking for a way out. I felt bad that we wasted time on checking this neighborhood out. I had heard good things about the area. I guess it is good if you like the suburbs. Yuck!
Once we got back to Center City, we headed to Olde City and had a nice dinner at an Irish restaurant called The Plough & the Stars. It is an upscale place with live Irish music. It was very relaxing and after all the walking we had done, I had a hard time getting up out of my chair after the dinner was over.
Once I was able to actually stand up and walk, we again wandered around until we came to a place called Monk's Cafe. It looked pretty cool so we decided to check it out. This tavern's specialty is Belgian beers. The Beer Bible is pretty damn impressive. I just had a German Dopplebock (I wasn't in a adventurous mood, but Micah had a great Belgian beer. Sorry, but I can't think of the name of it now.