24 Hours in Philadelphia

Nate surprised me and asked his Mom to babysit for 24 hours to celebrate my birthday.  I had about a day to pick where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. Not easy here on the East Coast where our options are endless. So thank you Mom for watching the kids that was a very special birthday gift. She kept the baby too. Hank decided to stop sleeping through the night just the night before we left. Ah!

1. Drove to and parked at our Priceline Motel in Center City. $67 was the lowest price that was accepted. We had to pay the taxes and fees and parking on top of that. Hilton Garden Inn. I think I started the bid at $55 and they were like "No try 67."

2. We were going to walk to the Mutter Museum which looks really creepy but Ted says it's also fascinating but it was too close to closing time. There was a Trader Joe's next to that and we decided to check that out just for the fun of it. On our walk we noticed the new Indigo bikes and thought, "Why not?" FUN we loved the Indigo bikes. Although I imagine having your own bike would be even better. Things to watch out for. Even though there are two bikes in the bike rack they won't rent the one to you if it has a flat tire. This found Nate riding the first rented bike to the next Indigo stop on our route while I jogged beside him. Ha ha. More like speed walking with the occasional hop. Another problem when arriving at our final bike station the entire bike rack was full and thus we could not drop off there and had to pedal to one that was further from Chinatown which is where we were headed for supper. So we biked to Trader Joe's, biked back to the motel to drop off groceries, biked around the block because we just were not tired of it yet, and then parked them.

The one in the back has the flat. 

3. Eat in Chinatown. You all ready know that I liked Penang in Chinatown and I was excited for Nate to try it. It was packed. I was sort of going nuts because Nate was busy eating and not saying much about the food so he kept me in suspense for awhile. We shared 2 appetizers and one meal. He loved it.

4. New Crepe place across the street. T-Swirl Crepe. The window display lures you in and the process they go into making each crepe is fun to watch.

5. Big Bus Tours. We had no idea what we were going to do on day 2 although we knew we wanted to get lunch at Sabrina's in Italian Market. While looking up details for the observation deck in City Hall I saw an add for the Big Bus Tour on my sidebar. For the first time in my life I felt like taking one of those tours so we did.

We are just great with directions and look like tourists walking around with our noses in our phone maps. I had the right address in my map so we were going the right way but both Nate and I were picturing City Hall instead of Independence Hall. It took us a bit to figure this out and thankfully we did not backtrack. We actually really liked the bus tour. It is not cheap like the Observation deck would have been but you can get on and off as you please all day long. We so did not plan this but while waiting for our first bus to take off at stop one we checked to see if any of the stops were close to Italian Market. Score. We got off at the Antique Row stop and walked 5 minutes to Sabrina's. Then after crazy good fish tacos and french toast we walked to the next stop at South Street which left us hit up the shops on South Street.

6.  Sabrina's Cafe.

The fish tacos are crazy good. 

7. South Street Shopping/walking. We popped into a cute vintage shop and did some shoe shopping but other than that just enjoyed the walk.

Other things we have done in Philly:

1. We loved the Eastern State Penitentiary.
2. We like to eat at Honey's.  Nate is pretty buggy to get back there. The fresh Orange Juice.
3. If we go to a game we eat at Tony Luke's Cheesesteaks. 
4. Race Street Pier
5. Reading Terminal Market
6. Art Museum (I like this a lot more than Nate)
7. Rittenhouse Square is beautiful and I like to browse at Anthropology there. I think Nate would be       bored here though.

Let me know if you've got a favorite in the city that I missed.  My cousin Deb raves about a gelato place we should try.