by laura beth

Hot....hot. Hot. We walked around Center City Philadelphia today like hot, sticky, tourists with swollen fingers. We parked and walked Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was closed. We walked up and down the "Rocky steps" and took a photo with the over-sized Rocky statue. I really felt like a zombie the whole time cause it was so hot. And Kenny was like a zombie cause his allergies were really acting up. We had a picnic lunch in the lawn in front of Julie's nourishing mother, Moore College of Art and Design. After a refreshing nap, we walked to Rittenhouse Square, which is my new favorite park. On the way there, Julie and I stopped in this adorable shop that sells my favorite incense at a bargain. Hoorah! Later we grabbed some water ice and Gelatis at Rita's (I had watermelon, fell in love, and wept inside at the fact that I can't get one just anywhere), and cooled off in the Kimmel Center, home of the Philadelphia Orchestra. I loved the Kimmel Center, other than the vertigo-inducing levels, and the stairwell banisters that were on backwards and ergonomically incorrect (Bill, can I get an amen?). It had an indoor roof top garden, and reminded me a little of what the cities of the future might look like. Plus they had really comfy chairs. It was then on toCity Hall with it's fun acoustics and lovely statues, Love Park, and Logan Circle (Square) with it's projectile vomiting frogs and turtles. We also stopped by Saint Peter Saint Paul Albanian Orthodox Church. The couple there spoke broken English and could not understand why we would want to come look at the church. They were very hesitant to let us in, but eventually they did. We had a nice conversation with them and the church was beautiful and really old. We then drove to Standard Tap for dinner: awesome beer, awesome chicken pie, awesome salad, awesome creme brulee. Local produce. Local brews. Awesome. At this point, with thought to myself that I wouldn't mind living in Philadelphia. It's pretty great as far as a largish city goes. We stopped by a beer distributor before heading home and I picked up some cute little Japanese owl beers. They were expensive and not super great. Oh well. It was a good day in Philadelphia.