I was finally able to celebrate my 40th birthday! I went to Philadelphia with a good friend of mine. We went to NYC together 4 years ago after Lincoln and Annika turned 1. Mari is the life of the party and we have fun together. She knew this year was my big birthday and decided that we needed to go on a trip together to celebrate. Fine by me! We couldn't make a trip work in October for various reasons so we decided on mid-November.
Day 1
We started our trip at the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple. It is beautiful inside and out. I love attending the temple with friends. Here are different views of the temple at different times of the day.
After our time in the temple we were hungry so we ate at Sabrina's Cafe and Spencer's Too. It had really good reviews and ratings so we decided to give it a try. We went mid-afternoon and it was packed. We split an "Autumn Special" which was two poached eggs, chorizo, butternut squash, avocado and a yummy spicy sauce on top. It was really good. I would love two go back to this Cafe sometime and try other food. Mari and I split all of our meals so we wouldn't be too stuffed at any one time. It worked perfectly for us!
Our next stop was the Eastern State Penitentiary. Joseph said he didn't think it sounded like a very fun tourist attraction, but there were so many positive reviews and ratings that we decided to give it a try. I learned so much about prison on our tour. The outside of the jail looks a little like a castle and it was intended to look that way. The penitentiary was operational from 1829 to 1971. It was designed as a place to inspire personal reflection on one's actions through solitary confinement. Three men, one being Benjamin Franklin, came up with this idea after seeing that criminals were too rowdy when they were waiting punishment together in a large room. If the criminals could have some time to reflect on their actions they might be more inclined to feel penitent and remorse. This jail was termed the "Pennsylvania system" and many other jails were patterned after this jail. At first the jail time was intended to be only a few days or months and never intended for long term residents. The inmates would be brought into the jail with hoods on and they wore hoods anytime they were out of a cell to preserve their anonymity so when they returned to "the outside world" no one would know they had been in the Penitentiary.
View from across the street.
The jail was designed in a "wagon wheel" style where a guard could stand at the center of a "wheel" and turn and see all of the corridors in the jail.
The above picture is what most cells look like and the picture below is a restored version of what it looked like when it was an active prison.
As inmates started staying for longer terms the penitentiary ran out of room so they started building the two level corridors.
Bank robber, Willie Sutton and Al Capone were two notorious criminals that spent some time at the ESP. I personally think for being a criminal Al Capone's cell was pretty nice...all except for that locked door!
Al Capone's Cell
One statistic that I thought was amazing is that 70% of Americans have committed crimes for which they could be jailed...drug use, assault, forgery, shoplifting, just to name a few of them.
After breaking out of jail we walked to the Museum of Art. I first visited Philadelphia when I was pregnant with Kimball and I was a first time pregnant mom and overly cautious and I didn't run up the Museum stairs. If I were to go back 12 1/2 years knowing what I know now I would totally run up the stairs pregnant! Running up the stairs, and we did run, was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. I guess this 40 year old is in better shape than I thought!
The picture on the left is after the run to the top. Ready to run with Rocky!
View from the Museum of Art.
Gorgeous sunset at the base of the Museum stairs.
These are pictures of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. It wasn't very big, but it was still beautiful.
City Hall
I love the art and statues around the city. Here is some love that we found!
I'm posting about our food adventures in case I ever want to go back to Philadelphia and want a reminder of good places to eat OR so I can recommend places if someone were to ask me good places to eat in Philly. Since this was a trip in my honor Mari left a lot of the food choices up to me...I don't like making the decisions! I did remember eating a yummy pizza with my sisters when we visited Rochester, MN in January for my Grandpa's funeral. I told Mari I wanted a nice specialty pizza so we ended up at Pizza Vetri. It was SO yummy. We ordered crispy brussels sprouts for an appetizer. They were roasted to perfection and had a sweet mustard sauce with them. (Just a tangent here...if you don't like Brussels Sprouts, you don't know what you are missing!! They are turning into one of my favorite vegetables.) We ordered a spinach pizza with baby spinach, grilled onions and garlic, mozzarella, mushrooms and another cheesy sauce. It was a thin crust pizza except for the outer rim. It was really good. We both enjoyed it so much.
For dessert we needed a specialty dessert restaurant so we went to Max Brenner Chocolate Bar and Restaurant. We had dessert at a Max Brenner in NYC and loved it. We ended up ordering "Max's Famous Chocolate Mess Party for Two which was described as: "chocolate mud cake in milk chocolate ganache, piles of whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, chocolate chunks and toffee sauce. Served with bananas, strawberries and choco pops.
The above picture looked promising, but the dessert was awful! I took a few bites and it just had an off taste to it. Mari thought similarly and the off flavor was just too strong that we couldn't eat it. The cake was almost non-existent, too. The waiter asked how we liked our dessert and we felt terrible, but we just told him that we didn't care for it and we were ready for the check. He saw that we only ate a few bites so he talked with the manager and our check was forgiven. It was really nice of him and we left him a nice tip. If you go to Max Brenner, stay away from the chocolate mess party for two!
We had to redeem our dessert fail so we went across the street and ordered a Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. We ordered it "to go" so we were in and out within minutes. We headed to our hotel and enjoyed our piece of deliciousness!
We stayed in Cherry Hill, NJ. We decided to stay here for a few reasons. It was cheaper and also it was faster to make a 15 minute drive to New Jersey than to battle Philadelphia traffic. I would recommend doing this to anyone traveling to Philadelphia.
Day 2
We had breakfast as Cafe Lift. It had good ratings and the food was very good. We had a cannoli french toast which was yummy. Other food we saw looked good, too.
We walked through the Reading Terminal Market. We walked through during breakfast time and dinner time. It's a popular location! It was just fun to see the different counters filled with food.
Candies and chocolates
Enormous pancakes as big as a dinner plate! Lots of deli meat. There was also a counter of different types of beef jerky. Who knew there were so many flavors of jerky!
After breakfast we took a tour of the Betsy Ross House. We paid an extra $3 for the audio tour and it was well worth the extra cost. I learned so much about Betsy Ross. She was a widow TWICE before she was thirty! How sad to lose two husbands at such a young age! She didn't actually own this house, but rented her bedroom and the front room on the first floor for her Upholstery shop.
It was in this parlor that General George Washington and two other men visited
Betsy Ross and asked her to make a flag.
This was Betsy's room where she made the flag in secret. She figured that her bedroom would provide more privacy than her shop downstairs for making the flag.
This is an employee who portrays Betsy Ross as a widow. She was very well trained and any question we asked she would answer as if she were a young Betsy Ross. Another visitor asked this employee if Betsy Ross had children and her response was that children were always a desire. Apparently there are two other employees who portray Betsy at other periods in her life and they would have been able to give answers about children and such. Betsy did have 2 daughters with her second husband and 5 daughters with her third husband. Five of her daughters lived to adulthood.
Betsy Ross's Grave
We walked down Elfreth's Alley. This is the longest continuously inhabited street in America. The row houses were so cute, but so tiny. I couldn't imagine living in such a small, narrow house! I wonder how much these houses would cost or if the houses are just passed down through family members.
One of my few "musts" on my trip was a stop at ICI Macaron and Cafe. This place is well known for their macarons and they had so many flavors. I had never tried a macaron but I learned about them on The Great British Baking Show and I have wanted to try them every since. Mari and I bought an assortment and tried them.
Other pastries that are sold. I had a delicious almond croissant...my favorite!
These are the macarons we bought. Our top favorites were salted caramel, hazelnut, raspberry, dark chocolate and pecan praline in that order. The lavender wasn't good at all. It tasted too grassy/earthy. We felt like we were eating something made out of grass. We joked that it was the Max Brenner fail of the macarons. If I were to go back to Philadelphia this would be a place I would revisit. I'm a foodie, what can I say!
Our last big adventure was in honor of Benjamin Franklin. He was so well rounded. He was interested in politics, medicine, science, music, etc. It's just amazing that he was so well rounded. Very inspiring. I should branch out in my interests! Below is his grave which is at Christ's Church.
This is an armonica which he invented. Look up an armonica performance on YouTube if you don't know how an armonica is played. Cool!
We stopped at the first Post Office in American. They stamp a special post mark on mail sent from here so, of course, we sent ourselves post cards!
Independence Hall. We had both toured this on previous visits so we just walked by it.
Philadelphia has so much art. Here are a few pictures of some art that we saw. We were going to tour the Magic Gardens, but it was so busy we couldn't get an early enough tour time.
Brightly colored mural.
Already decorating for Christmas.
Near the Magic Gardens
We had a fabulous time in Philadelphia. If you haven't visited Philadelphia, put it on your list of places to visit. I would love to go back for more fun experiences and food. I'm really a suburb girl at heart, but I do like having the city experience where I eat fun food and see fun things occasionally.
