My Philadelphia Story
I feel like my blog is fastly becoming a travel blog as of late, since now I'm gonna share some highlights from my recent impromptu trip to Philadelphia on Saturday and Sunday.

It's only a 2 hour trip from NYC by car and neither my traveling partner nor I had been to the city of brotherly love before. It was indeed a friendly city and perfect for a quick weekend adventure. Unfortunately the weather on Saturday didn't want to cooperate so we spent the day trying to keep dry at the National Constitution Center seeing the Benjamin Franklin: In Search of A Better World exhibit that's running until April 30th, which was really very interesting especially when the fire alarm went off and the whole place had to evacuate and go back out into the rain. The center included the first public printing of the Constitution in a Philly newspaper plus lots of actual Ben Franklin artifacts, manuscripts and portraits.

We stayed at The Latham Hotel in downtown near all the fancy shops, ate at the yummy and fashionable Continental (much like a larger Cafeteria that's in Manhattan) and drank mojitos and did some salsa and meringue out on the dance floor at Cuba Libre. They had two professional dancers dance first and during the applause a guy near me at the bar asked, "Do you dance?" Pointing to the impressive couple on the dance floor, I was like, "Not like that!" Although I haven't had any lessons, except the steps my friend's husband Eddy showed me one time, I think I managed to hold my own, well, either way it was fun as was the place.

The next day was much nicer and sunnier so we got to see more of the city outside the mall and hit all the tourist highlights. Saw the famous Liberty Bell (smaller than I thought it would be), ran up the Rocky steps, received palms at Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, saw the Delaware River and the LOVE sculpture, rode the metro and bus and of course ate a cheese steak from Pats (so yummy, cheesy, greasy--I'm still full).

Here I am thinking I'm a Rocky-ette and a photo of the museum steps:


Some personal conclusions on the city: small streets, friendly people, scary alleyways, lots of fountains--actually the city seems fountain obsessed really, quaint buildings, lots of history and "benergy," pretty quiet for a city, not too many people and there's a reason why they are called 'Philly' cheese steaks and it's well deserved.
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On a sadder note, today would have been my Dad's 52nd birthday. In honor of his bday and lotto affection/addiction (he'd spend 20 bucks a day playing the numbers) I'm gonna play 410 today in NY's Lotto.