A Weekend in Philly

Jason's been to Philadelphia a couple of times and has been telling me how great it is and how much I would like it.  In November he had a conference in there and I joined him for the weekend.  It turned out to be an extra special time!

Jason drove up for his conference on Thursday;  Friday I took the train up from Fredericksburg, and on Sunday we drove back home together. 

There was something very romantic about waiting
in the early morning for a train, especially one
that was taking me to my sweetie.

The trains really blow their whistle when they
approach a station!  It added to the ambiance
of the whole time.

When I got to Philly Jason had some conference things to do, so I headed to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  It is huge and wonderful!

Remember Rocky running up all the stairs?
These are the stairs!  They lead to the
 Philadelphia Museum of Art.

After I took the picture of the stairs I started
walking up, then saw Rocky himself!!  Of
course I knew it couldn't really be Sylvester Stallone,
but I had to look a couple of times because it
looked SO much like him.  It turned out to
just be a guy on his cell phone.

And here is the Rocky statue!  According to a bus
driver, the statue used to be at the top of the stairs
but it caused major traffic jams, so they moved it
to the bottom of the stairs where it still caused major
traffic jams, so now it is at the bottom 
but far over to the side.  
The bus driver said it still causes traffic jams. 

One of my favorite places to be is art museums, and the Philadelphia
Museum of Art did not disappoint!

Saturday Jason and I explored Philly together.  First, we headed to the Reading Terminal Market for breakfast.  This is a huge indoor market.  For breakfast, we chose a creperie with seating at a bar where we got to watch them cook our food right in front of us.

After Reading Terminal Market we went to explore two more art galleries:  the Rodin Museum and the Barnes Museum.  The Rodin Museum has several works by Rodin, and it was great to see that many pieces in one place.

Rodin's Gates of Hell.

Rodin's The Thinker.

The Barnes Museum is pretty incredible.  It has hundreds of works collected by one individual, Mr. Barnes, for his private collection.  I have never seen so many works by Renoir.  It is an incredible museum and I highly recommend it!  (No photos allowed at the Barnes.)

After the art museums we headed to the big historical sites.

On the way we went through Love Park

Liberty Bell

Freedom Hall

We also saw the area where Benjamin Franklin lived and worked, and had dinner at City Tavern, which was around in colonial times and was a place where the founders met and ate.  Some of the items on their menu are from colonial-era recipes.

Though this looks like some kind of terrible
gruel, it was a delicious potato leek soup.

The weekend was fantastic, and became more so when Jason proposed (!) near the end of our visit.  I thought Philly was pretty great before that, but now it has an extra special place in my heart.

I'm getting married!