sparrow & urchin: Travel: Philadelphia Freedom

Travel: Philadelphia Freedom

This summer (A couple months ago, I'm slow at photo editing) Mike and I headed across the country to his hometown Philadelphia. We were traveling for a wedding of a mutual friend and decided to piggy back another vacation on the end of this one, more on that later. This is now the second time visiting the city that I've heard countless stories about from Mike, Adam and their friend group so I was excited to explore it more.

First we went to the Penn Archeology Museum, and walked around the campus and neighborhood between there and his sister's house in West Philly. The best thing about that walk was that it was sprinkling, and the rain was warm, I've missed walking on a hot summer day in the rain, rain out here is sparse and freezing. Anyway, the museum was amazing and had a vast collection spanning from ancient cultures all around the world. They even had a lab you could walk into and see what archeologists are working on, that was really really neat, and very cold :) In the basement of the museum they had a sphinx, which was way cool, looking back through my pictures it seemed I was obsessed with mainly the Egyptian stuff they had. The building it was housed in was also amazing with a wonderful lily pond in front. On the way back to W. Philly we stopped and ate at a well known little sandwich/deli shop, Koch's.

The next few days in Philadelphia was driving and walking around, meeting friends for lunch, eating my first Philly Cheese Steak (with cheez-wiz), going to an amazing dinner at City Tavern, and witnessing Billy and Leah get married on her families land out near Lancaster.

The wedding was absolutely the most beautiful wedding I've been to. The ceremony was held by the tree line and butterflies were released, the reception was right by under big tents with paper umbrellas and lights hanging from the top, and long tables set with mismatched vintage plates, glasses and serving-ware. The meal was all finger food and brought out one by one from family friends who also prepared it. Around the premise, in the gardens, near the pasture were little stations, some with homemade beet wine from an Amish neighbor (and other wines, but I loved the beet wine), a beer cart with a table filled with vintage beer glasses, and fruits/cheese/crackers... Everywhere you looked there was something to see and marvel at. And everything was thrifted/antiqued by Leah and her mom over the past year. It's even overwhelming just trying to figure out how to describe the eyecandy. After dinner we danced a TON, and I witnessed my first bouquet toss and caught it, snatched it right as Brittany was about to get it. Haha. At the end of the night we all went to the little grove where we had already set up tents and slept the night away with the sounds of bullfrogs in the distance.

Mike's sisters' and their significant others, and moi. Such a silly, funny group.

On one of the last days Mike and I did one last walk around the cathedral, the Art Museum, tried to get pictures of people doing the Rocky stance at the top of the stairs, and down to city hall before heading back to his sister's and getting ready for the second leg of our trip, down to Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean.

I love that the frieze is painted in bright colors like they were in ancient Greece, we're so used to thinking all the ancient Greek buildings were all white marble but at the time they were painted very brightly.

The exterior and courtyard of the Philadelphia City Hall is absolutely breathtaking. The architecture is amazing and it's one of the largest city buildings in the country, and the tallest masonry building in the world. On top stands city founder, William Penn.

Masonic Temple, my father and g-pa and many others before were all Scottish Rite, I would love to become a mason sometime, but I have to wait until I have the fight to become one b/c I can't cause I'm a girl... I digress.

This airplane sculpture is outside the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts building in Lenfest Plaza, It was amazing to get up close to. It's entitled "Grumman Greenhouse" by Jordan Griska, the piece is made from a decommissioned cold war naval plane a Grumman Tracker II, looks like it just crashed into the ground, and parts of it have been turned into a greenhouse.