Tourist in my Own Hood

Or,

The practically perfect spring day.

The only reason it was not perfect is because it began with great fury!

The big plan was to take the train to NYC and just bash around town in famous Lindsey style.  Unfortunately, even though I woke up so bloody early and speed-walked to the nearest subway station from my apartment, I was still about 5 seconds away from catching the first subway bound for the train station, and for some reason the next one to arrive (totally unusual!) wasn't until about 25 minutes later.  I did get to the train station and as I ran down the platform, banging on the door of my train to try to get in, it pulled away right before my very eyes.  Literally, I was touching my train.

And off it went.

:(

So there I was downtown at the train station (above^) with my backpack full of snacks and reading materials on a beautiful day.  I considered my options and decided, hey, I live in a cool big city- I 'll just do some Lindsey-style bashing here!

 And I did.

I walked down to City Hall and walked through the PIFA Festival for the arts that was taking over Broad Street, including hearing an excellent barbershop quartet, seeing some street magicians, getting a gelatto (never too early for that!), and scoring a last-minute ticket to the Philly Pops.  I called the Philadelphia Arts Ticket service and said something intelligent like:

"So...what is happening today that I can still get a matinee ticket for?"

The Philly Pops was--just my luck!--playing orchestral music from the James Bond films and other related pieces on that very afternoon.  Score!

Ticket in hand, I set off down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, pausing for photo ops of the Logan Square fountain and some sort of anti-genocide protest against Turkey that culminated at the Franklin Institute.

I love Logan Square.  I may even get married here someday.  I can see why all the hobos like it, too.

Then I decided to do something I've been meaning to do for some time-  I took a self-guided audio tour of the Eastern State Penitentiary!

Given my line of work, this was especially interesting.

(Isn't this a great photo?  It's from ushistory.org)


Yes, I saw Al Capone's cell.  No, it's not fair that his was all cush and everything! 


Let's just say that's one creepy place!  But the escape tunnel was LEGIT!  I was seriously impressed by that.

I also spent some time eating my way though the Reading Terminal Market.  Duh.  As if I even need an excuse to do that.

And seeing that I still had some time before the concert, I camped out on a park bench on the Ben Franklin Parkway in the sunshine, just outside of the Rodin Museum, and became devoured in my book of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald called Flappers and Philosophers.  One of the elderly male docents even came outside to ask me what I was reading and he was impressed beyond measure to learn that I was reading for pleasure and NOT because it was a school assignment.

[I don't know who took this^ photo, and it was obviously in the fall, but it is great!]
I am only just beginning to read for pleasure again, post-law school, and so this was kind of a major accomplishment.

It was seriously a beautiful day.  Kids were playing t-ball across the street, people were walking their dogs and their strollers, the springtime sun was so refreshing after a cooped-up winter, and I was soaking up every minute!

To give you an idea of how nice the spring can be in Philadelphia, here are some photos my buddy Shawn took of our cherry blossoms along the Schuylkill River Trail- our favorite cycling spot:

To top it all off, my buddy Ian managed to get a ticket for the concert, too, at the last minute so I even had excellent company for an excellent performance in the beautiful Kimmel Center.

 Ian will kill me for putting this photo up...aaaaaand...I don't care.

Afterwards we went to a superb Oyster Bar where they messed up my order so I got TWICE as many oysters (double score!) and we tried snapper turtle soup (don't judge me).

A quick stop at the little chocolate shop for truffles from Max Brenner was, of course, a necessary conclusion to the meal-- Ian and I are very serious about our chocolate.

And so that was that!  Not a bad day considering it was about 90 miles away from what I had thought it would be.

And the moral of the story is, Living in a Big City is Excellent.

~~
Also, we have awesome wheat-pasting & street art in this town, with a distinctly Philly flavor.