Virginia’s Philly Trip

Picture Album from Philly Trip: Linky!

On Thursday I got to visit my sister, Martha, who lives in Manayunk, outside of Philadelphia. She moved there in October, but this was the first time I got to visit.

Martha picked me up at the airport around 9pm, having braved the big city traffic and roadwork. Then, we went back to her awesome apartment and watched The Office, which she was kind enough to DVR for me. Did I mention that M has a sweet cable set-up as well?

Then, we got up on Friday and went into the city. Martha was kind enough to take the day off from her job so we had lots of time to explore. First, we went to see Philadelphia’s Magic Garden, which was basically a building and surrounding lot COVERED with mosaics. You can read more about it at   http://www.philadelphiasmagicgardens.org/

 

The mosaics were made from art collected from Peru and Bolivia as well as tiles, bike wheels, beer bottles, and mirrors.

I really liked the outside ones. The artist, Isaiah Zagar, landscaped the outside to multiple levels. He also painted all kinds of pictures and sayings all over the tiles like, “Art is the Center of the Real World.” It was very hippie cool.

Some went up three floors.

Then, we walked around South Street, where there tons of interesting people and cool things to see like a building with ants crawling on it and a tour boat.

And a dude making pretzels

 

Then we went to downtown Manayunk and bought some nice crepes and I helped Martha pick out barstools that she’s going to have delivered tomorrow. But, sadly, I don’t have pictures of that part.

Then we met the lovely Rachel for dinner at the Manayunk Brewery. And I also don’t have pictures of that, but we had a very nice time in the scenic spot overlooking the river.

Then on Saturday we slept in a bit before running errands and taking the train to the Redding Station Market – basically an excursion based entirely on food. My favorite!

This market has everything from fresh veggies, to meat, to prepared foods, Indian, Thai, bakeries, of course Philly staples like Italian, cheese steak, crab fries…

Also, the best cupcakes IN THE WORLD. Eat at Flying Monkey Bakery… so delicious!

Did I mention the jam inside the cupcake?!?

 

On Saturday night, it just so happened that the artsy movie theater M goes to in Bryn Maur was showing a documentary about Isaiah Zagar (the mural guy!) so that was super cool. Martha and are now hippie mosaic experts.

We got even more culture on Sunday morning at the Philadelphia museum of art.

  Also, I visited the Rocky statue.

And, just to make Aaron extra jealous, we then went to the Italian festival and ate more great food!

So, all in all, GREAT trip to Philadelphia. We are definitely going to have to visit again soon.