I lived in the Philadelphia area for a time, and as such, never really did the touristy things that Philly is known for. So, for our last vacation day, we decided that’s what we’d do.

Now, I had a friend visiting me all weekend. She moved out to the east coast a few years ago, and so we try to get together when we can. She’s from France originally, but just got US citizenship. So, she, Mr. Ink, Bug, and I headed off via train into the city for the day.

Now first I must tell you, all weekend everyone had been telling us how sorry they were about the heat, and how disappointed we must be about it being such a hot weekend. It was rather amusing to us, as NE heat and humidity is so so much worse. It felt quite pleasant to us. Our day in Philly was around 90F, but there wasn’t much humidity, and there was a fine breeze blowing. Quite frankly, it was the type of day that Mr. Ink and I would spend outside all day given half the chance. So we were quite comfortable as long as we could have water and cool back down from time to time.

Our first stop was Reading Terminal Market. It was a Sunday, so we knew that all the PA Dutch vendors wouldn’t be there, but there was still plenty to be overwhelmed with. Christelle and I had the traditional cheesesteaks created by a man who looked so quintessentially philly that it made me laugh. Vaguely irish looking, vaguely redhead, tattoos, typical blue collar worker look. He could have been a caricature. At the rate he was producing the meat for the cheesesteaks, I had to be impressed with his stamina and can only imagine his forearms were very strong by this point.

Mr. Ink decided on a pork sandwich he’d recently read about on one of his favorite bloggers sites. It had a lovely spinach topping, and did look quite tasty.

Before we left, Christelle and I decided to fortify with an iced coffee. Miss Bug, of course, wanted a hot chocolate, and Mr. Ink snuck off for a cookie. I caught this shot of them while they were waiting for us.

We then walked down through china town and out to independence hall area.

We stopped to see the Liberty Bell, which had extra meaning for Christelle. I don’t think I grabbed any shots there, as it was very crowded. Then, we caught the Phlash bus and rode it up to the art museum.

It amused me greatly when the bus said “Next stop, Rocky stairs!” I mean, here you have an art museum building that’s been around since 1876, but it’s now known as the Rocky stairs? How did that become a thing?!  In any case, we did do a few videos of stair running. Yes, in the heat. And then we stopped and dipped our toes in the fountain at the top.

We took a nice long walk down to the river behind the museum, watched some roller skating dancers perform, and then headed back to catch the Phlash bus again.

Our next stop was Love park, where we really just stopped for a photo opportunity.

At this point, the adults had already decided it was time for a beer. When Miss Bug piped up “I feel angry. And, I don’t know WHY I feel angry, which just makes me angrier.” So, we found that beer stat, and treated her to some ice cream.

This cleared up the anger problem quite fast. After a train ride home, it was leftovers with the family. And I snapped a very cute photo of my nephew who steals the show each time.

We just love that kid!

Tomorrow, the return trip and the return of a stocking.