Cheesesteaks and History in Philly

We drove to Philadelphia from New York on a Saturday morning and arrived just in time for a Philly cheesesteak lunch. We'd consulted a few Philly experts for the best place to get one, and the almost unanimous suggestion was Jim's Steaks - a sort of hole-in-the-wall old joint that has a line out the door and around the corner at all times. Well worth the wait - and mine didn't even have meat on it! Tom got a cheesesteak with provolone, onions, peppers, and mushrooms, and I got one with all of that, sans steak. We waited for more than an hour in the sweltering July sun, but it was so worth it. Delicious!

After lunch, we wandered back to the main tourist attractions through some old neighborhoods. In some ways, this city felt like Boston with its age and colonial history. Like in Boston, there is a great focus on the forefathers and the beginnings of this country. There are demonstrations by actors in white wigs and 1700s attire and colonial flags hanging from homes and historic buildings.

After wandering around outside for a while, we went over to the Old City Hall, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell. All of the sites and tours here are free (!!!), so we spent some time looking through them all. The photos below show places where the first U.S. Supreme Court held session, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and where the first U.S. Congress met. Independence Hall was unfortunately undergoing renovations, but they put up a sort of makeshift mesh screen to show tourists what it would look like uncovered. Certainly not the same, but a nice effort.

The Liberty Bell was a lot smaller than I thought it would be - I guess because its reputation is so big, it seemed like it would be a giant, imposing bell. As you can see from the photos, it's only about three feet tall!

From here, we walked down to Philadelphia's waterfront where a Hispanic festival was going on. We walked through it unable to understand anything, split a smoothie, and headed back to our car.

We drove a little south of Philadelphia and stayed for what I thought was the last night of our trip before driving the remaining seven hours to North Carolina. As far as I knew, our plan for the next day was to stop in Virginia at Monticello and then head back to NC to conclude our trip. Tom, however, had other plans...

Up next: A romantic anniversary surprise!

Friends, Food, and Other Faves in New York

On the afternoon of the Fourth, we drove into New York City from Westport. Lots of residents left town for the holiday weekend, so we didn't have any trouble with street parking. We stayed just a few blocks north of our old apartment - with our friend Meghan on W. 90th Street. It had been about three months since we left New York, and our years living there were starting to feel like a closed chapter. Rather than still feeling like we lived there, it really felt like we'd left and were moving on to the next phase of our lives. We had started looking back on it nostalgically, but as soon as we got to the Upper West Side, all of that went out the window. We felt like we were home! It certainly felt different - we were driving a car, we were on 90th instead of 83rd Street, and we didn't have monthly subway passes. But since we still didn't have a new home, this was it! It felt like we were back - done with the trip - ready to settle back in. But we couldn't go back into our old place! It was a strange mixture of feelings, but we were so glad to be there!

We got to Meghan's and spent some time catching up before heading to the first of many of our favorite restaurants: Cafe Frida. We had some great Mexican food and lamented that this could really be our last time eating there... and then we walked next door to Shake Shack to share a concrete. If you're not familiar, their frozen treats are heaven on earth. The best vanilla frozen custard with yummy mix-ins... we were stuffed! We lumbered over to Riverside Park to snag a spot for the fireworks show. There were five barges shooting fireworks off all along the Hudson River, so we were bound to have a good view. Here are a few shots from that night:

We missed the fireworks our last few summers in NYC, so it was really nice to see them this year.

The next day, we got to experience street parking in a more quintessential New York way. Everyone was back in town, and the street cleaners were coming through. We had to move our car for the street cleaners, but there was no open spot to move it to. We ended up double-parking (which is apparently illegal now, but everyone still does it anyway) and sitting in the car until street cleaning hours were over. However, somebody jumped the gun and pulled back into a parking spot 30 minutes early, which prompted EVERYONE, including us, to do the same - within 5 seconds, the entire left side of the road was full again. Everyone continued sitting in their cars, and 15 minutes later, the street cleaners showed up. We had to jostle back to the right side, and as the street cleaner came through, cars filed in behind it the millisecond there was any space. There was jostling and aggression like we've never seen! A car or two got nudged out and lost their spots... and again, in under a minute, the entire street was full without a single open parking spot. Wow! Glad we didn't have to deal with this on a regular basis when we lived here. We sat in the car until the designated time just to make sure we didn't get a ticket, and then we got on to other things.

Our plan for our first day (and actually most days) was to lounge in Central Park and take it easy. Today was the only day that really happened. We picked up lunch at Lenny's, our old favorite sandwich place, and headed to the park. On the way, we passed by our old building and tried to get a glimpse of what the new inhabitants of our apartment had done. It was so weird seeing other people's stuff there!! They had even more plants than we did on the deck, and we could see our old air conditioner still in the window... so strange not to be able to go up there...

View from the north end of the Great Lawn

We ate on the Great Lawn, people watched, and played frisbee for a while. It felt like old times, and we had to keep remembering that we didn't live here anymore. After we'd digested a bit, I set my sights on the Belgian waffle cart: Wafels & Dinges (you may have heard of it from Bobby Flay's Throwdown? The waffle guys won!). Tom and I split this delicious concoction:

That evening, Meghan and I went for a run in Central Park. It felt just like old times with my favorite running buddy! Then, Tom and I had dinner at another favorite, Amber, and went downtown for drinks with a few of our NC friends who happened to be visiting at the same time. We had a lot to catch up on - they're having a baby, we've been traveling all over the country, etc. It was fun.

Wednesday, we went to Good Enough to Eat, a favorite brunch spot with better grits than I've ever had in the south. We didn't get a chance to go to our other fave, Sarabeth's. Next time... After brunch, we walked around the UWS and through Central Park. We hung out for a bit on Sheep's Meadow before heading farther east.

From here, we went to Dylan's Candy Bar - somewhere I'd always wanted to visit. The candy is EXTREMELY overpriced, but I had a blast just looking around at all the candy inside. I think Tom didn't mind it, either. We collected a small bag of goodies and were on our way.

After this, we walked to Times Square to visit another NY bucket list spot: Dale & Thomas Popcorn. Unfortunately, we didn't find out until we got there that Dale & Thomas had closed permanently... at least the trip to Times Square was somewhat productive, though - we found a birthday present for my brother there. We'd also thought about going to Max Brenner's chocolate shop, but at this point, we'd walked many miles, and it was getting late, so we went back to Meghan's. The three of us went to dinner at Celeste, another one of our favorites. This Italian restaurant has the BEST pizza in the world. Simply nothing else can compare.

After dinner, Meghan suggested we go down to the High Line. This is a newly-opened park of sorts that runs along old elevated railroad tracks. It's super cool - you can read more about it here. When we got there, it was dark, but there are always tons of people, and it's well-lit. It was quite peaceful to walk around here on a summer night! The pictures we took here didn't turn out very well, so the best way to see what it looks like is to click the link above.

Thursday, Tom went to the New York Times building to visit everyone and have a meeting with his team since he's still going to be working remotely for them. I went to Columbia to visit my old co-workers and participate in a friend's baby shower at the Journalism School.

When I got into the J-school, my old boss had retired my "jersey" in the rafters. His nickname for me was Radar (from the TV show M*A*S*H). He had also posted a picture of my brother, a picture of our cat, a flamingo magnet I brought him from Palm Beach, and a post card we sent him from our trip. AND he made a lemon cake. Too funny. I had a great welcome back and wished I'd had more time to catch up with all my former colleagues! It was great to see everyone.

Tom also had a good visit - he and his boss didn't tell the rest of their team he was coming, so he showed up to a mandatory lunch meeting and surprised everyone.

We reconvened and headed to Brooklyn for dinner with some of our good NY friends. We had some delicious food at the Brooklyn Fish Fry. Then, we took a cab up to Astoria, Queens, to meet a few other friends for drinks at a Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden. We'd never been to either of these places, and we didn't go out of Manhattan that often when we lived in NY, so it was nice to get more of a taste of some other areas. Both of these were very cool, and we had a great time catching up with some other NY friends!

Friday, we had lunch with Tom's aunt and cousin at yet another favorite: Five Napkin Burger. Then, we had dinner with my cousin at Nonna's - our very first favorite Italian spot right around the corner from our old apartment. As you can tell, our days in New York became a lot busier than we'd originally planned. Still, we wouldn't change anything about it - we got to see a lot of great friends & family, ate at most of our favorite restaurants, and got to hang out in our old 'hood. Meghan left Friday night for Bermuda, but we stayed at her place one more night and left first thing in the morning. It was so great to see her for a few days, too, and she was a fabulous host!

Saturday morning, we got up bright and early, took one last stroll through Central Park, and made our way south. Just as we'd started feeling like we were really back home, we were leaving again... it was a sad feeling. We really loved living in New York, and we'll always look back on those years fondly, but we're moving on to the next exciting phase!

Up next: Philadelphia

Childhood and Family in New England

Even though we originally thought it would be cool to land in Boston for the July 4th weekend, we decided to skip it and make some more personal stops instead. First, we went to Sudbury, MA, where Tom spent a good part of his childhood. Then, we went to Westport, CT, to visit Tom's grandparents and have a cookout with some of his extended family.

We drove into Sudbury in the late morning, and Tom immediately started recognizing things: Cricket Pond, his elementary school, the names of roads, the Friendly's restaurant where his family used to eat. We drove through town to his old street: Blueberry Hill Lane. The house his family lived in looks nearly the same - only the trees and vegetation have grown larger. Here are a few shots (& Tom's reaction to being back here for the first time in nearly 20 years):

Then, we walked up his street (which he remembered as being a giant hill; it's a hill, but far slighter than in his memory) toward the woods & trails behind their neighborhood. He and his brothers had spent countless hours exploring, fishing, and who knows what else back here, and the area was largely unchanged. It was a cool experience for him to see all of this as an adult so many years later, and I enjoyed watching his excitement. This town and neighborhood were a little boy's dream - great place to have a childhood!!

After we wandered through the woods for a while, fending off hoards of mosquitoes, we headed back into town for some lunch at Sudbury Pizza and looked around a bit more at the town. It's absolutely a quintessential New England town, and in fact, it was in Tom's college history textbook as an example of an authentic colonial town! Sudbury was founded in 1639 - only about 30 years after Jamestown, the first successful colonial settlement, and well over a century before the U.S. became a country in its own right. Photos below: Tom's elementary school, Cricket Pond, a historic house, and the town center.

 After spending the morning and afternoon in Sudbury, we headed south toward Westport, CT, our next destination. Since we skipped Boston, things were a bit up in the air for a couple of days, and we weren't always sure where we were going to go and when. We'd booked a hotel for the night in Waterbury, which turned out to be right on the way. We had a lazy few hours watching the hotel TV and then went out for dinner at Bertucci's - a great Italian restaurant that Tom remembered hating as a child. We liked it so much that even though we ate at another location the night before, we didn't hesitate to eat there again!

The next morning, we headed down to Westport for a 4th of July cookout at Tom's grandparents' house. Many of his aunts, uncles, and cousins came as well. It was nice to see his extended family, and we stayed the night with his grandparents. They are unfortunately not doing as well as they've been in the past, so we tried to help out by taking his grandmother to the grocery store and running a few other errands. We enjoyed the time talking with them after the rest of the family had left, too. I wish we'd taken some pictures at the cookout, but we forgot... in lieu of current photos, here's a shot of his wonderful grandparents at our wedding (and I can't add this without mentioning that they won the anniversary dance by being married for the longest of any couple there!):

We'd gotten used to visiting the Griffiths regularly while we were living in New York, but now that we're relocating to NC, we're sad that we might not be able to see them as much. Still, we had to keep to our schedule, so we said our goodbyes and headed to NYC on the afternoon of the 4th.

Up next: spending a few days in our old stomping grounds!