motown philly

The good news:

I may have found my new favorite city - Philadelphia! I don't know how I've managed to neglect it, having lived relatively close to it for the last ten years. But at last Brooke and I made the trip in for the day (it's soooo close to your new town, right Brooke?), and since we planned it so last minute, we only really had the Liberty Bell and South Street on our list of to-do's, as we didn't know much about the city and figured we could let our instincts guide us. And my role as "the compass" would make sure we didn't get lost. The Liberty Bell was...well...a bell. Though it was good to see a piece of history and re-learn what my 8th grade teacher probably taught me. Then we walked down to South Street and passed the most beautiful, charming brick townhomes along the way. Many of the streets were cobblestone and surprisingly quiet and tranquil. We expected the city to be full of honking horns and traffic but found it exactly the opposite. We almost got up the nerve to go into one of the open houses of a home for sale but got cold feet since we thought we'd probably look a little suspicious as twenty-eight year old tourists in sneakers checking out a 1.5 million dollar home. Now, we know we probably saw only the fanciest part of the city, but that's all we really needed to have us leave on a high note - conversing the entire time in exclamations about how this was the best trip ever and that perhaps we should move here.

The bad news:

I got sick. As we drove out of the city my stomach started to feel queasy and after about 1/2 hour of trying to convince myself it was nothing, I realized it wasn't going away, so we pulled over on the side of the highway and waited until I felt better. Which wasn't happening even after 1/2 hour of waiting. Brooke passed the time reading a map of the Lehigh Valley and assuring me it was interesting and that she didn't mind waiting. The thought of driving made me sick, but I couldn't get rid of whatever was making me nauseous (too much information - I'll stop). Nevertheless, we did end up leaving the side of the highway and I held my breath and tried to focus on anything but vomit for the 20 minutes of car ride left before we got home.

I'm almost over it and am feeling much better now. I'm a bit concerned about all the stomach problems I've been having over the last few months, but I figure the Conde Nast cafeteria's MSG is just taking it's sweet time to exit my system.

And now I will let you go as it's time to return to my beloved HGTV.