Philly Adventure

Today me and some friends went to Philly for a day at the museum, shopping and of course cheesesteaks.

The day started with a quick two and ahalf hour drive to Philly, arriving before a preset meeting time with some friends from Jersey we decided to walk through the Fairmnot Park neighborhood in search of food. Whenever Im in a strange city I tend to look for fish and chips. I have no idea why, I guess it is comforting and easy. As we crusied trough the neighborhood I spied London Cafe on 23rd and Fairmont, perfect unfortunately my DC colleagues overruled me in favor of a gourmet deli. i never know what to get at these places a million orders screamed at once salty sandwich makers and a unique ordering code i dont get but need to unlock the good stuff. I like corned beef but never get it, Addy got a corned beef sammie and Petey got the same. I got me an egg salad sandwich, which as everyone knows can be the death of a person if not made properly. We sat on some benches out side the museum and scarfed down our food. As I looked out on the park near the museum the only thing I could tyhink of was how dirty it was. Litter everywhere, if I were Mayor I would be ashamed. Anyway, the food was nothing special but it gave us the boost we needed for the museum.

The steps to the meuseum are the Rocky steps but the statue has been moved off the steps to a location a few feet from the bottom. i got my picture taken but as I did a crowd of Russians gathered around waiitng for their turn. I cant figure out the Russian in-flux. They are everywhere, isnt there enough economic opportunity in thier own country?? After the picture we ran up the stairs, along with half the city, and everyone exercising that day.

The Philadelphia Museum is one of the most impressive museums in the US. A lsit of artist: Gaughin, van Gogh, Picasso, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Pollack, Johns, Rousseau, Corbet, Mondarian, Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Degas, Matisse, Rothko, Goya, Toulousse-Latrec, those crazy Gross Medical paintings. It is a great primer for impressionism, it has the sunflower picture, wterbridge, ballet dancers, waterloo bridge, cubism galore. Modern art that malkes your head spin, it has everything. I wish we had time to see the asian and early european sections but we hd to spread our time around. I was impressed and that takes alot to move me. I want to go back, shit I will go back and i suggest everyone go. It is well worth the trip. Fpr those of you who do not like art, think about college and all those people that had art prints in their room. i guarantee you will see the real thing at the this museum.

From the museum we went to get chesesteaks.

Feeling abit run down from the joy an elation of the museum we had to coffee up and we found a little indy coffe shop called the coffee bean. I love good coffee and this palce wasnt bad. The surly wait staff was bitterly making our drinks. I had a cafe au lait and it wasnt that good. It was too milky. The coffee had a burntness that annoyed me but I am always willing to support the small guy. the wait staff was great indingant and annoyed you have to love it.

We marched a few block's to JIm's. i know its not Pat's or Gino's and we had been prepping some of our DC friends for the trip to make sure they got what they want. "Whiz with" ruled the day, but at Jim's which has won Philly's best a few years in a row, is tasty without all the pretention code talk and none of the biggot comments. I love cheesesteaks and i wasnt disappointed. Amarose bread or whatever crap bread they use in philly was used, the steak was good, the whiz was whizzy and the onions were fried but not overdone. The line to get our sammie was long, twisitng and well worth the wait. When we got to the front of the line there was a shift change and they brought out all this fresh meat to cook. it looked like twenty pounds of meat atleast. As they were prepping the steam from the cooking and the greasy form the meat permeated everything I had on. I stank like chessesteak. I had a whiz with mayo and onions and it was damn good.

The most cheesesteaks eaten at this place was 13 and that was accomplished on January 3, 2007. The cheesesteak conversation centered on girls and how many we could eat. i think two definte, three possible and four would be a stretch. Four was th emax number for everyone at the table. We wondered if the eating champ had to wet the bread to eat 13 and the answer was yes. There is no other way.

It dd get me thiking and the Real Deal in Baltimore is a damn good cheesesteak

From there we had soem cocktails and the girls in the gorup that avoided cheesesteask were hunger so we had thai. I ordered pad thai at thisplace called tamarind on South and second and it was osme of th ebest noodles I have had in along time. It was quality and beats out anything I have had in DC.

It was greta day in philly even with the drizzle.