That’s right, I’m in the home of cheese steaks and the Declaration of Independence. I’m out here to see my best friend Emily and having a great time. And yes, it is sunny here. The weather is interesting because I seem to have hit the only 2 days of the year where the weather here is decidedly California-like. I’ve never been here but so far I really like Philly. The people here are super nice, the streets are reletively easy to navigate, and it’s been a good mix of bus/subway/walking trasportation.
Speaking of transportation, I took a mix of planes, trains and taxis to get here. Everything was fairly uneventful until I got to the train station in Newark to catch my train to Philly. My Amtrak train went from on-time to 1 hour late to 15 minutes late to 22 minutes late to 7 minutes late to 27 minutes late to arriving at the station no more than 5 minutes off schedule. Is this normal for the east coast trains?
Today we went to Old Philidelphia, saw Independence Hall being renovated (no, we did not get in the horrendous line to see the Liberty Bell) and Betsy Ross’ house, went to the best bakery in Philly (Tartes, AMAZING!), found a pretty awesome costume shop, and basically spent the day exploring and eating pizza in a combination East Coast/West Coast style (Folding a slice of pepperoni in half and dipping it in Ranch dressing). Lady Gaga dance parties, a Gossip Girl marathon and homemade chicken parmesean are making this girls weekend the best ever! 
The cycling world here is pretty active. Being as it is a town with 2 universities, there are a ton of bikes around. A lot of hybrids and college bikes but it’s a really cool bike city. They are locked to trees, bike racks, fences and street lamps. I peeked into a couple of shops here and they sell these really cool “I (bike symbol) Philly”, I’d like to buy one, but seeing as I haven’t ridden here, it didn’t seem right to wear one.
Off to New York tomorrow. More to follow!