BS Grapevine: Philadelphia code name Philly

Going to Philly was something that has been on our list of things to do for a while, but we just hadn't gotten around to it. Thankfully, Anne gave us a great reason (her party) to come up and visit!

We had three missions to accomplish in Philly...

1. Go to Anne's party
2. See the Liberty Bell
3. Have a Philly cheese steak

We arrived in Philadelphia at approximately 11:45pm, but didn't get to our destination until about 12:20. We managed to turn our road trip into a five state adventure instead of just being a four state one...20% more fun, right?! Well the state that we added was purely on accident and not fun at all. While in Philadelphia we accidentally crossed the Ben Franklin bridge and kept going for a little while and ended up in New Jersey. Oops! Long story short we drove around in the dark for a bit and ended up finding our way back thanks to the atlas and Sarah's excellent navigation skills.

Even though it was late, we took the opportunity to catch up with Anne over a nice glass (okay, bottle, but who's counting...) of wine. The next day we completed two of the three missions with promise that the third, a cheese steak, would be great on Sunday. Mission two was completed on our way to help prep for the party, yup we saw the liberty bell out of the car window as we dashed off to the Italian part of town.

When we got to the Italian district the four of us (Anne, Brian, Sarah & Nancy) made breakfast the first priority. YUM! Then we strolled through the market and got some vegetables, seafood, cheeses, meats and more...The best part was going into the cheese and meat shop! As Anne was shopping the guy behind the counter was giving us samples of cheeses, meats, balsamic vinegar and more...and even though we just had brunch we found a way to fit the wonderful cheeses in! The most amazing thing had to be either the ricotta cheese cake, the fresh mozzarella, or the aged balsamic vinegar.

As we continued through the market area with I think Sarah described it best by calling it a moment straight out of "Pretty Woman." Three of us with bags and Anne leading the charge down the street...

That night we went to the party (Mission 1). There was an oyster shucker, paella, all the food from the market, champagne, sangria and plenty of beer and wonderful people! Unfortunately (or fortunately), the camera was MIA for most of the night so the only pictures we have are from the early part of the evening.

A bunch of us stayed the night and by noon the next day everyone was famished. So off to get a Philly cheese steak (mission 3). Thankfully the night before we met a Philly native who filled us in on the original cheese steak and how to order. The original is "American with," which means one gets white American cheese with grilled onions, YUM! Now some of the crowd wanted another local favorite of "Wiz with," which as you can imagine is cheese wiz with grilled onions. No one left hungry and everyone was quite happy with their authentic Philly cheese steak.

On the way back from Jim's Steaks we saw the Liberty Bell one more time, only this time we actually hopped out of the car and saw it up close and personal. We wandered around a bit more in the area as we tried to settle the enormous cheese steak in our stomachs.