Partying in Philly

I took the Amtrak down to Philly on Friday morning. It's a 6 hour journey that is quite beautiful between Boston and New York as you pass through lots of cute little small old towns. But then in stark contrast you pass through New Jersey and all of its dilapidated buildings and abandoned (or maybe still functioning) industry. I spent the whole time, including the 3 hours stuck next to a really fat guy despite the existence of open double-seats elsewhere, brainstorming the logic or my global warming website, which should be interested to see how I can transform it into a user-friendly science website that is accessible both to scientist and layperson.

In any case, I arrived in town, wandered around downtown around Rittenhouse Square for an hour or so, picked up some sweet sandals from the Puma store, then met Rory outside of a Sonoco station somewhere and walked over to his place, which is actually his sister Catherine's and her husband Ryan's place. It's quite nice. We headed over to Resurrection bar, which had fantastic beer and even better food. Rory informed me that Gourmet magazine declared the fried chicken the "best in America" and so I had no choice but to try it out. And they are absolutely right. They fry the chicken, then cover it in honey, then fry it again (then supposedly add more honey). Needless to say, it was one of the tastiest things I've ever eaten. Then I followed this up with a pork belly sandwich, which melted like butter when it touched your mouth--the second installment of one of the greatest things I've ever eaten. Ryan is a very cool guy, apparently everyone loves him. We watched the Flyers beat the Blackhawks in Game 4 of the Cup finals--getting fans who apparently don't normally care about their hockey team to be excited--then headed over to Grace Bar to meet Sean and two female friends of his from his lab. One was a Kiwi and we spent most of our time making fun of New Zealand stereotypes. Fun times.

Yesterday I woke up after a glorious night of sleep on an air mattress in their study, which is wonderfully air-conditioned. We got up, grabbed dark chocolate and banana waffles at Bonte Waffles ("Bonte means happiness in French" "no it doesn't" "what?"). Then I stopped over at the Mutter museum of medical oddities, which was awesome: tons of conjoined twins (including the livers of the original Siamese twins), nasty tumors and other awful medical conditions that make you so grateful for modern medicine. Needless to say, it was one of the coolest museums I've been to, though the shop was highly disappointing in that I was totally willing to spend multiple tens of dollars on something unique and awesome, but they were sorely lacking in any such items (I did by a yellow ceramic magnet with a skull on it).

Afterwards, I came back, we headed over to Pat's (not Gino's, who is racist :) to get the obligatory Philly Cheese Steak (I got the "mushroom provy wit"). It was pretty tasty, though not something I really need to experience again in my life (unlike the fried chicken). We came back and joined Catherine and Ryan's cocktail party with friends, which was a good time and lasted from 5-midnight. Their friends are pretty cool and nearly all have cute kids ages .5-3 (except Aaron, who is gay). We chilled out inside and out, had many drinks and lots of hors d'oeuvres, and talked seemingly the entire time about movies--the Lucey family and friends are really the ultimate movie connoisseurs. Then we headed over to Sean's sweet apartment and chatted til 230a with Sean and Paul. It was great to see Sean, but unfortunately he's got his qualifying exam paper due Monday and is apparently quite far behind, so he hasn't really been able to hang out much. Kind of annoying, but also I understand after having gone through the process myself.

Today's plan: watch(ed) the French Open final (kind of a sad effort by Soderling) and then head over to Paisano's which apparently has the best sandwiches you'll ever have.

Note the theme: it's been a great couple of days here with some quite memorable activities. Clearly, at the least, Philly has a great food scene.