A Quick Trip To Philly

A little while back, we decided to book a quick family vacation to Philadelphia, where one of Mitch's good friends, Neil, lives with his wife Megan and baby girl Willa. We were able to use miles for a few of our plane tickets, and found a well-located AirBnB rental that came equipped with a double BoB stroller, high chair, and crib for our disposal, as well as baby gates. The double stroller definitely came in handy, as Philadelphia is a very walkable city and we decided against getting a rental car in favor of traveling by foot, subway/trolley, or Uber-ing. 

When we arrived in Philadelphia after our quick, non-stop flight from Charlotte (all the kids were champs for all of the traveling), we had intentions of taking the train into Center City and then the subway from the main station to a stop by our rental house. But life got in the way, as a prolonged pretzel snack and potty break led to us having to go to the American Airline help desk to claim our checked luggage, which led to us missing the train minutes after it left the airport (it only came twice an hour). Luckily, we were able to get an Uber XL and were at our rental in a quicker, more comfortable mode. 

The house we got was conveniently located near some restaurants, a Whole Foods, and a nice children's playground. It was also the craziest house I've ever been in, due to its "Trinity" house set-up. Imagine four approximately 12x18 rooms stacked one on top of the other, connected by a narrow and steep spiral staircase, and that's a trinity house. The basement level had a sofa and TV (and some toys), the ground level had a small kitchen and dining room, the 2nd level had a bedroom with two twin beds and a bathroom, and the 3rd floor was a loft bedroom where we stayed in a queen bed while Logan slept nearby in a crib. It was all good for a few days, but I couldn't imagine living in that kind of set-up with small children. 

That first night, our friend Megan came over to have dinner (Neil was at a wedding), and thus kicked off a weekend of eating some yummy Asian food (a combination of picking things up at restaurants/shops and DoorDash) and seeing our friends. The next morning, we had a little adventure using public transportation to have brunch at a chemistry professor acquaintance's house. That was fun for the adults, and less fun for the kids. We rewarded them by heading back to our house and walking them and Logan in their respective strollers to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where we knew a nice dinosaur exhibit awaited them. It did not disappoint! In fact, the boys liked it so much, they kind of threw a fit when we left, so we promised that we'd return the following day (and we did). Neil and Megan came over for dinner again, and brought some goodies for the kids: dinosaur hand puppets (HUGE hit) and a "Good Night, Philadelphia" board book for Logan.

For our last full day in Philadelphia, we decided to walk to Reading Terminal Market to check out the food stalls, and met up with Neil and his mom in Chinatown where I found my happy place at a bubble tea shop and a bakery. Reading Terminal was not as cool as I remembered, but we did get to watch people make pretzels, and then got to eat one of those pretzels hot and fresh from the oven. After Chinatown, we walked towards the museum again, but stopped along the way at a nice park to enjoy some fresh air and run around the big fountain. We spent a couple hours at the museum before we decided to head to Rittenhouse Square, where the guys and Logan hung out while I hit up a few stores nearby to enjoy tax-free shopping. :P Our final dinner was an Uber Eats delivery of Japanese curry, which hit the spot.

The flight back to Charlotte was pretty uneventful, except for a little fight after we landed over whether the window shades should be up and down... I'd say we all had a lot of fun, but were all pretty tired by the non-stop action and little time to relax. I guess it wouldn't be a family vacation if we didn't feel like we needed another vacation once it was over!