Philly, to the power 24

In my last post, my sentiments about this city were lukewarm. There was culture, but no crazy. There was personality, but no pizzazz. Turns out we were just looking in the wrong places. After the busiest and most fun 24 hours in the city of brotherly love, all of my reservations about this move have been eliminated (well, except for the winter, we'll see about that in a few months). Let me take you through my day.

Saturday night, the ladies and I Yelped "Philadelphia nightlife," threw on our dancing shoes, and headed out on the town. First stop was this new place by campus, The Blockley Pourhouse. Opened recently, this place is shiny and spacious, and although the crowds are missing, it has great potential. Because it's new, the bartenders are all trying to buy loyalty and a crowd of "regulars" with free drinks galore. Needless to say, we liked. Buzzin' off of free booze, we hopped into a cab and told the cabbie to take us to the party. He did just as asked, and took us to THE place to be on a Friday or Saturday night, meaning 2nd @ Market. This two block strip was spilling with people coming in and out of the 10-15 bars, clubs and restaurants to fit every need. There were the grungy Irish pubs, the swanky clubs and upscale cocktail lounges. We found our place at the perfect combination of these 3, called Plough & The Stars. It was casual bar meets club, with two levels of dancing, and packed to the brim. Hours of dancing and meeting the locals = night of success.

Sunday morning, with a few survivors from the night before, we headed over to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is free on the 1st Sunday of every month. Getting to the museum involved walking along the beautiful bike/run trail along the Schuylkill River. The museum itself was nothing short of grandiose (and actually more impressive than The Met), and located in the lush green Fairmount Park, it was the wow factor I had been missing.

After the art museum, we found ourselves on a spontaneous, self-guided tour of the Parkway, i.e. the Museums District of Philly. This is essentially the culture center of the city, housing several museums and libraries, city hall, and the stately Cathedral Basilica of Saints Paul and Peter. Even walking around, this is the most safest, most beautiful, spacious part of the city, with historical buildings, water fountains in every direction, and the flags of the world lining Ben Franklin Parkway. I can see that I will be spending many weekend afternoons exploring this district.

We got back to campus just in time for the Graduate Student Center's "Gnome Hunt/Happy Hour". I can't say enough how much I'm love the GSC. They have this ridiculous obsession with gnomes, which seemed absurd at first, but after this event, is very impressive. The entire GSC building is sprinkled with gnomes in the most random places, and they have pictures on the wall of the gnomes all around the world with them (Rome, Paris, California!). Our goal was to run around campus finding all the hidden gnomes, in the mean time, forcing me to go to many important places on campus I would have never known about otherwise: Fine Arts Library, Botanical Gardens, Penn Museum (which houses the 2nd largest collection of Egyptian artifacts after Cairo), Penn Bookstore, etc. Running around campus sweating profusely for an hour, and ending with an exquisite banquet and happy hour! :-D

Banquet ended just in time for Brittany and I to scuttle over to the first ever Philly Naked Bike Ride! I am officially a part of this city's history. I thought I'd done my fair share of crazy things, but this surpassed anything I'd done before. We collected at the Schuylkill River trail again, only to see hundreds of bikers and LOTS of flesh!

Entered the body-painting tent, stripped down and started painting! Once we were all decorated, it was 90 minutes of riding through every neighborhood of the city, yelling and screaming whilst being naked. The best way to describe it is a Critical Mass where everyone's naked. The reactions of unaware people on the streets were to die for, some of my favorites being the wedding happening along the Schuylkill, the hundreds of people having outdoor dinners at the upscale Rittenhouse Square restaurants, and a random guy on the street "this is the best f*****g day of my life!" Finally, the city has personality! I rocked a map of Cali on my back, and thus met many people from California, which is always great!

Finally, I got home, finished off the night with painful yet hilarious karaoke and salsa lessons with the building, washed off the paint, and passed out.

:-D