So Much Brotherly Love

Two words: Philly. Rocks.
Its like Boston, but better. The food is fantastic, the history is crazy awesome, and the people definitely make it one of our favorite cities of the trip.
We stayed with Vincent Sanchez (the son of Jimmy's boss back in Tucson) in his dorm at U Penn, which is super pretty and makes you feel like a genius when you walk around the campus. From there, we hit all of the historical shtuff, i.e. the Bell, Edgar Allen Poe's house, Independence Hall, etc. (its a pretty sweet thing to stand in the room that you've seen painted a million times where the Declaration was signed...just saying).
After a day of insane amounts of walking through the last bit of nasty humid summertime, we ran across a poster for the Philadelphia Film Society advertising their Summer Classics series, which consisted of them showing classic Philly films in the actual locations of their creation (the week before was The Sixth Sense in Rittenhouse Square, for example)....turns out we got to go watch Rocky in a boxing arena in South Philly where Rocky II and The Wrestler were both filmed. It was ridiculous, and Jimmy obviously won an Italian Stallion robe for his extensive knowledge of the film series :) Peectures:

The City that Never Sleeps; Part 2

The second half of our trip to the city consisted of Brooklyn, the Village, and more overall awesomeness.

We were lucky enough to be able to visit Dale's cousin Betsy, who is currently a student at Pratt in Brooklyn (a very prestigious art school very fitting of Betsy, as she is one of the most incredible artists either of us have ever seen, and only at 20 years old…watch out for her everyone, Betsy Peterschmidt is about to be a household name!). Over delicious bagels, she showed us around the gorgeous campus, and we then made our way back into Manhattan for an evening of Central Park and Upper Eastside deliciousness. Over awesome Italian food and tasty beverages, we had an amazing time with her and are both so excited to see the incredible things she is going to accomplish!

The following day as Dale was enjoying a bit of alone time and walking through Central Park to 5^th Avenue, she accidentally stumbled upon the FDNY memorial service for Sept. 11^th being held up 5^th and centered at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Firefighters from all over the world, along with a small crowd of growing spectators, watched as hundreds of members of the FDNY marched in uniform up 5^th all holding American flags to Copland’s Theme for the Common Man, followed by a speech by Giuliani. Never in her life has she heard 5^th Avenue silent, and it was an absolutely beautiful, somber, and humbling experience.

Along the same vein, the next day (September 11^th), we waited until nightfall to make our way down to the Financial District and pay our respects at the sites of the former two towers. Unfortunately the new memorial was not yet open to the public, but we were able to catch a glimpse of it through the crowds and fences. The construction of the 2 new towers is speeding ahead, as you will see in the pictures that follow…it was an incredible day to be in the city, to say the very least.

The days that followed we spent in Chelsea, Little Italy, Noho, and Greenwich Village…lots of exploring, and probably averaging roughly 7 miles of walking per day, we definitely did the city the best we could with the time we had. As always, can’t wait to return :)

The City that Never Sleeps; Part 1

New York City…the center of the universe.

We spent one amazing week in the Big Apple, and per usual for this incredible city, it was not even nearly enough.

We ended up staying with an acquaintance of Dale’s whom she knew in the dorms at the U of A & had not seen for about half a decade…she saw on Facebook that he and his girlfriend lived in the city, and went for it on the off chance it might work out since our living situation in the city had fallen through. Turns out it was the best decision of the trip…Wells and Paige were the most genuine, open, fantastic people in the world and without really knowing either of us incredibly well (although Wells did remember that Dale likes cigars :) ), they opened their home up to us for an entire week (3 days of which they were out camping in the Catskills). We stayed in the extra bedroom of their awesome Upper Eastside apartment, with their very active kitty Jameson to keep us in line. If you guys check this out, thank you again and again for making our trip to the city so special!

Upon making it into the city around 9 pm on the night of the 6^th of September, we were greeted with somewhere around 3 days of rain. Equipped with drugstore umbrellas, we began our adventure, keeping the week not at all planned & everything by the seat of our pants. Turns out, our visit just happened to coincide with two very large events: the decade anniversary of September 11^th, and Fashion Week. And so, we let the mayhem ensue.

The area we were in was full to the brim of awesome little eateries and bars, and we definitely geeked out for a couple of days to satiate our culinary cravings (pictures below provide the documented evidence of this).

It also just so happened that our good friend Gianna had just moved in with her eclectic aunt in her ENORMOUS rent-controlled apartment in Soho the week before, so we made it down the web of trains to hang out with her one afternoon…which just so happened to be Fashion’s Night Out (i.e. the kickoff of Fashion Week). For those of you unfamiliar with Soho (or the area south of Houston…hence’Soho’), it is a very artistic area, chalk-full of galleries and the workshops of many very prominent designers. Not knowing really what ensues on the aforementioned kickoff night, we all began to wander around with the growing crowds of swankily dressed 20 and 30-somethings into the open shops, all of which offered complimentary champagne and tons of celebrity sightings (our list included Diane Von Furstenburg, Kim Kardashian, Nicki Minaj, and Pauly D). Needless to say it was sort of ridiculously incredible, and we are definitely going back next year…I highly recommend you all do the same.

Here I will sum up Part 1, picturespictures: