Back from Philly, Yo

Whew, back from Philadelphia.  I got home at 12:30am last night after waiting for the last Mo-Ex shuttle from the St. Louis airport to Columbia.  It was packed with international students because the spring semester starts next week.  Imagine being 18, living on the other side of the world from all of your family, only going home once a year, and the trip taking a full 24 hours.  Crazy.

Starting out the entry with that kind of empathy makes my life seem easy-peasy.

Anyway, I stayed in Center City on South Broad Street, maybe a couple of blocks from the City Hall.  My conference was at the convention center, a few blocks away, and it went ok, though we had stacked up meeting after meeting after meeting on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning.  Luckily, though, we’d been invited to no parties in the evening so I had my nights free.  And what did I do with them?  Mostly, I just found some dinner and then retired to my room to watch episodes from The Wire, season 1, on DVD on my computer.  Which was pretty great.

If I traveled more for work, I’d probably adopt an attitude more like the world-wearied salesmen that I meet with at these conferences.  They’ve been to Philly and every other American city a million times.  They want to finish their work, go back to the hotel, order room service, and go to bed.  They don’t feel guilty about not seeing all the sites.  My boss, who used to be in sales and did all the traveling, is like that too.  But not me!  Not fresh, naive, inexperienced, untraveled me!  (Well, I’m not any of those things, really, but compared to these guys, that’s what I am.)  I feel totally guilty about not spending every second exploring in a new city, just to say I’ve been there.  But the truth is that I’m there to work, and after work I’m tired.

But I did muster up my energy and tried to hit some of the vegan restaurants nearby.  I went to Horizons on Saturday night, which is one of those really rare fancy vegan places.  It was tiny and you have to get reservations a week in advance if you want a table on a weekend night.  But I called ahead and they told me I might be able to get a place at the bar if I got there early.  So I did, and I did manage to sit at the bar (where they had the full menu).  I was glad I did.  By six-thirty pm, there were already five people waiting in line for my seat.  But the food was spectacular.  I tend towards comfort food myself, but I can recognize great vegan food when I’m served it.  I had garbanzo-encrusted tempeh with golden lentils, fava bean and smoked potato stuffed piquillo and preserved lemon aioli (that’s taken right from the menu online.  Like I would remember all of that!). I don’t know, but it was amazing.  And then I splurged on the (vegan!) saffron creme brulee (with pistachio biscotti) for dessert, which was delicious too.  Anyway, it was a great experience and now I think I will try to get reservations to go to the Millenium Restaurant in San Francisco in April, supposedly one of the best vegan restaurants in the world. 

On Sunday, I got up and walked around the Independence Mall area.  I saw the Liberty Bell and the Betsy Ross house and Independence Hall, though most of it was closed because it was early on a Sunday in January.  Still, it was a pretty day.  Then, later, I was sorry I did it because my feet hurt and I was dragging after the full day of meetings.  I made a second trip to a nearby vegetarian-friendly diner, the Marathon Grill, and got some take-out to eat in the hotel room while I nursed my blisters.

Monday was a half-day for work, and I did manage to go to the Basic 4 Vegetarian Snack stall in the Reading Terminal Market for lunch.  They had tuna that was made with carrots that was very delicious, and then a soy chicken salad.  I got the half-and-half: two half-pitas each stuffed with the carrot tuna and the soy chicken salad, and it was pretty great.  The Reading Terminal Market, which is on the first floor of part of the Convention Center, was like an indoor farmer’s market (or like the Pike Place Market in Seattle), except more prepared foods than just fruits and vegetables.

I walked from the market to the rental car agency and picked up my Ford Focus, and I was super glad that for once it was actually a compact car.  I always reserve compact cars, but they tend to give you what they have regardless of your reservation, and I’ve ended up with a Ford Explorer before.  Which would have been terrible in the Philadelphia city streets.  Anyway, I should have reserved a room outside of Center City for Monday night instead of staying at the Doubletree again, since the room was expensive and parking was expensive, but it was worth it not to move my stuff around, I guess. 

Anyway, I rented the car with the sole purpose of touring Bryn Mawr College, which is where Tracy did her undergraduate degree.  I am also a big fan of the movie The Philadelphia Story, so I wanted to see Main Line Philadelphia.  Other than that, I didn’t have a lot of plans.  So I headed up Route 30 and went through part of the area before it got too dark.  It was raining and even started to snow a little, but I did get out of the car and walk around the Bryn Mawr campus.  It was very beautiful, with the lovely white stone facades that I like.  I also drove around Haverford College because she took classes down there.  And then it got dark, but not before I realized I wanted to return on Tuesday to drive around Valley Forge.  And then I drove in the wrong direction when headed back to the hotel, and ended up taking the long way through North Philadelphia on the way.  I ate dinner on Monday night at Su Xing House, a vegetarian Chinese restaurant at 15th and Sansom Streets.  It was okay, but not great, since I’ve eaten at great vegetarian Chinese restaurants.  This one didn’t have any meat analogs- it was just a menu of tofu and vegetable dishes.  The variety was lacking.  Oh well.

I meant to get up and out of the hotel in Center City, but that ended up not being the way it worked.  I kept getting into the wrong lanes and then getting off the freeway and then trying to find places to turn around.  So it took much longer to get back up to Valley Forge than I wanted, and consequently I did not visit the Mummers Museum on Tuesday afternoon.  It was a beautiful clear morning, but also freezing cold- in fact, below freezing.  The puddles were iced over.  So I did not walk around as much of Valley Forge as I would have liked, but I did enjoy driving through and seeing the countryside.  I took some pictures, but I am not sure how they turned out because I seemed to be enamored of my ultra-wide-angle lens and took most of the pictures with it.  So we will see how that goes over the next few days as I process and upload.

The clear day turned to snow around lunchtime, which is when I started checking the clock since I had a flight on Tuesday (yesterday) afternoon.  I ended driving back through the Main Line area.  I ate lunch in Ardmore at a Thai place, and then drove around a little more to look at the beautiful stone Colonial houses (now all made more beautiful by a magic trim of fluffy snow on all the branches and the grass and the rooftops) before heading to the airport.  And then I got turned around some more, almost drove into New Jersey on the wrong freeway (but got off at the last exit just in time), and then spilled gasoline all over the place while trying to refuel the rental car.  Thankfully, I got through security fine and then waited a couple of hours in St. Louis for the Mo-Ex shuttle (which was totally full and then got so hot that I had to put all my bags on my lap for fear that the electronics would be damaged by the heat, seriously.)

And now I’m home.  And my boss’s boss (the big boss) brought a dog to work, a friendly little mutt named Henry, who greeted me with barks and howls and then kisses, and kept coming back to my office for petting throughout the morning.  Not a bad way to start the day!