Philly Weekend!

A few weekends ago we took a 2 day trip up to Philadelphia. We really had to do research to find things to do besides the obvious, Independence Hall. 

After talking with some people from church they mentioned Reading Terminal Market. Never have heard of it? Yeah, me either. The best way to describe it is a HUGE indoor food court. Except it has foods of all kinds! Chinese, Dutch, Cheesteaks (duh), Seafood market, a regular meat market, flower shop, even a mini grocery store! So bizarre, but pretty dang cool. D also mentioned that this Market was featured in National Treasure? Cool I guess.

Seating is very limited, so get comfortable with sitting by complete strangers =) It makes the experience that much better! 

I spy an Amish girl!! D and I couldn't stop staring... awkward! Their lifestyle fascinates us! We couldn't get enough of them. 

Entry sign

It's almost illegal to visit Philly and NOT eat a Philly Cheesesteak!

I may get lynched for this... but cheesesteak's aren't my fave. I don't hate them, but I don't love them.

This Ice Cream Parlor has been established since 1861!!! That's insane! I love old companies. 

One of the many meat markets! I spy pig's feet! 

This was a bit shocking to me! I've harvested moose, caribou, etc... but seeing ducks cooked and hung like this was shocking to me! HAHA I've never seen anything like that before. 

Next stop: Independence Hall

The Liberty Bell

Waiting to tour Independence Hall

Entrance Hall. The craftsman's ship of buildings these days is nothing compared to back in the day!

Courtroom... look at that orange!! 

Where the Continental Congress was held!

After the tour, we headed over to where Benjamin Franklin is buried. Except when we got there the cemetery was closed. This is probably the creepiest cemetery I've been too.

Funny Story... So when we were reading the signs about the cemetery being closed I noticed this grave stone that had a bunch of flowers and pennies on it and thought it was the weirdest thing. Like, why the penny's. Who is this guy?! It took us like 10 minutes to figure it out... it's BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S GRAVE! HAHAH We literally looked at it for 10 minutes and were oblivious to the fact that it was right by the gate. Plus it saved us 6 bucks to go in there! Thanks Benny!

The next day we started out by tracing my roots thanks to D's research! My Grandma on my mom's side grew up in Philly and we traced down one of the houses she lived in! I wish I had researched where she lived other then this one house but I'm thankful I got to see it. 

The neighborhood now is really rundown and a lot of the houses on this street had bashed in and boarded up windows... it just breaks my heart... Luckily when we pulled up, the owners of the house stepped out side onto the porch to set something down, so I took that chance to tell them that I was going to be taking photos and video of their house! I didn't want to scare them, and they asked why and I told them the whole story of how my grandma lived there as a baby and blah blah. They were SO NICE!!! They talked to us for probably 30 minutes about when they moved in and all of that. It was amazing to hear the history. I thought they were going to invite us in to see the inside for a bit there but they didn't which is fine. I'm just so thankful I got to see one of the houses!

We then headed over to the famous Rocky steps at the art museum. They had this amazing fountain at the bottom.

Of course I had to get a picture with the Moose! Anything that reminds me of Alaska I document!

Not far from the fountain is the Rocky statue! Don't be afraid to be cheesy and take photo's like these because everyone else is doing it! It's actually hilarious. 

At the top of the steps

Another cheese ball thing that you won't be embarrassed to do because everyone (literally, everyone) does it... RUN UP THE ROCKY STEPS! How can you not if you're there?! And Yes! You must do the all famous pose!

Pretty dang close!

Proud of my Irish ancestry!! My great grandma immigrated with her parents from Ireland to the US via Philadelphia!

I thought it was interesting that they had every countries flag on this main drag

A friend of mine mentioned the our church was building a temple in Philly, but I assumed it was the outskirts. So when we were walking around I noticed it right away! It's literally down town!! I've never seen that before besides in Utah! Pretty cool.