As much as I love my dear Chicago, I said goodbye this weekend and headed out to check out the hype behind all that brotherly love, aka, Philadelphia. My roommate for the past three years is doing a similar program to The Chicago Semester but based out of Philly, called The Philadelphia Center. So, this weekend I made my way east to pay her a visit!
My trip actually began early Friday morning because my boss let me have the day off to go on my trip, and when I say early I do mean early. I left my apartment at 5:15 and woke up at 4:30 a.m. Typical morning, right? But this was actually good because it meant I got to spend almost all of Friday exploring Philly!
My roommate, Sammie, lives in this super cool loft with three other students, because unlike Chicago Semester, she had to find her own housing so she had her pick of apartment, loft, high rise, etc. For any of you New Girl lovers out there, her loft totally reminded me of the show, especially since she lives with two guys. After she showed me around her building, we headed out for a very full day! The weather wasn’t great, much to Sammie’s dismay, but we still found plenty to do.
Our first stop was at Revolution Taco, a really cool restaurant located in Center City. I am totally obsessed with any and all Mexican foods so I was all about this lunch spot. After gorging ourselves on chips and guac and, of course, tacos, we decided to do some shopping. I was unaware that Anthropology, Urban Outfitters, and Free People all originated in Philly and thus all have huge stores right downtown. Despite being poor college students, these are three of Sammie’s and my favorite stores so we absolutely had to go check them out.
Anthropology was 5 stories tall. Yes, you read that correctly, FIVE stories. This, in combination with the fact that we totally loved everything in the entire store but couldn’t afford a single thing slightly overwhelmed and depressed us.
This is a photo of Sammie’s overwhelmed reaction upon falling in love with every item in the store. All three of the stores we checked out were gorgeous and we spent a good chunk of time just photographing the aesthetic of the space. We definitely looked a little odd.
After window shopping we decided to check out an ice cream place in Washington Square that’s known for it’s rolled ice cream. I was a little confused about what this actually meant until I saw it, but basically they flatten the ice cream out completely, put a whole bunch of toppings inside, and then roll it up! I’ve never seen anything like it but it was absolutely amazing. Sammie said there is usually a line all the way down the street, but the bad weather actually worked in our favor and we were able to walk right in.
Sammie got an Oreo ice cream and I got a pretzel, chocolate, and peanut butter combo. Note that I had to take a bite before we took the photo. I was very excited.
Now, I’m sure you’re thinking, ‘Okay, you went to one of the most historic cities the United States has, and all you did is shop and eat?’ and my answer to this is ‘yeah, sorta.’ But we did try to get a little history in too! We saw the Liberty Bell on our first day exploring and made our way over to the art museum to see the iconic rocky steps on the second day.
Overall, it was a super fun weekend exploring a brand new city! It was also sort of fun to be able to compare the two domestic study abroad programs and see how unique and different they both are. While I’m 100% happy with my decision to study in Chicago, Sam is loving her Philly experience and I’m so happy I got to see what it was all about!