It does snow in Philly!

The past 3 days have proven that it does snow in Philly! We've gotten more snow this week than all of last winter. Sunday was a surprise for us as we were heading back from NYC (more on that later - fun!). Today Mike got a "snow day" as the whole office worked from home instead of braving the horrible roads. I realize it's not as substantial as MN, but considering the hilly and congested roads and lack of plows out here, we can respect staying off the roads!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! 

View from the apartment!

Our entrance to the apartment

Center City Thanksgiving Weekend

Mike and I took advantage of the long weekend and booked a hotel in Center City Philly for the weekend. It was great - we used credit card miles so we got a fabulous hotel in a great location that we hadn't been to much. We were able to do lots of exploring - and even some shopping!

We finally made our way to the art museum...wow! I was so impressed with the collection! We spent about 2 hours just wandering around and could barely leave (well, me at least...imagine that...) We walked into one room and it was ALL Monet. Yup. Heaven! There were even completely reconstructed rooms from all ages from around the world - 14th century Chinese to 18th century NYC, and even a French cloister.

In art heaven...Van Gogh's sunflowers were across the room...

We'd been looking forward to dinner for a few weeks because we got reservations at an Israeli restaurant that we'd heard so much about...and all the hype was right! We had no clue what we were getting into, but sure enjoyed every bite! Any place that can make a cauliflower dish that we fight over the last bite for is definitely something!

Saturday we finally made it down to South Philly and the Italian Market. It was a great experience - so much amazing food and amazing imported Italian specialties! The fish and cheeses weren't going to make it home, but we picked up some pizzelle!

At the Italian Market. They were burning trash in the buckets just like in Rocky.

After a few successful historical tours with one group out here, we ended up signing up for a pub tour of Philly, and had our trusty tour guide Chris show us around some pretty cool places as we learned about the more recent history of the city. He even recommended a burger joint for dinner featured on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. Definitely a "dive" and so much fun!

We caught a couple Christmas "shows" at the stores downtown too. The Comcast Center had their giant TV (no joke: it's 2000 sq feet) with a Christmas special, and Macy's had both a light show and a Dickens Christmas Carol display - just like Minneapolis' 8th Floor! It definitely got us in the holiday spirit.