The main news is I'm back home after a week on the east coast. Carolina and I headed out after a week getting laid off from the videogame company, Secret Level. It was bit of a letdown considering it was my first full time job as a concept artist, but what can you do but pick yourself up and move on huh? So, Caro and I still headed out to the east coast for a long deserved vacation to reset and clear our heads.
We had decided on Philadelphia because of the great memories that Caro had from a previous visit years ago. Since I had never been there, so it sounded like a great idea. We flew into Philadelphia and headed over to Caro's ex-parents in-law in New Jersey to stay... hm, I wonder which is weirder, staying with my girlfriend's ex in-laws or Jersey? I'm happy to say neither is as bad as it appears to be. John and Linda's farm is a wonderful spot of land right next to the Delaware River. Scenic, rustic, and extremely charming. I loved my stay there. the air was cold and crisp. Sadly, the season I miss most is the change to Fall.
We first checked out Philadelphia starting with the Old Town, the historial area. Being a bit of a history geek, it was great to be in the area where Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights was written over 200 years ago. Seeing the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall was truly amazing for me. It was interesting finding out the history of the bell, attempts to fix it, and its symbolic meaning for people outside of the US. The architecture of the area had so much history.
Afterwards we headed to South St and checked out Isaiah Zagar's work that dotted all over the walls of Philadelphia. His work covers entire sides of buildings in found materials all over the city. Random places you might look, you do find a wall he adorned sometime ago. One wall of his work is fantastic, but when we got to his building where he worked for the past 20 years on, absolutely staggering. All the floors had every inch of the walls covered in his mosaic designs. He even moved his work into an abandoned building next door and covered that too. Its a multi-level maze of mosaic designs and patterns. This gallery is one of the highlights of Philadelphia.
Eventually hunger set in and we headed out for real Philly cheese steaks. I had these cheese steaks before elsewhere and was never saw the appeal. Like the one in North Beach on Columbus St, Busters was... meh. But on our way back Caro lead me to Jim's on South St. This place had a line that wrapped around the corner and took us 20 min to even get our order in. Was it worth that? The locals had spoken, that cheese steak was damn good, really good. I was ready for another, but a second one would have exploded mah belly! Makes you wonder how the hell people get it wrong elsewhere?
It was a good way to end our first trip into Philly as we waddled back to Jersey.
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