Getting to know Philadelphia

 We have officially been in Philly for 3 weeks as of tomorrow and so far, so good! We have better access to the internet for the first time in a long time, so I am trying to use that to my advantage and blog more often! Since we moved, I have been finishing my final rotation of PA school at a local emergency room. 3 days left and then off to Florida for graduation! Meanwhile, Ricardo has been busy taking care of our house and all the little errands that come with moving across country. He has also finished multiple books and is now to the point that he is ready to start school! I'm sure he will be singing a different tune in a few weeks. :)

We are starting to learn a little more about the area and we have been able to take some time to go on some adventures. Luckily we've met some nice people that have been willing to show us around!

Here is the view from our living room window. It reminds me that Philadelphia can be pretty!

Two weekends ago Ricardo and I ventured downtown by ourselves to see some historical sites. We tried to go to go on a tour of Independence Hall, but it was Friday night and a lot of people had the same idea we had, so we had to settle for taking a picture out front. We'll be back another day. Here I am in front of it:

Ricardo walking around Washington Square Park. This is a little park right in the middle of the city. We enjoyed walking around and people-watching everyone else that came through.

Us at the Liberty Bell. We actually learned a ton of things we didn't know about the bell. This picture was taken on my phone, so it's not the best quality, but it at least proves we were there!

This Friday we went on a great little tour of the city with some awesome new friends, the Packers. They chauffeured us around and we loved it. Here we are at Reading Terminal Market, which is a really cool market downtown that sells everything, from every kind of meat to giant shrimp (literally, the size of lobster) to yummy produce to desserts of every kind! We tried an apple fritter from the Amish and it was delicious!

This is the Benjamin Franklin bridge to New Jersey. It costs $5 to cross this bridge. We found this out the hard way on our second weekend in town when we accidentally got on the bridge and were forced to pay the $5 to get back home. Tolls are expensive here!

 Here we are at the famous Love sign downtown. We felt this was a necessary photo-op.

Other than the fact that we think the weather is starting to get cold and it's scaring us, life has been good in Philadelphia so far. We have met some great people and gotten to see some cool things! We are looking forward to taking some side trips to NYC, Niagra Falls, and Palmyra, New York over the course of our stay here. We are also looking forward to our weekend trip home to Florida this weekend for my graduation! Pictures to come!