The Apartment

By popular demand (okay, one person offered to not complain if we did it), here is a photo tour of the little place we call home.   When you come up Walnut Street, a main thoroughfare in Philadelphia, you see our front door. It's a 3-story building, built in 1928 or so, with two sets of locking doors.

There is no elevator, but at least the stairs are big enough to carry a queen-sized mattress.  And we're only on the second floor.

Be it ever so humble...our front door.  I would be surprised if it had fewer than 20 coats of paint on the jambs.

The "foyer," showing one of our four window air conditioners in the dining room. A careful examination of any of these pictures will show that the walls are less than perfectly flat.  They are plumb and true, for the most part, though.

Turning slightly to the right, you can see part of the living room and into the second bedroom, aka "The Office."

Here are a couple of shots of the living room, including another AC unit and the heirloom furniture we bought from some Grey Dog guitarists (thanks Quincy and Shawn!)

All of the floors are hardwood, which goes great with the furniture and provides fewer homes for microscopic creatures. The couch was left here by the previous tenants, whom we know, because removing it requires disassembling the door.  We will probably leave it as well.

One feature we didn't fully appreciate until we got moved in is the large front deck, through this door in the living room.

 It is 10 feet by 25 feet, and overhangs the street and the Lebanese bakery.  It is a perfect place to hang out and eat an otter pop on a hot night.

We have a second bedroom that is our office.  I work here almost every day, but we'll put out a big air mattress and roll out the red carpet if you come visit (3rd AC unit in there). 

Here is our dining space; we really will be able to feed ten people. (Thanksgiving, anyone?) But bring your own chair, we only have seven, not counting the deck chairs.

Now, turning to the left, and around the corner, here is our kitchen.  It lacks counter space, but has an adequate amount of cabinet space.

And comes complete with a cute chef.

Going through the kitchen, we pass by a couple of storage closets and a small but functional bath.

Then we have the master bedroom.  Notice that walls are all bare.  One of our safari goals on days we go out exploring is to figure out how to decorate: art?  hangings?  stencils/appliques?  pieces of cars?

We also have dual walk-in closets so I actually get to have space for my clothes, too.

You probably didn't notice, but the ceilings are 9 and a half feet tall, so we get a really roomy feel.  As you know, AC is in the windows, our furnace is in a closet, and our water heater is in the basement, but ours alone, so we never run out of hot water.  Not that we need extra steam here in Philadelphia.

Here is the dishwasher.  

Our washer/dryer is in the basement, but for just a dollar more a load, we have a service around the corner do it.  It is really slick. We fill up our rolling suitcase, drop it off on the way to work, pick it up on the way home. Clean, folded, ready to put away.

The apartment's big--over 1200 square feet--and about half the cost of smaller places in more tony neigborhoods.  The biggest minus:  it has had a lot of tenants over the years, and dirt from all of them has been painted into the door frames and floors.  Quaint and gritty. But we love it and are very happy to be here.

One final note:  this little coffee table was a Pennsylvania native that was packed onto a moving truck to Utah last month.  But in a story that would rival all of those cross-country animals who ever went back to find their owners, it has made its way back to Pennsylvania.  Doesn't it look happier now?

Philly Gabe & Terisa 

Independence Day at Independence Hall

What better place to spend the fourth of July than where it all happened 235 years ago?  Independence Day at Independence Hall!

And who better to spend it with than the very incarnations of white, blue and red themselves!  Carrie and Ellen invited us to the party.

There was speechifying.

There was singing by Miss America.

There was drumming and fife-ing.

There was high school marching band-age.

The parade was memorable as well.

There were famous people, like William Penn, and the lovely Mrs. Penn,

Abe Lincoln,

Smoky the Bear (I think he lives around here),

Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Bobba Fett, Princess Leia,

A cross between an albino peacock and Liberace,

Fu Manchu,

and a smokeless dragon named Fluffy.

After the parade, we had snacks at a street cart (50% chance of hepatitis...) and then got in to be 4 of the 200 people to hear the ceremonial "tapping" of the bell. 

We think it might have been a recording, but, hey, very symbolic anyway. There was a very small front row and everyone wanted pictures.

We stopped by to let Mayor Michael Nutter know we were in the city and finally ready to help him out. He was grateful.  (Real Mayor of Philadelphia, real picture.  Would I make this up?)

Also saw presidential candidate, and former pizza magnate, Herman Cain.

Went back to niece Carrie's very swanky South Street apartment for Chicago Dogs (closest approximation below.  Why do I always forget to take a picture of the best stuff?)

Fireworks started on Saturday night at Penn's Landing, and continue tonight from the art museum (think Rocky's steps).

Also, a punk/grunge/ska/goth BBQ is going on around the corner.  I meant that the music was punk/grunge/ska/goth, but I'm actually not certain that's not the main course, as well.  We didn't really fit in the crowd, and sat this one out.  (Best approximation of the crowd:)

Truly cool to be in the birthplace of America on its birthday!

Being (T)here: First Impressions

We've been here a week.  So what do we know about Philadelphia?  Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.

First things first: we are so close to everything that we walk everywhere.  This has required us to regain our "city legs."  Been a sore week...

But everything here is so green that the oxygen content of the air must be above 25%!
I feel smarter already!

We'll do a photo tour of the inside of our apartment in the next blog, but here is some info:  built about 1928.

Solid building--no noise comes through the walls.  It has three stories with 13 apartments, including a dungeon.   There is a string of five just like it in a row.

Location: technically in University City, almost West Philly.  There is a strong Islamic influence in the area, with an Islamic school across the street and a mosque up the road a block.  Also, Manakeesh, a Lebanese bakery is next door and Saad's Halal Restaurant is across the street.  Islam is family-oriented and pretty conservative; and we love middle eastern and African food choices all around us.

Our street, Walnut, is a main artery, which means lots of traffic around the clock.  Yes it can be noisy when we are sitting on the veranda, but we don't hear it at all in the bedroom in back.  There are some streets that get sketchy at night, but we have families strolling, single women jogging and lots of indications that it is safe enough.  The crime map shows our little intersection to be safer than any in a four-block radius, including the genteel neighborhoods a block away.   We attribute that to the traffic.  Plus, we don't take our safety for granted.

On neighboring streets there are rowhouses, two or three stories high, about the same vintage as our ours, some better cared for, some worse.  

A lot of hole-in-the-wall businesses: laundry, specialty stores, eating establishments.  Leafy streets to the south.  We have the best trees on our street in front of us.  Since we are at tree level, it is nice.

Everything is close.  We've been here a week and have only moved the car once. We had to go find a Target to buy saucepans.  I can walk in my jammies around the corner for a newspaper, next door for baked goods, grocery a block away, three doors down to buy a replacement lockwasher for the one that went down the drain.

We are less than three blocks from an elevated train, three buses (one of which drops us off not 50 feet from our door) and a couple of trolleys.  Terisa walks 1.2 miles to work.  I walk two blocks to a subway station which whisks me off to the train station, which connects me to a regional train, which drops me by a DC Metro stop, which takes me to the front door of my office in Arlington, VA, several times a month.

Parking: It is all street parking, first-come-first-served-unless-someone-else-dug-out-the-spot-from-the-snow-in-which-case-if-they-put-out-chairs-they-have-claimed-the-spot-and-you-could-really-get-a-lot-of-bad-words-shouted-at-you-if-you-try.  Will probably be maddening on a busy night.

And of course there is a new cast of characters in the city, not the usual suspects.

In our building we have neighbors from all seven known continents, one missing continent, and at least three different star systems.

People who would have been considered sketchy in our Utah neighborhood are solid citizens here. 

Haven't met too many homeless people. Yet.  And only a few panhandlers.  But there are a lot of people who talk to themselves.  Or they could have handsfree telephone devices, you can't always tell.

There are a lot of students in University City, imagine that!  But it means an active, youngish flavor to the neighborhood. We feel like we are slightly less clueless than the newest Penn and Drexel students, but maybe we are just slightly more naive.  

I got cussed at by a passing motorist for just being me, I think.  The last bus driver had a honking obsession.  Sitting at the back of the bus I couldn't hear the horn, but I could see the reactions. Whew!

Our neighbor of the year is Abd Gazzawi, who runs the Lebanese bakery next door.  He let us use his wireless signal for four days while Verizon fiddled around with our wiring. He has gone camping with his family this week and closed the cafe.  But if you come visit us, we will be taking you to his place for some tasty food.

The hot summer city produces a variety of smells.  On the street we get exciting surprises from the steam that comes up from the grates.  In the hallway we get Indian and Chinese food smells. And  garbage day is quite the visual and olfactory display at curbside.

Navigation in the nation's 5th largest city is an adjustment.  What did people do before GPS?  Talk about your dark ages...

Summary:  This is so different from Riverton that it is a grand adventure.  Who'd have thunk that two hicks from the sticks would love city life like we do?  But we do so far.

And wait until you hear about church!