Philly

Welp, we arrived back in the U.S. of A late on August 2nd, and on August 6th we flew out to Philly to find a place to live.  We just love TSA, I guess. And airport food. And screaming kids on every damn flight. No, actually I don't love that last part at all.  Control your children, people.  Crying babies can't always be controlled, but shrill screaming for no reason 3 year olds can be!

After our horrific rental hunting experience in Sydney, Clark and I were a little gun shy and planned for the worst. We gave ourselves 5 days to find a satisfactory dwelling place.

We ended up finding a place, signing the lease and paying the deposit/rent by mid morning on the third day. Success!  So we drove down to Alexandria, VA to visit my little brother Scott and his wife Dagmara!  We stayed the night in Alexandria and the next day drove up to Baltimore, MD to visit with Clark's brother Kyle, his wife Kim, and their kids Charlie and Greta.  It was awesome to visit so much family in two days.  We feel so fortunate to have family so close by in the future!

I brought our camera along but took very, very few photos over the course of five days.  I took some photos of our venture to Tony Luke's for some fine Philly cheesesteaks, and one photo at Scott and Dagmara's.  Dagmara threatened that she would leave if I took any photos of her so I put the camera away and didn't take it out the remainder of the trip.

Anywho, here are a few pictures from Philly.  I swear we drove the entire city twice but never took any pictures.  I can't wait to do some in depth exploring of our new city in the near future.  I think we're going to love it :)

Oh we won't just visit PA, we will live here!

Most of our nights were spent at the Holiday Inn right near the Phillies stadium.  Literally, we opened our curtains in the room and the stadium was directly in front of us.  A missed photo op, for sure.

Mmmmmmmm, Tony Luke's cheesesteaks!  We both ordered cheesesteaks with cheese wiz, the real deal.  It was amazing.  

I know, it's kind of ridiculous.  I didn't make an effort to take photos of the city, family, or our apartment, but I made sure to document our stop at Tony Luke's! I have priorities ;)

Clark was a little embarrassed that I brought our camera along.  But fortunately for me, tons of other people were taking pictures of this sign and their food.  I can't prove it, but it's obvious that Man v. Food helped this place gain popularity among non-Philadelphians.  Oh how I love people who love food, and more importantly, people who love Man v. Food!

Clark and Scott hanging out in Alexandria.  Scott and Dagmara live in the cutest neighborhood.  (But so do Kyle and Kim.)  Our apartment on the other hand may or may not be a few blocks away from some questionable West Philly neighborhoods.  But we feel good about it.  And, everyone....everyone we talked to or mingled with in Philly was so nice! Such a breath of fresh air after having experienced life in SLC for 14 months before moving to Australia.

It was a successful and fairly non-stressful trip.  Can't wait to visit Alexandria and Baltimore again!  And of course, we'll have to make it up to Boston to visit some more of the Tobler clan that has relocated in the past year! East coast is where it's at!