#phillybucketlist

TASK: NONE IN PARTICULAR :)

I’ve been keeping busy with one particular item on my bucket list, which will be revealed at a later date when I can check it off! But I’m still focusing on doing things around the city, working toward the larger items on my bucket list piece by piece. Because of that, no new item has been checked off since my last post (yikes), but I’m still not too worried about that.

In the last month, I’ve gone to Morimoto with my brothers (Task - Eat or Drink at all Philly Stephen Starr Restaurants), I went to Dunkel Dare at Frankford Hall (Also Stephen Starr), I went to Bok Bar for my 28th birthday, I went to Spruce Street Harbor Park a few times, and I went to Morgan’s Pier at night in the summer (Task - Go to all the Best Pop Up Beer Gardens). I had already been to Spruce Street Harbor Park a few times (but I still love it there) and I’d been to Morgan’s Pier with the ex last fall, but wow it is so different during the summer on a weekend night! I much prefer the quiet fall atmosphere haha. 

TASK: EAT AT FRANKLIN FOUNTAIN

Wow, it’s been quite a while since I posted last. Between Memorial Day Weekend, moving, and not having internet in my new place, crossing things off my list took a back seat to life. But, now that I am settled in the new apartment and my cats and I are adjusting, it’s time to get back to the list.

On a very warm Saturday in June, a few friends asked me to meet up at Independence Beer Garden. I was on antibiotics so I couldn’t drink, but I gladly accepted the offer to get out and be social for a bit. After hanging at a very crowded IBG for a bit, I floated the idea of stopping at Franklin Fountain. My two friends (sisters that I work with) and I had been meaning to check out Franklin Fountain for weeks.

Franklin Fountain is an old fashioned ice cream parlor that always has a line out the door. My old apartment was right across the street and we would always muse at the lines at all hours of the day and night (I realize how bizarre it is that I wouldn’t have gone when it was literally across the street from me). All ice cream flavors are made on the premises and the workers dress in old fashioned ice cream parlor outfits... definitely a novelty worth experiencing.

Task: Host on the Roof Deck

This task is one of the “little ones”. 

When I created this bucket list, my thoughts and goals were pretty much all over the place. If something had to do with Philly, or was really anything I wanted to accomplish in the next year, it made its way onto the list. Some goals are more exciting (eat at all Stephen Starr Philly restaurants) and some are pretty small (eat Franklin Fountain). This goal is one of the smaller ones. 

When we first purchased this home, we toured the building’s two shared roof decks and fell in love. Fast forward one year and we’ve barely made the most of these roof decks. Maybe I’ve gone up to get some fresh air here and there, maybe we’ve brought friends up for a brief tour, and on New Year’s Eve we watched the fireworks over the Ben Franklin, but really that’s kind of it. I realize how lucky we are to have this roof deck and I’m not sure I’ll ever live in another city home with a roof deck. So, I wanted to host some friends and have some drinks on the roof deck before I moved out.

TASK: CHINESE LANTERN FESTIVAL

I finally started checking some boxes off of my list this weekend!

To be completely honest, I hadn’t heard of the Chinese Lantern Festival until my coworker told me to check it out. The pictures on site looked intriguing, so I added it to my list without a thought. Still, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect and whether or not it'd be worth it. Two of my friends came over beforehand and we hung on my roof with some wine (another post to follow) until it was time to head over. 

Due to over-crowding issues, the festival has timed tickets on Fridays & Saturdays, so you can only go in for hour-long increments. My friends got to my place around 8pm and we decided to do the 10pm-11pm time frame to avoid feeling rushed. They mentioned that they had passed the festival on their way to my apartment and the line was really long, so we made sure to purchase our tickets before heading over. Since we were in the latest time slot, it actually ended up being pretty quiet once we got there and there was no line anyway.

Task: Philly Beer Gardens!

Skygarten - 5/18/17

It was an unseasonably hot day yesterday in Philly - scorching in the sun, but actually perfect in the shade. I went to Skygarten with a coworker because we were long overdue for a few after-work drinks. When I first moved to Philly, she and I immediately hit it off. We both had moved from NYC for our SOs and we bonded over our choices to start over in our mid-twenties. She is about to get married and we haven't really spoken much since my engagement fell through, so we spent the night catching up. 

Skygarten is on the roof (51st Floor) of a building on Arch St. overlooking the whole city. It’s the highest place in the city of Philadelphia that you can drink a beer! Selection is pretty decent and there are food options, which all looked and smelled good, though we didn’t eat anything. Somehow on this perfectly warm night with a breeze, there was absolutely no crowd and we were able to stand on the edge overlooking the city all night. The views are great, but my iphone camera is really lacking! It must have been because it's so early in the season for beer gardens, but the lack of a wild crowd was amazing. This is exactly how I like to enjoy a beer garden - with enough people around that there is constant bustle and background noise, but not too much that you have to yell to hear one another. It’s definitely a place I'd like to go again, but with so many other beer gardens to hit this summer, who knows!

FROM THE BEGINNING

What's the purpose of this blog?

When I purchased my first home in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia last summer, I did so with the belief that I'd be here for at least 5 years. Life happens and things change, and that 5 years has turned into less than 2 years. While my time here is limited, I want to make the very best of it because I know I will likely never move back to Philadelphia once I'm gone. So, recently I started a bucket list of all the things I want to do before leaving this city and this blog is my way of documenting as I try to fit 5 years of experiences into 6-12 months.

How did we get here?

Shortly after I graduated college, I ran into a high school classmate in my hometown. Fast forward 5 and a half years and we owned a beautiful condo together in Philadelphia, had two cats, and were in the midst of planning our winter 2018 wedding. On an otherwise unremarkable Friday in March, my life came to a screeching halt when he told me he didn't want to marry me anymore. I was obviously devastated and for the first time in recent memory, I felt so unsure about my future.

My gut reaction was to immediately leave Philadelphia. For much of the beginning of our relationship, we had been long distance. He was in South Jersey getting additional degrees and I was working in New York City. Because his situation was less flexible than mine, I chose to leave my family and friends in North Jersey, leave a career in New York, take a huge pay cut, and start over in South Jersey to be with him. I got a job in Philadelphia and after 1 year of living in the suburbs and commuting, we bought that home in the heart of Old City. So when we broke up, I didn't think there was any reason to stay. But then, my very rational brain took over and I realized how stressful it would be to hastily move to NYC. I made the executive decision to stay in Philly for a little while longer - to live on my own for the first time in my life, to advance in my career, and to save some money for New York. But all the while, I am determined to enjoy the time I have left here and I constantly aim to live in the moment.

Where do we go from here?

The Prompt:

Last year I had a friend move away from Philadelphia. Before she left we made a list of things that were unique and special to Philadelphia. I began to document some of the things we were able to do on the listand posted them on my blog.

This year, I’d like to continue this series by featuring more unique and fun things that should be on any tourist or lifer of Philadelphia. I’ll post this series with hashtag #PhillyBucketList.