On the streets of Philadelphia I walked the avenue until my legs felt like stone

Pardon my brief hiatus, I was in Philadelphia for a conference. I had never been, and even though I had just a few days, I wanted to make sure I made the rounds.

Last fall when I was in San Francisco, I made a point to walk a lot with only a vague destination. My hotel was in the financial district, and I wanted to get to Haight-Ashbury. This really helped me to get my own impression of the city (and a ton of exercise, I had 3 blisters after 5 hours of walking!). I wanted to do the same for my first day in Philly. I was just a couple blocks from the very historic part of town with the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

It was a lovely town! They may sound angry, but the people of this fine town are as friendly as they come, and I was also pleasantly surprised at how much art and stunning architecture there was everywhere!

Philadelphia City Hall

 By the way, these photos were taken with KitCam, an iPhone app that has a lot of editing features, lenses, and options that Instagram left out. I'm a big fan.


There is a "Mural mile" downtown that I snapped a few pictures of.

This little oasis and the rain made me feel soaked in spring.

I have a general rule, even at home, that I avoid chain restaurants at all costs. There is too much amazing food in the world to waste even a cent on predictable bland food with too much salt and no love at all. Forgive the iPhone photos please.

Lets get this out of the way: Sorry everyone, I didn't go to Pats or Geno's. Phew.

I did go to a fantastic mediterranean tapas-style place named Barbuzzo. I had two very nice chaps sit next to me and we had a fine time talking medical devices and grilled octopus.

We had awesome seats at the chef's table. These guys were cooking for their lives and the food was more like art.

Burrata with Grilled Radicchio. Burrata is a soft stringy cheese like mozzarella. This salad was dressed with balsamic, hazelnuts and slivers of citrus.

Grilled Mediterranean Octopus Salad. This plate deserves the "extra-large" picture status size because it was extra-large yummy status. This was my first time having grilled octopus and I found it very similar texture to lobster, and with no briny flavor. I could eat this salad every day.

My last evening in Philly was a time out for me. I love how conferences can reenergize a person in their work, but they can also be very taxing. I felt very mentally saturated and found RAW, a great hole in the wall sushi place that was the perfect place to unwind.

Dragon roll and Spider roll. Beautiful!

I hope I get to go back soon to explore south street and a fantastic gay bar called "Woody's."