Archive for the ‘philadelphia’ Category
Fall in Philadelphia: Happy Thanksgiving!
Last year at this time, I was in Pennsylvania having Thanksgiving with my family. This year, I’m going to be spending the long weekend in northern Italy with Sara (Ms Adventures in Italy), Diana (A Certain Simplicity and Piemontescapes), and hopefully others I’ve only known virtually until now, but today with last year on my mind, I’d like to share some fall in Philadelphia shots from last November.
These are all taken in the Art Museum/Ben Franklin Parkway area — the area I lived in for five years:
22nd Street fall porch, Philadelphia
Fall display next to Jack's Firehouse on Fairmount Ave., Philadelphia
Wallace Street, Philadelphia -- my old street!
Spring Garden/Fairmount/Art Museum area, Philadelphia
Ben Franklin Parkway and City Hall from steps of Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Free Library, Philadelphia
Logan Circle, Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, and the Sheraton, Philadelphia
Italy's flag on the Ben Franklin Parkway; the rest are in alphabetical order, but Italy's is placed specially so it's adjacent to the Cathedral.
Happy Thanksgiving!
How are you celebrating Thanksgiving this year?
An American Expat in Italy Goes “Home”
As many of you know, I was back in the US from mid-November to late December. This was my first trip “home” since February 2004.
Yes I write it in quotes; as much fun as I had there, you see, I was also extremely excited and happy to get back to P, the pooches,
and the three kids (who, incidentally, we believe may all be pregnant!).
Stateside, I spent lots of time with family and friends, visited Philadelphia, New York City (where I met two online friends for the first time and met up with an old college friend–none of whom are shown in the photo below!)
and Washington DC,
helped my mom make cookies (which she sells for Christmas),
and shopped. A lot. The Christmastime prices in American malls? Worth the price of the airline ticket, quite frankly.
For instance, P was amazed that I could get him a pair of Levi’s for $30 (€21) when they cost, oh five times that here. My other spectacular purchases for myself include a new iPod Touch (to make it easier to read English language books, mainly) and a new external hard drive.
NB: Anything technological/electronic costs *way* less in America than it does in Italy.
My biggest culture shock actually came very early on in the trip when I couldn’t. stop. speaking. Italian. It was the weirdest thing! On the plane over, no matter what language the person addressing me was speaking, I would answer in Italian…and only sometimes catch that I had done it–once purely by the blank look on a fellow passenger’s face.
The two hardest things to stop saying were “Ciao!,” “Grazie!,” and “Sì!” So I imagine I just looked like a really pretentious American for at least the first few days of the trip. Oh well.
The other thing that was hard to get used to? Things being open in the afternoon. So strange to be able to go shopping or *gasp* get something to eat between one and four! Lovely.
I still have lots of photos to go through and post on Flickr (and possibly here), and probably a lot of mental processing of the whole experience. Soon I’ll be publishing my Top 10 Realizations After Being “Home” for the First Time in Nearly Six Years so please check back!
Love Thursday: Rocky & the City of Brotherly Love
As you may recall, on my trip to the States I stopped in my old stomping grounds, Philadelphia, to catch some LOVE in LOVE Park.
But you didn’t think I could come all the way from Italy and *not* stop in to pay my respects to one man every single Italian LOVES, did you?
Just in case you weren’t sure this was really the right statue:
And while I was snapping photos, guess what I spied?
After that, I jogged (Mom as my witness!) up the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps just like Rocky so I could check out his footprints:
And stand in them:
FYI: My best guess is that the Italian Stallion wears a size 8.
‘Scuse me…gonna fly now!
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
Happy Love Thursday everyone!
Love Thursday: Fall in LOVE Park, Philadelphia
I spent a day in Philadelphia on my way “home” to the Coal Region, and of course I had to stop in at LOVE Park. See those gorgeous autumn colors in the background?
I call this “Fall in LOVE Park, Philadelphia”:
I spent many lunch hours and weekend afternoons there many years ago in JFK Plaza, but hadn’t ever taken a photo. So nice to be able to remedy that.
I also had (what I thought was) a fun idea to stand to the side of the statue and put my arms up in the shape of a U to spell out “LOVE U” for Paolo. So I asked my mom to take the photo. She, um, well….
Yes, this was already “straightened” as much as possible in iPhoto.
Eh, it’s the thought that counts.
Happy Love Thursday!
P.S. The photos look much better in Flickr; does anyone know why that is and how I can fix it?
Michelle Kaminsky is an American attorney-turned-freelance writer who lived in her family's ancestral village in Calabria, Italy for 15 years. This blog is now archived.
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