Seeing The South Philly Sights

"Equal and Opposite Reactions is a rollicking good yarn about complex relationships and emotions in middle-class American culture. The author has created an incredibly funny romantic comedy, which transcends the ubiquitous romantic triangle and expands it into a quadrangle, complicated by the interweaving of relationships between the children of the principal characters.  Cleverly plotted, twists and turns, and exceptionally well written, this part drama and part slapstick comedy is a tour-de-force. Bravo Patti."
- R. Bruce Logan, "The Narrative Arc"

"Equal and Opposite Reactions"
 By Patti Liszkay
Buy it on Amazon
      http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa

Seeing The South Philly Sights

...Continued from 6/21/2018:
     Friday morning started out for us with a bevy of logistical issues to resolve.  

     We had to be out of our Airbnb in South Philadelphia by 11 am,

...but check-in at our wedding hotel, the Courtyard by Marriott about a mile away in in Center City (as Philadelphians refer to downtown), wasn't until 4 pm,

...and our cars were parked several blocks away in the SP+ garage at South and 11th (see post from 6/21/2018),

     As the valet parking at our downtown hotel cost $55 a day while the parking at the SP+ was only $20 a day, we wanted to leave our cars at the South Philadelphia garage for the weekend.

   However, we had too much junk to schlepp across town on foot from the Airbnb to the hotel.

    Anyway, we sorted it all out by coming up with a plan to walk back to the garage, pick up the cars, drive them back to the Airbnb, load our stuff, drive to our hotel, leave our luggage at the desk until check-in time, drive the cars back to the parking garage, then go kick around town for the day on foot.
     But first breakfast.

    The waitress at Santucci's, the pizzaria where we'd had dinner the evening before (see post form 6/21/2018),

...told us that a good place for breakfast was Sam's Morning Glory, down the block on 10th Street. 

     So we set off for Sam's Morning Glory.

     Sam's was all decked out in Pride,

...and political commentary,
outside,

...and inside.

A waiter.

    The food was really good,

...and the ketchup arrived in glass bottles.

     The  place was crowded at 9 am on this Friday morning,

...and among the crowd of customers was a lively, happy, friendly group of youngsters throwing a Bachelor Breakfast,

...for their friend who was getting married that day.

    After breakfast we began the long haul of packing and gathering our stuff, retrieving the cars, loading the cars,

...driving over to Center City to our hotel,

...which was on Juniper and Market Streets, right next to beautiful City Hall.

    And so after dropping off our luggage at the hotel with Callie and Theresa who saw to its proper disposition there, the rest of us drove back to South Philly to the SP+ garage where we re-parked the cars,

...and from there headed our separate ways for the day.

     Emily and Tommy walked back to Center City where they planned to meet Claire and Miguel, who'd soon be arriving from Chicago, to find a sports bar in which to watch the World Cup together,

...and Callie and Theresa wanted to stay in Center City to check out the Reading Terminal market,

...then walk to Chinatown,

...which they did, and where they had Shabu Shabu - a sort of Chinese/Japanese fondu/make-your-own-soup dish - for lunch,

...and rolled ice cream, apparently a Chinatown specialty, for dessert.

    Tom and I decided to spend the day seeing the sights in South Philly.
     We stared by visiting The Magic Gardens,

...a sculpture environment created over a period of of 30 years by South Philadelphia artist Isaiah Zagar,

...who used glass, ceramic, and a variety of found materials to create mosaics,  sculptures, and art pieces  in a 3,000 square-foot-area.

   The place is quite amazing.

...and wonderful.

   Isaiah Zagar has also turned a number of walls all around South Philadelphia into works of art with his ceramic murals.

      After our visit to the Magic Gardens Tom and I headed over to  9th Street,

...then south to the Italian Market, an open-air market along 9th Street known for its groceries, bakeries, butchers, eateries, and all venues dealing in fresh, delicious Italian food.

   We stopped for lunch at Lorenzo's, a crowded little place,

...that claimed to have the best cheese steaks  in Philly.

..a claim which, after trying one, we had no grounds to dispute.

"With or without?" the cook asked us after we'd ordered our steaks.

   I still retained enough of my Philly roots to know he was asking whether or not we wanted onions on our cheese steaks. We opted for "with."

   Awesomely delicious as our cheese steaks were, we were glad we'd split one along with one order of fries,

...especially as this left us enough room to head back over to the Big Gay Ice Cream shop (see post from 6/21/2018),

...to join the throngs already there for their afternoon ice cream fix.

   We then strolled around South Philly for a while longer,

...before heading back to Center City,

...and checking into the Downtown Courtyard by Marriott,

...and our room on the fourth floor,

...where we rested up for a while before the evening's festivities.