Nice day for a Royal Wedding

April 29

Yes I woke up at 4:45am to watch the Royal Wedding. Yes, I enjoyed the crap out of it. Yes, I took a nap afterwards. Holy crap, the Royal Wedding was amazing! Of course, I loved every minute of it. She looked gorgeous and he looked handsome too. It’s refreshing to see the British monarchy look happy for a change. Unfortunately, I fell asleep before they got to the balcony, but I was able to find it online and watch it. So. Cute. Of course now I’m obsessed and read every article I can find on the wedding, the hats (so happy that hats are back in!) their pictures, etc.

Roomie and I ventured out into the city again, but this time we went to a coffee shop in Fairmount called Mugshots with Friend B who lives in that part of town.  It only renewed my desire to live in that area. Friend B lives in what’s called a row house which is pretty similar to the houses in downtown San Fransisco. And she has an extra room available until the middle of June that she offered to let us live in till then. We’d have to pay some rent and utilities, but we’d at least have our own room and get out of the way of friends in their own places. As you can imagine, we’re super stoked!

Anyway, Friend B coaches a high school women’s rowing team and she took us out to Boathouse Row to watch her coach. Roomie and Friend B know each other from UCI’s rowing team, so Roomie is very familiar with the Schuylkill River and Boathouse Row. It was pretty cool to ride in the coach’s boat while she coached and get a free tour of the river and the area. Except for the brown water, trash on the river’s edge, and graffiti on the bridges, it was a pretty.

When we got back to Friend P’s apartment (which is amazing by the way! It has a great view of the art museum and is within walking distance of the heart of downtown) we decided that it was time for dinner. We met some of Friend P’s friends at a little Italian restaurant called Mamma Palma’s. We had some really delicious pizza then walked over to a bar called Mouriarty’s in another part of the city. We walked through a park that I had been to back in the summer of 2009 when I came with my parents which was nice because now I had a point of reference and felt a little more connected to this huge city.

I’m starting to understand the city a little bit more. For instance, the whole city is on a grid, any street higher than 30^th is in West Philly, numbered streets run north-south, and streets with tree names go from softest to hardest wood. There is an urban legend that when the city was first built, they planted the corresponding trees on their street (i.e. a spruce tree on Spruce) that way farmers who came to the city who couldn’t read could navigate their way around the city. Unfortunately it’s not true.