To Philly for Dinner

Apparently we are taking a spontanious break from packing, as Jason just turned on the TV and I logged on to Blogger. Must confess, is nice relief, as boxes are now coming out of our ears. It will be very difficult to label them all properly, as what is currently in the spare room will likely NOT be in the future spare room, and I foresee many, MANY trips up and down stairs with boxes that ended up in the wrong place. Sigh.

Anyway, that is not the subject on this blog. On Friday, we hopped up to Philadelphia for dinner. Yes, for dinner, and then we caught the 9:00 train back to Washington. Slightly crazy, no? I mean, it isn't like we don't have pretty great places to eat around here. But a few stars aligned this week that made it seem like a good idea to go adventuring to the City of Brotherly Love.

On Tuesday Jason found out that he would be part of a panel discussion on Sudan at the University of Pennsylvania on Friday and would be taking the afternoon train to Philly. He quickly remembered that his mom would also be in the Philly area, visiting a friend, and so he concocted a plan: His mom and Denise would attend the forum, I would take the train up after work, and the four of us would have dinner downtown before we headed back to DC. It all went swimmingly. I actually got off work early and spent a delightful afternoon with Laura of Oxford days, taking conversation from a coffee shop to her cute apartment in West Philly to the trolley (exciting new experience for Missy). When we parted at Penn campus, I went in to hear the tail end of a number of political diatribes on the situation in Darfur. Then Lynda, Denise, Jason, and I had a lovely dinner at Penne, near campus. We got back to a muggy DC at about 11, walked across the Hill, and soon landed, exhausted but happy, in bed.

There is something nice and free-feeling about hopping a train, landing in a new city, and exploring a bit. A wee bit mad, yes, but all-together very nice.

Saturday was a day of packing, and we can now add the linen closet and the walls of our condo to the list of places that have been boxed up. It's a bit sad to see our first little home come to pieces, but we are very anxious to move in to our new house! We had dinner at our favorite Korean BBQ with some friends from church and then wandered down to Del Ray for some delicious frozen custard.

Apparently it's a weekend of eating, because today after church we joined Josh and Natalie at Georgia Brown's for their famous Sunday Brunch. We now have southern food in take-away containers for dinner, yum!

And would you believe it, the camera stayed on the dresser the entire weekend!