our first week in philly

so. we're all moved in. and by that i mean all of our stuff is in our house. that does not by any means mean that it is unpacked or organized in any fashion. but! my stuff is here! somewhere....
here are some quick snapshots of home so far...

dining room and snippet of my kitchen 

living room

as you can see, it's definitely a work in progress....but considering i've only been working since monday and all those rooms were completely filled with boxes before, i'd say i'm clipping along at an okay pace.

to give you guys an idea about where we are, we are in a neighborhood of philadelphia called "manayunk". i didn't know anything about philadelphia before except for that the liberty bell is here so knowing anything about neighborhoods took a bit of research. {it's strange, philadelphia is the 5th largest city in the US, you'd think i would know at least something about it! nope.} manayunk is located in the northwest part of the city, right against the schuylkill river. here's a map:

so we live up there, and bradley works in the middle (what the lokes {locals. abbreevs.} call "center city"). on the map, it's that tiny yellow square in the middle called "rittenhouse". it's about a 15 minute train ride. so that's nice for him.

another thing i knew about philadelphia before is that it was so dangerous that this clown had to leave it and live in bellaire.

so. not the pinnacle of safety. i did a lot of research and found that the more north-westerly you get, the safer it tends to be. so we're good on that front. i also didn't know of any parts of it that were particularly..ahem..how you say...cool? cool. yes. philadelphia just did not seem cool to me. and i'll be honest. i am still trying to make it seem cooler than i had previously thought. you see, i always pictured myself living in new york. and i thought most cities of comparable size would be somewhat similar.
wrong.
wrong wrong wrong wrong.
philadelphia covers a wide area, so there was no need to build "up" really, so much as build "out". so there aren't a ton of really tall buildings except for several office buildings in center city. the rest of the  area looks a lot like queens. just kind of arm-pit, eyesore kind of stuff. it's also strange in that it is very "block by block". in new york, there are neighborhoods that are safe, and neighborhoods that are not. in philly, there are blocks where you can walk down any time of day and then the next street over people get shot once a week. or there will be a super cute street right next to a street where literally every single building is bombed out and abandoned. weird stuff. of course, there are a handful of small neighborhoods closer to center city that are GORGEOUS and packed with history, like this:

most of philadelphia does not look like this. i know, sad.

but they are also like a bajillion dollars for anything more than one bedroom. (not as expensive as the new york area of course but still out of our budget).

so, back to manayunk. it's a safe area. and it's actually cool! the main street of our neighborhood is apparently notorious throughout the city for having some of the best restaurants, boutiques, and bars (like we care? lol) in the city. and our house is only 2 blocks from main street! main street looks like...well... if park city, the west village, austin, and any small town in europe had a baby, you'd get our town. it's very funky and unique. the only issue with our town being such a lively spot is that parking is a beast (it's on-street parking.) because literally every night of the week, people flood in from all over to partake of our town's nightlife. and, since philadelphia has more higher education facilities than any other city in the US (who knew?!), there's a lot of college student partying going on. we technically live in a college-town. but there are always police around and people always card at restaurants, so things normally stay pretty much under control. here are some pictures i've snapped of our neighborhood so far:

that bridge is so much bigger and more epic in real life. it marks the entrance to our neighborhood. a lot of the buildings around here are made of that sort of stone. 

main street and some pretty stairs

our street! and the church around the corner that has really pretty bells that ring each hour.

but the BEST thing about our location, besides being right in town and close to main street, is that we are RIGHT on the border of the city, so i am literally 5 minutes from a real live suburban target! and 15 minutes from costco! 10 minutes from IKEA! and 15 minutes from one of the biggest malls ever! i didn't even have that in new canaan! i was 25 minutes from a target there, and an hour from ikea...and even then, it was a city target with no parking. so this is an upgrade in the convenience department. i am even only 25 minutes from the airport. the only thing that is less convenient is that our church is 11 minutes away instead of 3. *wah*

we are also still reasonably close to new york. it's about a 90 minute drive, so if we wanted to take a quick weekend jaunt there, we totally could.

ok enough about all that! i'll give you what you came for! a video of some of bea's first giggles! she has recently begun to giggle from time to time, and it is ADORABLE! ignore my singing. it's a song i made up about her farts. she thinks it's very funny, apparently.

that's all for now!