When In Philly....

This may not seem that exciting to my readers who have real grown up jobs that don't involve singing the good morning song to start each day or in depth investigations into if  a fart was intentionally placed in someone's face, but I went on a business trip this week!

Like, my school district paid for me and some teacher friends to travel to Philadelphia, stay in a hotel, and go to a technology conference to get all these cool ideas. Amazing.

Yet another reason I love running is you get to see stuff you never would have otherwise. We were super busy with the conference so there was no time for sightseeing. But I went running each morning and got to see some cool stuff all over the city. Like this gorgeous couple.

 Actually we went out with friends Saturday night and I just think this is a really good picture of us, good thing I have this blog where I just brag about how awesome I am to post it. Can you tell where we are???

Monday - 4.3 miles

 Can you tell what this building used to be?

I am so out of my league even attempting to talk about this but Philly seriously had gorgeous architecture. If I notice, it's freakin good.

Tuesday, messed up the Garmin, but I think I managed about 3 miles after pushing snooze 47 times.

 Look where I went.....

 Philadelphia Museum of Art  - the famous Rocky steps!

 Like most movies, I've never seen it, so thanks for providing this statue Philly, so I knew what to do.

 And thanks to the two random girls walking their dog who took this picture.

 And yet another thank you for showing me where to stand...too bad I didn't see it until my second time up the steps, long after the pic was taken.

 Here's Philly through Rocky's triumphant eyes.

 Cute little park

 Random weird structure

 I read this plaque specifically so I could say what this statue was on the blog...but I have no idea now, so just invent your own story to go along with it.

 Here's the hotel I got to stay in FOR FREE! They made me so happy by providing me Starbucks coffee in my room.

 

Then things started getting wild. Guess which two of these I tried?

 

 

 After some drinks, it was time to check something off the bucket list. I gave up meat when I was 13 and since then I've had one slice plus 2 bites of bacon (three separate occasions) and one bite of a hot dog. But I was in Philly, and that city is known for cheesesteaks.

 Traditional Philly cheesesteaks are sometimes made with cheesewhiz, but I opted for provolone.

 

Here's 2 super awful blurry blackberry pics that sum up my reaction:

One bite was enough - I'm sticking with veggies until I go to another city known for meat.  Earlier that day I did have a fabulous salad at the awesome Reading Terminal Market, so me and Philly are still cool on food.

Wednesday morning, I did a 4.1 mile run on boathouse row, a gorgeous strip along the river with all these cool old houses. This run was ridiculously slow. Research from this trip shows that free candy from the convention + free drinks from rich technology companies + bite of cheesesteak combined with a lack of sleep does not make for good running. It does make for a good business trip though.