Philly Weekend Getaway!

Last weekend was President's Day Weekend and since it was a three day weekend Seth and I decided to have an adventure and decided it would be fun to go to Philadelphia.  It only takes 2 hours on the bus to get there from NYC.  Surprisingly I've never actually been there and I was excited to do all of the touristy things and see museums and the liberty bell.  I feel like we saw everything I really wanted to see.  I'll try to break it up by day and we'll see how well I do in remembering everything we did.

Saturday
We got to Philly a little bit after 12, found the hotel (which was only like 3 blocks from the bus station).  We couldn't check in yet but we were able to leave our bags and then wander the city for a bit.  We met up with the Iodices (close family friends from Colorado) and they gave us the insider's tour of Philly!  It was so much fun :)  We had Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches (my first one ever!)  They were really tasty, but I don't want to even think about what is on that thing.  Here's a clue...the cheese is called "Whiz" and comes in a can.  After that we basically did a huge driving tour of the city.  We saw the Poe house, we went by the penitentiary, we got pastries at this Italian bakery, we drove by U Penn and Drexel in University City, we stopped at the art museum and ran up the Rocky steps, we drove up Camden, NJ and saw the skyline from the other side of the river, and probably other things I'm not even remembering at the moment.

Pastries!

I liked seeing all of the empty cannoli shells - the fill them fresh to order

At the Penitentiary

Outside of the Poe house

Running up the Rocky Steps 1

Running up the Rocky Steps 2

Running up the Rocky Steps 3!

I thought this sign was really cool!
I never knew this was the start of Girl Scout Cookies!

Sunday
Sunday was our historical day so we started by going to take the tour of Independence Hall and saw the Liberty Bell.  It was really really cold but we still walked around and braved the weather.  We also went to the Constitution Center, they had a prohibition exhibit which was pretty interesting.  And then in the evening we saw the Comcast building which has this really awesome video screen in the lobby that was pretty mesmerizing.  We also went to Macys and saw the big organ they have there.

Outside Independence Hall

This is where they signed the declaration of independence

The Liberty Bell!

This was for the prohibition exhibit

Sitting at the prohibition bar

I thought the hall with all the state flags was pretty nice

The outside of the Comcast Building
It's the tallest building in Philly

The video screen in the Comcast building

There was also these statues in the building

Inside the Macys building

Monday
On Monday we went to the Franklin Institute and saw the Titanic exhibit they had.  It was cool as well.  We also walked around and there was this park with giant game pieces so of course we had to stop and take pictures.

This is my favorite Shakespeare quote

And that, in a nutshell, was my weekend in Philly!!

Caramel S'more Cups

It was yet another baking day at work on Monday so of course Sunday I was slaving away with a new recipe.  I love these baking days because it gives me an excuse to experiment and try random recipes from the internet.  This time the theme was Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I found the recipe on the Betty Crocker Website:  http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/caramel-smore-cups/9916aa44-083c-4507-8db9-49d0a92f62f7

They are basically chocolate chip cookie cups with a rolo in the middle, then marshmallows on top, then drizzled with chocolate.  I was hesitant to make them at first because I don't have the mini-muffin pan that was called for, however, the internet didn't fail me.  After googling "what if I don't have a mini-muffin pan?", the internet found the solution!  It turns out you can make your own mini pans by taking tin foil and molding it from something else (in this case the bottom of a mini paper cup), and they still hold their shape if you set them on a baking tray.  I think they worked pretty well!

Step 1: Make mini cupcake pans out of tin foil

Step 2: Bake cookie dough in the tin pans

Step 3: Stick a rolo in each cup
and mini marshmallows on top of that and bake again

Step 4: After they are cool, pull them out of the tins and drizzle with chocolate

Yaaaay!

Eddie the Second

I saw Eddie Izzard again on Thursday night!  He was just as funny the second time, but slightly less hyper.  I think some of the jokes worked better the first time and some of the jokes worked better the second time.  But all in all it was fun to see it twice :)

Friday night we spent snowed in, but really the snow wasn't all that terrible.  There seems to be a fair amount of it outside, but it didn't stop me from going out today.  Mostly it was annoying to get home last night and I got to leave work early because of it.

Eddie The First

Monday night I saw Eddie Izzard perform!  He's a British comedian that I've liked since high school.  I just think he's hysterical.  He is performing in NYC this weekend, which is one of the reasons why this is such a fun city to live in.  If an performer is going to do only a few shows, they are definitely going to be stopping by.  Our seats were in the third row so I could see extremely well.  It was a lot of fun!

the stage

I'm actually going to see it again on Thursday with a different friend.  We'll see if it changes any!

A Fantastick Reunion

So three separate thoughts for this post.  First of all, it's been snowing a bit here in the big apple.  Kari and I had dinner Friday night after work and she wanted to take pictures in the snow on our way back:

Snow!

Basically it's been very cold here.  And actually yesterday the boiler in my apartment broke so we had no hot water or heat for 24 hours.  It was extremely cold but we bundled up and got out the space heaters so all in all it wasn't the worst evening of my life.

There were 2 exciting events that I went to this weekend!  The first is that I saw the musical The Fantasticks.  It's a very old musical that started in 1960...and it definitely shows.  Basically you can tell it's dated when watching it.  Not to say it isn't good, I enjoyed it, but it's not a musical I could see a million times.  I had seen it before by a rep company in Portland and I liked it but I probably would not have wanted to see this version if it didn't star anybody famous.  Aaron Carter was in this version, which was fun because he was a pop singer when I was in middle school.  The best part was I got to take a picture with him after the show.  13 year old me would be so proud.

If you're interested in a then and now, this is what Aaron Carter was like when he was really big and I knew who he was:



The other thing I did this weekend is I went to a concert that a friend of mine from high school did.  We were both involved in the Youth Rep theatre and did Les Miserables and The Secret Garden.  I haven't seen him probably in 9 years maybe?  So it was amazing to see him again, and he is so talented! He wrote all of the songs that were sung and sang one of them himself.  I also ran into a couple of other guys from Youth Rep and I had the best time catching up with them and seeing how well they are doing for themselves.  Now I just hope we can get this Youth Rep reunion figured out!!

The poster for Blake's concert

Monster's INC....in 3D!

Well the title actually sums up what this post is about, so oh well.

On Saturday I went with Monica to see Monster's Inc in 3D.  They rereleased it and since that is one of the Disney/Pixar movies I've always really loved I thought it would be fun to see it in 3D and on the big screen.  It was definitely worth it to go!  I had actually forgotten how much I love that movie until I saw it again.

My favorite thing about Pixar movies is twofold.  1) They usually include a short film before the movie actually starts and 2) they usually include bloopers.

So for fun, here is the short film at the beginning of Monsters Inc:


And here are the bloopers:

Cupcakes and Plays

This last weekend was fairly eventful actually.  It was the weekend of the big theatre booking conference so I was previewing a few shows for my dad that he might bring to his theatre.  Here are my reviews of the shows I saw:

5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche

This was a strange play.  It started out super cute and funny.  It was basically about a group of women in 1956 at their annual quiche breakfast.  It started out and they were being silly and overly proper...and then everything went downhill as soon as the atomic bomb hit.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Basically the atomic bomb goes off, all the women come clean about being lesbians (which wasn't surprising considering the title), but then one of the women is pregnant and there's talk about how the baby must be the one to repopulate the world (creepy), and then how he will never know the egg (because all the quiches are outside still) so one of the women decides that she will be heroic and go get the quiches from outside.  The door, meanwhile, can be opened once and only once.  So she goes out, comes back in, but then they accidentally let the door closed and she is trapped on the other side.  Everyone is sad and they stare at her out the window and apologize that she isn't going to make it and then the actress falls back and you stop seeing her face in the window...and then someone squeezes some kind of red gel-ish liquid at the window.  Yes...she exploded.  So...basically a very strange play that didn't end so amazingly.

King Kong Radio Theatre

This was basically watching a radio show.  It was pretty interesting.  The actors were very talented and their voices were very much radio voices.  Technically it was pretty cool too.  There was a smoke machine at various points and great (pre-recorded) orchestrations.  The only problem with this show, however, was that it was a little boring.  I think it just had to do with the fact that I'm not super into King Kong as a story and I felt it kind of dragged.  I think it would be interesting to see this same troupe perform a different story however.

Celebrity Autobiography

This was by far my favorite show of the weekend.  It's basically a show where actors (generally B-list celebrities) come up on stage and read various excerpts from other celebrities' autobiographies.  It was hysterical to say the least and the group of readers was a fun selections of celebrities I know including: Mario Cantone, Tony Danza (!), Rachel Dratch, Janeane Garofalo, and Alan Zweibel.  The dramatic readings were so funny and the way they grouped the readings made it that much more enjoyable.  I would definitely go see this show again, especially because depending on the performance the readers and what they are reading is different.

Also this weekend, Kari and I were bored so we decided to make rainbow cupcakes!  We took a funfetti cake mix and turned it different colors and layered the colors so the cupcakes were a rainbow!  It was a fun and tasty evening for sure :)