So this weekend was the big Philly trip. Rather than leaving on Friday in a rush and tizzy, we waited until Saturday, arriving in Philly at noon-thirty, rather than early enough for the morning sessions. We grabbed lunch, walked around and revisited all of Wifey's old haunts back in the day with ex-Husbandry, though we couldn't locate Woody's and the old bujii art-cafe was be-shuttered. It was quite a bit of walking around (Rob Chin thought that I was going to Philly for the Anthropologie store rather than an ethnography conference) before we managed to check in to the hotel and lie down to canoodle for a few minutes before I ran off to the ethnography presentation my professor was giving. West Philly seemed very similar to Center City, just more collegey. A drink and celebration of new grant later, I was back in Center City, and Wifey and I went to a French restaurant, Brasserie Perrier, for dinner, which was bustling and probably friendlier than the few restaurants I've been to in New York. The creme brulee was enormous, but not as big as Wifey deserves. Heady with the quaintness and shortness of the entire city, we were tempted to try and hit Woody's, but it was too damn cold.

We slept in late, and failed in our attempt to walk around and get an early breakfast, so we ended up checking out first instead before enjoying a quiet French brunch of wet eggs amid Wharton-type locals. We were somehow reluctant to leave town right away and end up back in New York, so we kept explorer, even as burdened as we were. We kept on pushing back our departure, and Wifey wants to move to Philly to raise the kids there, or so he says. The schools sucks, at least. Unfortunately, they were closed as was the Market Terminal Market. Or something--one of those indoor markets with beeswax, organic produce, and uniformed Amish, fresh chocolate. We got tied up in Burlington Coat Factory of all places, which meant that we ended up leaving at 6 rather than 3. But luckily Wifey bought a nice soft-looking gray suit, with a backflap. This suit makes him look like a baby-penguin, but an erudite one. I managed to find some work shirts, a belt, and boots, without tax. We managed at the very end to discover the gate to Chinatown, having a quick Vietnamese snack, with Wifey gaining a honeydew-boba addiction. The train ride home was long, but we made it home safe, tired, but happy.