Philadelphia Freedom
(Our obligatory first post, wherein we also explain the blog's Red, White and Blue theme)A little over eight months ago we set out across the country in our beat up white Subaru station wagon to move from Seattle to Philadelphia. The journey itself was awesome, and we'll probably do a post or two on some of its more interesting aspects, but the really crazy part was the destination, and we recognized this long before we got there. During those long hours in the car we would enter into a rhythm that involved long periods of silence. It wasn't a problem; it was more a by-product of two people who already knew each other really well settling in and enjoying a journey. The silence was not complete, however. Every couple hours one of us would invariably feel the need to shout out, "Philadelphia? Really?". Or, in our more lucid moments one of us might make a more nuanced statement: "I can't believe we're fucking moving to Philadelphia!"
Basically it comes down to this: the people we know who live in Seattle
and the Northwest environs, if they want to move, talk about moving to
NYC. Or, maybe, San Fran or Austin. But that's kind of about it. The
end result is that our moving to Philly was only slightly less
foreseeable than a move to Buffalo. And this truth is reflected in the
surprise that we continue to feel as we walk the streets of our new
home. As Gigi likes to say, before moving here, despite the fact that she grew up
on
the East coast, Philadelphia never meant more to her than a delicious
brand of cream cheese.
But we don't want our constant amazement at our newfound residence in the City of Brotherly Love to be mistaken for disappointment; we love it here. What's not to love when we've got the LOVE Park?!
Considering how all of this was so new to us, we
started this blog so that we could share the love that is the Sixth Borough and spread the joy
that is life in Philly (cream cheese). On the pages of Rowhouse Living
we hope to keep in touch with our friends on the left coast whom we
miss A LOTLOTLOT, and share a little bit about our new home town (so
everyone will want to move here!). Look for many more posts about things like cheesesteaks, eccentric Philly culture, and anything else that seems new or interesting to us.
Vis a vis the title of this post, wherein we explain the patriotic color scheme: the first time we walked around Philadelphia we noticed Old Glory flying from every third rowhouse in every neighborhood. In retrospect, this makes perfect sense given that Philly is home to the Constitution, resting of place of Betsy Ross, and where Apollo Creed felt completely comfortable in this get-up:
Before making that realization, our
initial response was obviously founded in some kind of Bush-Cheney ptsd because we feared we'd moved to a place where displaying
the flag means "you're either with us or against us." We now know
better. The flag flying in Philly means nothing more than "Hey, the
founding of our country and the writing of the Constitution is pretty
cool!" It's the first of many lessons we expect to learn here and while we've yet to invest in our own flag, may our blog wave
proudly!
But we don't want our constant amazement at our newfound residence in the City of Brotherly Love to be mistaken for disappointment; we love it here. What's not to love when we've got the LOVE Park?!
Considering how all of this was so new to us, we
started this blog so that we could share the love that is the Sixth Borough and spread the joy
that is life in Philly (cream cheese). On the pages of Rowhouse Living
we hope to keep in touch with our friends on the left coast whom we
miss A LOTLOTLOT, and share a little bit about our new home town (so
everyone will want to move here!). Look for many more posts about things like cheesesteaks, eccentric Philly culture, and anything else that seems new or interesting to us. Vis a vis the title of this post, wherein we explain the patriotic color scheme: the first time we walked around Philadelphia we noticed Old Glory flying from every third rowhouse in every neighborhood. In retrospect, this makes perfect sense given that Philly is home to the Constitution, resting of place of Betsy Ross, and where Apollo Creed felt completely comfortable in this get-up:
Before making that realization, our
initial response was obviously founded in some kind of Bush-Cheney ptsd because we feared we'd moved to a place where displaying
the flag means "you're either with us or against us." We now know
better. The flag flying in Philly means nothing more than "Hey, the
founding of our country and the writing of the Constitution is pretty
cool!" It's the first of many lessons we expect to learn here and while we've yet to invest in our own flag, may our blog wave
proudly!
And rest in peace, Apollo Creed...
I think it's only appropriate that henceforth I will read this blog with my right hand over my heart.
I have a large American flag you can borrow. Maybe I'll bring it with me...
Awesome, man. The bigger the flag the easier it is for me to flaunt my left wing radical brand of americana!
I moved further away than you... ha!
farther... furthermore
I would like to request that you discuss food as much as possible. As some people know, I am obsessed with east coast food and enjoy chronically bitching about west coast food. Please indulge me.
Never fear. As two people who talk about food all day long, you can be sure we'll blog about it. How you can buy a whole pig at the Italian Market, the glory that is cheese fries, and of course, the cheese steak. We'll be heading to Jim's Steaks (http://www.jimssteaks.com/indexb.htm)
in a week and a half with friends visiting from Seattle and plan on writing about the joy of the "wit' whiz" after that.