South Jersey, Part 1

One of Matt's cousins is the Pastor of a church in New Jersey. For the last few months, he mentioned a time or two that he'd like to go up for a visit. Last week we talked about our plans for the weekend and decided it would be a great time to go. 

Matt suggested we stop in Philadelphia to see some sights since I've never been there before. It was a wonderful weekend!! 

We walked along Penn's Landing and into Old City. We saw a few historic sites, Carpenters' Hall-where the first continental congress met, Independence Hall-where the Declaration of Independence was adopted and the Constitution was drafted and a few others.

 The sun was bright so our eyes are a bit squinty.

When we saw the line for the Liberty Bell, we decided not to wait. It was already a bit late and Matt has seen it before. His description reminded me of the time I navigated the Louvre with a friend to see the Mona Lisa. After standing on tip toes to see the painting beyond the crowd surrounding it, I thought, "Looks just like the picture in my art textbook." It was a bit anticlimactic. I don't feel cheated :)

We ate lunch at Reading Terminal Market at a place called DiNic's. They serve a sandwich that was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, so of course we had to try it. It was good. We split it because it was HUGE and because we planned to have dinner in a few hours at a nice restaurant. 

We came across this pig statue at the market and had to get a pic. 

 For those of you who don't know, Matt has a Dutch heritage. 

Roasted duck at one of the restaurants in the market.

As we took a look at the rest of the market we saw some dessert options and had to partake. I thought dessert was the Mango ice cream I picked for us to share (YUM), but when Matt seemed open to my interest in the freshly baked cookies we bought a few of those too. We shared half of two cookies: Peanut Butter and White Chocolate Macadamia Nut. They were SO good.

It's a good thing we walked constantly for hours!