It had been one month since my last outside run, but I was committed to my tradition of running in every big city I go to. In a very cold morning, I did a 5 mile loop around Valley Forge National Historic Park in about one hour, stopping for pictures here and there. This park is about 15 miles from Philly and it was the site of an American Revolutionary War encampment. It felt so good to run again! I really needed a break, but now I was ready to start training again.

In the afternoon the boyfriend and I tried to do some sightseeing, but it was so cold I really didn’t want to be outside, so we just did a quick city tour by car, walked by the river for a little bit, and spent the rest of the day at the Barnes Foundation, an impressionist / post-impressionist museum. We had to get tickets online in advance and when we got there we still had to wait in line, but it was worth it to see their extensive collection of paintings by Renoir, Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh… I always love it when I get to see an original of something I’m teaching about and the week before was all about Monet.

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To end our day we walked to Love Park, which has the “Love” sculpture by Robert Indiana. Super cute with all the Christmas decorations!

M. (the boyfriend’s sister) and I

Love Sculpture

The boyfriend and I

As for eating, I had to try a Philly cheesesteak, but since we went to a middle-eastern restaurant (Saad’s), that wasn’t even the highlight of lunch: the lamb shawarma was amazing! I love cities and all the options for authentic places.

Falafel

Philly Cheese steak

Lamb shawarma

Dinner time was “meet the boyfriend’s parents time” too! We met them at  McCormick and Schmidt’s, which is a chain from California I had never heard of. It turned out to be really fancy and really good, which is my cup of tea. Best of all, the boyfriend’s family is awesome. So glad everything went well!

Pumpkin Cheesecake