First week of work + Loving Philly

Helllooo! The past week has been all sorts of busy and exciting. I officially started my job at Group Two Advertising in Philadelphia! Although I spent most of my time last week getting settled into my new job and trying to learn everything, I tried my best to do as much exploring as possible.

Two things are for sure: I am so happy to be working for an awesome company with such a great culture and I absolutely love Philadelphia. Although I have only been to Philly once before, I really feel like I fit in already, as weird as that sounds. There's such a great vibe here. I am living with my co-worker in Old City.

Some fun facts:

• My apartment building was built in 1735.
• George Washington's funeral happened right across the street from our building.
• Betsy Ross's house is only a couple blocks away.
• The oldest synagogue in Philly is right next door to our apartment.
• The oldest inhabited residential street in America, Elfreth's Alley, is a couple blocks away.
• The office right below our apartment is a gay pornography company. (not kidding)

It's really cool living in such a historic little corner of the country! There's so much culture. There might be ghosts in my apartment actually, who knows.

So I moved into my apartment last Sunday, had Monday to unpack a little and started work on Tuesday. On Thursday night, I met my cousin Sara and we went to an event called Night Market, which is basically when there are about 5 entire blocks blocked off in the city and FILLED with every kind of food truck you can imagine and probably every human being in the city. It was crazy but so much fun and I got some great pizza.

On Friday we left work early to play Escape the Room. If you've not heard of Escape the Room, you basically get locked into a room and have an hour to get out based on clues to find a key. It's extremely clever and so much fun. After Escape the Room, we had a fun happy hour at a restaurant called Alma De Cuba. The sangria was delicious!

The weekend went a little fast, but I got to enjoy some more tastes of Philly. Saturday morning I went to Continental Diner with a friend for a late brunch and sat in these awesome hanging basket chairs.

Saturday night Michael and I took a stroll and ended up at a restaurant/bar called Varga, which was a fun little place! We ordered a gouda cheese plate, duck confit chicken wings and lamb lettuce wraps. The cheese plate was my favorite part. On Sunday, we just kind of walked all over the place to try and see more of the city!

My goal this week is to NOT spend anymore money on food. I get a little carried away with all of the fun new restaurants to try.

I hope everyone is having a great start to the summer! I will try to post more pics and updates soon! Also currently trying to find a gym. There's a million different gyms here, so I decided to buy a ClassPass, which allows you to try out all different kinds of fitness classes throughout the city! Ideally, I want to be able to teach somewhere, but this will do for now while I scope out exactly what kind of gym I want to join. I'm trying a rowing class today after work!

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

- Rach

What's your favorite city?