Happy Monday! I'm not being the greatest with updating my blog at the moment. Things this (last) week have been crazy busy.

First off, my weekend back home was short and sweet! Julia graduated and is currently at UF for her preview. I keep getting texts from her and my dad telling me how much they love the school and I'm just like OK I GET IT I MISS IT TOO MUCH STOP.

And a throwback to when I graduated because clearly I miss college a little bit...

Work has been great and Philly even greater. The week flew by, probably because I feel like I just didn't stop for one moment. But I love it! Busy is good.

Tuesday night I taught my first cycle class in a month! Finally got hired to teach somewhere. I subbed that Tuesday class, a 6 a.m. circuits class on Wednesday, and on Saturday I taught a back to back super circuit and spin class!! Starting this Saturday I will have a permanent 9 a.m. Saturday class at the Sweat Fitness Old City location! Come sweat with me if you're in the area :) My hour long spinning playlist:

Spinning Playlist

Wednesday night Chelsey and I got off work and decided to peruse the million shops by work. Lululemon is very close and I finally caved and bought my first lulu leggings. I love them. I can see this being an issue. After that, it was already 6 p.m. and we thought we would stop for a beer somewhere because every Wednesday night in Philadelphia there is a city-wide happy hour called SIPS - beers are only $3, wine is $4 and cocktails are $5. We stopped by BRU first for a beer and a pretzel:

On the way home, we stopped by the Independence Beer Garden, which is a magical little place right across from Independence Hall. And after all of that I was still in bed by 10 p.m.!

I returned to Independence Beer Garden with Michael on Friday night before downing a whole pizza with parmesan and prosciutto at Pizzacato. YUM. This restaurant was delicious! I definitely recommend for some quality pizza. We then stopped at Big Ass Slices because Michael needed some more pizza for desert.

Yesterday consisted of relaxing in Rittenhouse Park, lots of laundry, grocery shopping & ending with a little walk to Race Street Pier. For lunch we bought some cheese, meat, bread and fruit to enjoy in the park from DiBruno's - favorite kind of snacky lunch. DiBruno's is quickly becoming one of my favorite markets. But the prices are not my favorite.

I'm determined to foster my inner chef and get some more recipes up on here soon! And workout ideas as well.

Who knew moving to a new state and starting a new job would be so busy??

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?