I left home on October 10th and went on a whirlwind tour that brought me to Accra, Copenhagen and finally Philadelphia – 3 continents!
The weekend I went from Copenhagen to Philadelphia was an extremely long one. I left Copenhagen on a 6AM flight on Saturday, connecting with a 3 hour layover in Frankfurt (my 4th stop in Frankfurt during this month of travel, for those who are counting). MJ picked me up at the San Francisco International Airport when my flight came in Saturday at 2PM California time. We went home, swapped my suitcases and got him packed for the trip, stopped for some lunch and to do some tidying around the condo to prepare for the pet sitter. Around 9PM we caught a cab with all our luggage for our 11PM redeye flight to Philadelphia. Thankfully I managed to sleep for much of this flight, and when we got to Philadelphia we were able to get a nap as soon as we settled in before meeting up with some of MJ’s relatives.
The trip to Philadelphia this past week was almost exclusively family-based, and the first I’d had with MJ this month. We were in town to coordinate a move for one of his relatives and that left time for little else. While my other trips this month certainly weren’t vacations, this one was even less so with mornings starting around 6AM each day so we could be on site to coordinate with packers, movers, storage considerations and more. Nights were also late, returning back at our place of lodging (we stayed 3 different places) after 9PM each night.
We were able to carve out some time for some fun though. When driving through Mt Airy one afternoon we passed the Trolley Car Diner where I had to stop and take pictures of a very familiar form – a PCC street car!
Once the furniture part of the move was done, we had no where to sleep! So we made our way over to the Joseph Ambler Inn for a couple nights. Just a couple miles from the wedding venue, this is the inn where we’ll be staying during our wedding in April and have reserved a number of rooms for guests coming in from out of town. The visit gave us a nice opportunity to visit and check out the grounds, we hope to get a proper tour next time we’re in town as the one we had scheduled fell through due to scheduling issues. They had an amazing complimentary breakfast including pancakes and eggs and we were able to enjoy a great dinner one night while visiting with our friend Nita one evening.
Entrance to series of buildings at Joseph Ambler Inn
On Saturday I was able to meet up with Nita, Crissi and MJ’s cousins Ariel and Lauren to go wedding dress shopping! I was pretty apprehensive about this, dresses aren’t my thing and in spite of looking at some dress pictures these past few months, I still was completely clueless when it comes to dress styles and had no idea what would look good on me. I spent the next 90 minutes trying on 7 dresses and selected the 2nd one I tried on. I love it, it sure made this Leia feel like a Disney princess! I bought a tiara to go along with it.
Saturday night it was dinner with family and then back to finish the remaining portions of the move. After 3 hours of sleep, we were on the road again by 6:30AM on Sunday doing some final storage runs and spent the rest of the day packing and finishing last minute errands.
Sun rising as we drove over the bridge to New Jersey on Sunday morning
We made it to the airport pretty late, but thankfully Hertz does a courtesy drop off at ticketing when you have a lot of luggage in a rental car and we’re both enrolled in TSA Pre which allowed us to sail through security without a line and with our shoes on. We were able to grab a couple hoagies to eat on the plane and board as soon as we got to the gate. The flight home was uneventful and I was relieved when all of our luggage joined us at the end.
Some more photos of the trip are available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157631991639918/
I’m now trying to get unpacked and do laundry, adjust to the time zone and get a handle on my to do list before returning to work on Wednesday. I anticipate it taking some time for me to get back into the swing of things but it’s great to be home!
Monday, Nov 12th, 2012 at 17:28
Wow! I’m tired and all I did was read the post. :)
Tuesday, Nov 20th, 2012 at 12:08
that trolley diner is really good, my sister used to live in Mt. Airy. Also I heard good things about the Ambler Inn.
I am sure your stay will be great during your wedding!