Our Anniversary Trip!

Aaron and I celebrated 2 years of marriage on Monday, so this past weekend we went on a celebratory trip to Philadelphia and New York City.  We first took the train up to Philly and did a crash-tour around the city.  The next day we went up to NYC, to hang there for about 24 hours before making our way back to DC.  It was a whirlwind of a trip, but we had a great time exploring some of the cities we'll be quite far from come May :(  Here are some pics...we were able to squeeze a lot into one weekend!

Us in Philly...on the double-decker bus on a sunny, but windy day.  It was a great way to see a lot in a little amount of time.

The Betsy Ross house.  Would be cooler if they hadn't told us Betsy Ross probably didn't design the American flag.

Eastern State Penitentiary.  

That place was super creepy inside.

Thought this little logo was cool.

Did I mention it was windy?  And that I forgot my hair tie?

The Liberty Bell!  (Independence Hall is not pictured because - as luck would have it - it was under construction.)

In LOVE park.

Did you know that the game Monopoly came from Philly? (This is me with the hat game piece, with pieces from the games Sorry! and Bingo in the background.)

City Hall is a gorgeous building.

And then, of course, we had a Philly cheesesteak.  Ohmygosh YUM.

They even helped us non-locals figure out how to order.

On Saturday AM, we went on a tour of West Philly (on the metro) to view some of the 3000+ large murals found in Philly.  These murals were painted by notorious graffiti/mural-artist Stephen Powers.  They are designed as a love letter from a guy to a girl...and also to the community around them.  Pretty desolate area of town, but some really cool murals.  It's called the Love Letter Mural Tour if you're ever interested in going, it was really cool!

After the LOVE tour, we grabbed some lunch (Jimmy Johns!) before heading up to NYC.  While it was crazy-rainy weather once we got to the city, we still enjoyed our time in NYC.  We went on a cruise of the Hudson/East Rivers to view the night-time city skyline (clouded a bit by rain), grabbed some delish pizza at Don Giovanni's, then stayed in the Marriott Renaissance Hotel 57 (love it there!).  The next morning, we got up the next morning to spend a little quality time with my good friend Macy before taking the train back home.  Some more pics:

Life preservers on the boat.  Were these supposed to make me feel better?

The rainy Manhattan skyline.  Still beautiful.

A million floors of bliss.

We came home on Sunday, but our anniversary was actually yesterday, so we continued the celebration by grabbing dinner at Old Ebbitt in DC last night.  We took a walk afterwards around the Ellipse near the White House to walk off all the good-eats from the last 3 days.  Here we are: HAPPY 2 YEARS!!