As you know, I spent 10 days back in Philadelphia with my family, mainly to see my newborn nephew for the first time in person. My original plan was to take pictures and blog about my happenings WHILE I was there, but that sure didn’t happen. So instead, I’m posting them now. This was day #1. My friend, Christina usually works during the week in NYC, but she happened to have that particular wednesday off. My other friend, Shauna has a flexible schedule, since she teaches voice lessons, so she was also able to see me during the day. They both live in New Jersey, and I was staying with my sister the entire time in Philadelphia, PA. This was the only day we thought we would be able to see one another, so they decided to make the trek to see me. The challenge was, they were both crunched for time, which meant we would only really have about 4 hours to spend together before they had to head back to Jersey and their responsibilities. So we knew we had to make the most of it.
The morning started out very casually and relaxed. They arrived and we chatted with my sister and the baby.
Then we headed off to Main Street in Manayunk, which is a cute area with lots of stores, mom and pop restaurants and cafes. Our first stop was Le Bus for breakfast.
Shauna and I both had some form of egg sandwich on ciabatta bread, while Christina opted for the huevos rancheros. Christina is so predictable. I know she always gets that. So as soon as I saw it on the menu, I excitedly exclaimed, “Christina… huevos rancheros!”
Normally, these girls are my coffee buddies. We all absolutely love it. But we purposely decided to refrain from getting coffee with our meals so that we could get some La Colombe coffee down the street at Volo.
On our way to coffee, Christina met a friend and couldn’t resist stopping to pet him. She loves all “sad,” “fat,” or “ugly” dogs. She thinks that’s what makes them so cute. That’s why she owns pugs.
We get to Volo and beat the sprinkling rain. Don’t you love sitting at cafes with a hot cup of coffee while listening to the rain?
We eye the chalkboard menu and decide to skip the coffee and go for treats: a mocha and two vanilla lattes.
That’s where we meet Jesse, who ended up being so nice and helpful. I chatted him up about how we tried coming to this cafe because my sister told me they sold La Colombe coffee. That coffee is the bombdiggity. I used to drink it when I went to school in Philly. I then asked if he would make us some latte art, and he graciously agreed.
We all praised him while he quickly did all three drinks. We asked him how long it took him to learn how to do this, and he said there’s always a grace period, but if he didn’t learn how to do this quickly, he would’ve been fired. We all laughed, but then he said, “no I’m serious.”
I then shamelessly self-promoted the blog, gave him one of my old business cards that I stole from Shauna’s wallet, and asked for his email so I could let him know when this entry would be up. So Jesse, if you’re reading this… I told you it might take a while to post this entry, but I’m true to my word. Thanks again for entertaining us with latte art!
And my vanilla latte was bold, not too sweet and delicious! Now most people at this point of eating breakfast, and a latte treat would call it quits. But not for us.
We drove over to Cake, in Chestnut Hill, which is this beautiful cafe that serves baked treats, and delicious food. It’s attached to a florist store or something and has this whole green house look to it. My sister was contemplating about getting a cake from there for Hyden’s 100th day party, so I figured we’d be the guinea pigs and buy some cupcakes.
So we ended our mini Philadelphia excursion and four hour hang out at 1:30pm on a sweet note. We headed back to my sister’s place, ate some cupcakes, played with the baby and said our goodbyes. I’m thankful for friends who drive for 2 hours one way just to see me for 4 hours. Stay tuned for pictures and stories from my continued east coast series.
