Seesters

It's now been two weeks since my sister Rhiannon was here and it feels like it was so long ago! This was her second trip to Philadelphia, with the last one being two years ago. It was high time she returned!

There was much drama in getting her here. About a week before her flight, meteorologists starting rumbling about Snowmaggedon and all that for the day before her flight. She lives in southwest Missouri, where they were forecasting plenty of ice and lots of snow on top. Obviously these are not ideal conditions to fly in, but more importantly for us, it makes getting to the airport very difficult.

We went back and forth about whether she should change her plane ticket. We had tickets to Wicked on the Friday night of her visit, so we knew we needed to get her here by then! In the end, she left her itinerary as it was and was able to fly out of the Branson airport and arrive in Philadelphia, with only a short delay in Atlanta. Hooray!!

We didn't do anything too wild on Wednesday night when she got here. She arrived a bit later than expected and we don't stay up too late anyway. Thursday was our Philly day. We spent the morning grocery shopping for the tapas feast that Nick made for us and visiting Reading Terminal Market. We had our incredible six course tapas meal and headed to bed fairly early. We had a very early bus to catch the next morning!

The first time Rhiannon visited me, she really wanted to go to NYC. Unfortunately, I had to take my students to a museum in Philly the only day it could have happened, so the trek to Manhattan was a must for this trip. Our grandma helped us plan it out, suggesting which hotel we stayed in and helping to fund our Broadway experience.

So, we hopped on an early bus up to the city. We dropped our bags off at our hotel and headed out with much on our to-do list. We were staying right near Times Square, so that was our first destination. Can you get a sense of how excited she was in this pic?
From there, we strolled over to Rockefeller Center. We saw the NBC studios and Apollo before buying our tickets to Top of the Rock. This was a first for me! I've been to Manhattan....many times since I've been living in Philly, but it's rarely as a real live tourist. So, I've never been up in the Empire State Building or any other tall building to get excellent views of the island.
I love this one. It was WINDY!
Just before we were ready to go back down to ground level, I had one of those can't-stop-shaking lows. Poor Rhiannon. I don't think she'd ever seen me quite like that. I've never thrown four glucose tabs down my throat so quickly. She handled the whole thing better than I did, telling me that we weren't in a rush, that we could sit down for a bit. I was trying to just shake it off and get on the elevator. My body was having none of it.

Anyway, after that we grabbed a cupcake at Magnolia (caramel....WOW) and scarfed it down before stopping in St. Patrick's cathedral. Then we strolled up Fifth Avenue to go visit the Plaza and the portrait of Eloise by the Palm Court.

The Eloise books were some of our favorites at our grandmother's house when we were little. Nobody tells a story like her. I can still hear her making that little girl's life come alive. Rhiannon and I had to have our picture with her. Those were on her camera, and I'm a bit too lazy to yank them off of facebook.

We hopped on the subway down to the Village, because we had reservations for lunch at Lupa. It happened to be Restaurant Week while we were there, so we did some research on excellent Italian places and decided on Lupa. The food was so incredible and warming for that cold, exhausting day. Then we went back to the hotel to check in and get off of our feet for a bit.

After awhile, Nick was able to join us. We had a few stops before going to our dinner reservation. We went to Dylan's Candy Bar and FAO Schwarz, so Rhiannon could get something special for her little boy, Braxton.
We quickly changed at the hotel for our big night out. We went to Industria Argentina for dinner (YUM) before heading back to Midtown to see Wicked.

I had never seen this show. I wasn't even really familiar with the songs, but Rhiannon really wanted to see it. I'm so glad we did! It was incredible and the actors were amazing. Seriously, I was so impressed with their performances and the voices of the two lead actresses. It was so fun, and even Nick had a great time!

One other thing on Rhiannon's to-do list was to see Times Square at night. That was not a problem. I snapped a few photos for her. Here's the best one I took:

After a night of little sleep because of some VERY noisy pipes, the three of us checked out of the hotel and went to brunch at Pastis in the Meatpacking District. After, we took a stroll on the High Line and visited Chelsea Market. This was an ugly, drizzly, and cold day, but we made the best of it with lots of food and an early trip home. We headed over to Little Italy to get some pastries for the road from Ferrara Bakery, then headed to Joe's in the Village for a quick slice of pizza.

And then we went home! And collapsed! And turned on our Netflix while we ate some leftover tapas and made a quick meal to go along with it. We watched Poltergeist before going to bed early, since Rhiannon left the next morning on a 6:00 am flight.

It was such a fabulous visit. I love it when anyone visits us, but this one was really special. There isn't quite anyone else in my life like Rhiannon. She is one of my best friends and I'm so glad she made it out to Philly for a fun visit!