The Quiet Car. Travel Without Baby

This past weekend, I took the Amtrak down to Philadelphia and met up with my two friends from DC. These are my gal pals of 10 years, and each of us represents a different decade (I'm in my 30's, one girl in her 40s and one in her 50s) but when we come together we always have such a blast and we are a great trio.

I'm also glad I decided to take the train to Philly instead of drive. My ticket was only $70 RT and if you add up tolls (ummm... its 11 bucks just to cross the Verrazano Bridge), gas, and parking it cost about the same, BUT on the train I was able to relax, read, knit and stare out the window... all in the quiet car! Yes, they really do have a quiet car, where there are no kids (cause kids cant be quiet) and no jackarses gabbing on their cell phones!

We arrived in Philly around lunch time on Saturday, checked into our hotel, the Sofitel (which is super fancy and in a great location, also a 20 minute walk from the train station), and headed down to Reading Market. Now Reading Market is a food lovers dream, with a ton of booths where you can buy any kind of food imaginable. After a long look around, I chose a falafel plate! Super yummy.

And I'm glad I fueled up at the market, because after that, we spent the next three hours exploring the city on foot. We walked past the Liberty Bell (see artsy pic to your left), Independence Hall, and Ben Franklin's House. We walked down to the river, and over to Society Hill and then up South Street, window shopping our way back to the hotel.

After an hour or so of vegging and regrouping at the hotel, we dolled up a little and ventured out to El Vez, a Mexican restaurant close to our hotel. We had hoped to eat at Zahav, but the earliest we could get was a 9:00 reservation, and this acclaimed Israeli restaurant was kinda far from our hotel.

So we started at the bar with Chardonnay for me, and pomegranate margaritas for my friends, and after about an hour we were seated for dinner. We quickly ordered some fancy guacamole, with red peppers, goat cheese and pistachios. Needless to say we practically licked the bowl clean.

I can't say we partied till the wee hours, but we did blast through some more wine and another pitcher of 'rita, so after dinner we headed to bed and I of course slept like a rock. My girlfriend arranged for us to have room service coffee delivered in the morning, best idea ever! On Sunday morning, we took our time getting ready and headed out for another walk around the neighborhood and some brunch at a restaurant called Marathon.

Marathon was super yummy and I ate way too much, which left me in a bit of a food coma for my train ride back to NYC. Although I of course could not wait to get home and hear the little man call "momma." I missed him (oh and hubby too) so much, but it was so great to get away, explore a new city, chill with my friends (who are also moms) and relax.