Wednesday, September 27th & Thursday, September 28th

Wednesday, September 27th

Work again. Meetings all day starting early in the morning. I had about an hour of free time in the afternoon but after my experience the day before I chose to stay close to the hotel. We had a staff dinner at a really nice Italian place at Pier 3 and I turned in early again. Nothing interesting happened this day.


Thursday, September 28th

The conference actually started this day. The rest of my co-workers arrived and without going in to detail, if you really want to get to know someone, travel with them.

Thursday evening I had an adventure though. So much so that I almost logged on to blog about it from Philly but I ended up watching CSI instead :P

Thursday evening my co-worker and I decided to go for dinner. We walked over to downtown (I was a bit more comfortable with the city by now so I was okay doing this) and strolled the streets looking for somewhere interesting to eat. Just as we decided we got a call from another co-worker wanting to join us. We told them the restaurant we were planning on eating at was called “Rotten Ralph’s” on the corner of Second and Walnut. We got there and waited for awhile just people watching and absorbing the Philadelphia night life. All of a sudden my eyes registered on the street signs

“Uh, Kel? We’re on Second and Chestnut” Ooops! We called them (thank goodness for cell phones) and it was all good but it was kind of funny.
Rotten Ralph’s was definitely an adventure. It was basically a bar downstairs but upstairs was quiet dining with a view of the street. We even turned off the tv (there wasn’t anyone else there) so it was quite peaceful. I had crab stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer (one of the many crab dishes I had during the week) and a real-honest-to-goodness Philly Cheese Steak as my meal. (I figured I should have at least one while I was there) Unfortunately there was a miscommunication and I ended up with jalapeno peppers along with my green peppers on my sandwhich. It was good but I couldn’t handle that many peppers so I ended up only eating half of it. :(

Afterwards it was still early so we decided to go for a walk. We headed up Second Street, aka, away from our hotel. As we passed Christ Church Cathedral, it started to sprinkle. The further up the street we got, the harder it started to rain. We asked a guy walking his dog if he knew of somewhere we could stop for ice-cream (hoping for an indoor place where we could wait out the rain). He couldn’t think of anything but he directed us towards “Mulberry Market” a on Arch Street. By the time we got there it had started pouring and we were very wet. We went inside and grabbed some ice-cream bars…well, I got a container of Ben & Jerry’s but it’s not that different ;) When we came back out we tried running through the rain but we were all drenched within minutes. We decided to just walk and try to enjoy it. I mean we’re from the west coast. What’s a little bit of rain? LOL I was eating my ice cream while we were walking but it kept icing over from the rain. Quite a unique experience.

When we got back to the hotel, dripping wet, we were confronted with a very busy elevator, at least three board members and our lawyer. Not fun looking like I was. Kelly and I decided to take the stairs. Our room was on the twenty second floor. I thought I was going to die! I am proud to say that I made it though! All the way to the top.

Yes. That was an adventure I’m not looking to repeat :)

~Heidi