One Week in Philly

It's official. I've been in Philadelphia for an entire week now. I'm all moved into my new house. My room actually looks like a room now. I could use one more set of shelves, that I might try to get while my mom is here this week. It's a small room, but it's a room. And I really love it.

I love my neighborhood! It's awesome. I live a couple blocks south of South Street and a couple blocks west of the Italian Market. For those of you not familiar with Philly, South Street is pretty much just a party in street form. It's filled with restaurants, bars, (sex) shops, and excellent people watching. The Italian Market is a stretch of 9th street filled with bakeries, restaurants, specialty food shops, and lots of yummy goodness.

A few days ago I went exploring in my new neighborhood. Thanks to Salt Pepper Ketchup, I knew exactly where I was going. I walked down the Italian Market to Washington ave. and 4th st. I found the most delicious Mexican truck in the world. Taco Loco!

What could be better than delicious Mexican food served out of an RV by actual Mexicans?

To start, I ordered a steak taco or Taco de bistek. It was pretty much the best taco I've ever had. It also came with a side of the world's hottest hot sauce. I regretted dipping my finger in for a taste, though I did use a bit of it to finish off the last two bites of taco.

For my main course, I ordered a Cuban sandwich, Torta Cubana. I'm not entirely sure of all the ingredients, but I know there was some shredded chicken, a hot dog, an egg, re-fried beans, avocado, lettuce, tomato, a jalapeno, and mayonnaise. That may not sound appetizing, but don't knock it til you try it. It was amazing, a little messy, but amazing.

I will definitely head back to Taco Loco someday. I can't live here knowing there is real Mexican food just a short distance away and not visit on a slightly regular basis. It's just not right.

That's all for today. Typing about Taco Loco has made me hungry, so I'm gonna go get something to eat. Expect new blog posts fairly regularly for now. Hopefully back to twice a week. School starts on the 31st and until then I should be pretty free.

Clap it out!

Here it is. A little run down of my time working at American Education and Travel Services--AETS--in Boston.

I worked for AETS last summer, but only for a week. I had so much fun, that I came back this summer for five and a half weeks! I spent that time living at Simmons College in Boston and taking groups of international students around Boston.

This year we had groups of students from Turkey, Spain, France, Italy, Taiwan, and one girl from Romania. I spent 5 weeks living with them, eating with them, playing with them, and supervising them. I took them all around Boston to different historical sites and sites of interest.

One of my favorite trips is to the Prudential SkyWalk, at the top of the Prudential Tower, a 360-degree view of Boston. The views from up there are breath-taking.

My other favorite trip is to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Currently, the ICA has an exhibit of Shepherd Fairey's work. His most notable work is probably his Obama HOPE design, but his other work is amazing too.


If you ever get a chance to see a Shepherd Fairey exhibit in person, I highly recommend it. He uses mixed media in almost every piece, painting over collections of news papers and magazines. A lot of his works are images of war and the Middle East. Here is a gallery of his work online.

Other trips we go on include:
The Boston Freedom Trail
The North End
The USS Constitution
Rockport, MA
Salem, MA
Whale Watches
Harvard
MIT
Museum of Fine Art
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Quincy Market
Cambridge Side Galleria
Revere Beach
Copley Square
Newbury Street


Here are some photos from my 5 weeks in Boston.

The Prudential Tower from below.

A Colonial man on the 4th of July.

Yassir, he's 11 and from Turkey and an awesome dancer.

More dancing.

The New England Sand Sculpting Festival at Revere Beach.


A Whale!


And to finish off this entry, here is a video from the AETS Talent show! Enjoy!




I'm thinking about making a video/slideshow about the rest of my trip. So stay tuned for that.

In other news, I'm moving back to Philadelphia on Saturday! Expect regular blog entries once I get moved in and settled.

My Last Night

Tonight is my last night here at camp AETS in Boston!

I'll be returning to Glocuester tomorrow, before I go back to Philly next weekend.

Expect a blog about the past 6 weeks soon.