If this were a movie rather than a blog, this is where one of those fancy transitions would go. But it’s not. Nonetheless, it has indeed been a month since I’ve last posted. Given that the second to last post made on here was the one celebrating our first birthday, yeah, that is a bit embracing. So what happened? Did I fall off the face of the earth for a month? No, I was hammered with school work from Drexel, as usual.
At Drexel, our terms are 11 weeks, or roughly three months. The last month of term and especially the last two or three weeks are always the craziest. As a result, I haven’t been able to update as regularly as I would like to. A lot has certainly happened though. Currently, I’m running around the state of Pennsylvania for co-op interviews and getting ready for the Summer term at Drexel, which starts this coming Monday. However, in my free time I have been spending more time in the city than I believe I have before. I now have a membership to the art museum that I plan to use quite a fair bit and a membership to the Franklin which I might not use as much, but I don’t plan on leaving it in my wallet to go unused.
What might come to an amazement to some, I’m no longer a regular at Starbucks. Plain and simple, Philly has way too many local coffee joints that are considerably better. Rival Bros is now my main fix, a delivery truck converted to a coffee bar on wheel, and now holds the record in my book for making the best cup of coffee. It’s also the first – and until a week ago only – place that can make a cup of coffee that I don’t need to put sugar in. If you’re ever at 33rd and Arch, definitely check them out.
On the other hand, if you’re in Center City (or for when Rival Bros is finished for the day), definitely check out Bike Caffe, Elixr Coffee, and ING Direct Café. Bike Caffe, while actually a chain, serves up some great snacks and drinks. Given the results on Foursquare, it looks like Philly may have more than one. The one I’ve been to is the one on S. Broad at 121 (The North American Building).
If you’re at 15th and Walnut, don’t turn on Walnut just yet (or turn off on to 15th going south if you’re on Walnut) and pop in Elixr Coffee. A cozy little shop, Elixr Coffee serves up a great Cappuccino that is hand crafted with care each time (when you order one, you’ll see what I mean). The atmosphere is great and if you need to get work done, there’s free WiFi. They will soon be moving behind the Chipolte on Walnut to a store that will be about three times the size of the current one.
Finally, if you’re on Walnut around Rittenhouse, keep an eye out for the ING Direct Cafe (the orange sign is pretty hard to miss). While it is indeed a bank, save for some signs for their banking services here-and-there, the atmosphere sure doesn’t show it. Both the drinks and snacks are fairly priced and you even get half off on drinks when you use an ING Direct MasterCard. Better yet, drop in and check in on Foursquare five times to get a free pastry.
So besides discovering new coffee places, what else have I been up to? Well, as stated before, it’s co-op season again at Drexel. This year I got a whopping 15 interviews back out of 25. I believe that’s a few more than last year. Needless to say, this year my “break” was running around the state of PA to get to all of them. On the upside, it’s a very good way to see the state and figure out how to get to more places via SEPTA. It also helps quite a bit to have Mirai, my iPhone, this year. Maps are always a good thing to have on hand, you know?
I also learned this year that Philly has its own Comic Con each year, just like New York. It was a bit disappointing though: a lot smaller, very much a comic con with very little anime vendors and panels, and counterfeits were a plenty. And I don’t even mean well-disguised ones – they were quite obvious. Need less to say, just attending Sunday was enough for me. I’ll stick with New York Comic Con instead – although I hope there will still be a fair bit of anime this year, given that “and Anime Festival” has now been officially dropped from the name. Despite the crowd control disaster that it was, I will miss the Saturday night masquerade.
Finally, as I said before, Summer term is about to start at Drexel. That said, I have no idea how often I’ll be able to post to here. I’m considerably more active on Twitter. I’m also looking into having my Instagram photos post to here automatically, so that will bring a few more updates, granted they’ll be mostly picture-posts. But I hope many of them will be pictures from my adventures around the city. Remember, if you don’t stick to a routine, every day will be an adventure 😉
