Nissa's Visit.... Finally!

That's finally for two reasons: 1) I haven't seen my friend Nissa in about two years, which is ridiculous and 2) Its ridiculous how long it took me to post these pictures as she left over a week ago!

But anyway, Nissa did come to visit me and Bill in our new home in Philly. (New to her, that is)
She actually came in the night of the exhibit and was the most amazing person the whole night. She just did little jobs when I needed her to as if she was getting paid to do it. She seriously made the night go smoothly for me.

Afterwards, we went out for a few drinks at Prohibition Tap Room with a fellow non-profit employee.


Their sign looks like this. Its pretty fun. (Photo courtesy of Veggiecurious.com)

The next day we headed towards Old City for a little boutique shopping, which ended up being book shopping, and First Friday's lineup of galleries and street artists.

But first, we headed to Franklin Fountain, Old City's retro soda shop for some root beer floats, followed by a trip to their sister store, Shane's Confectionery, which boosts a Victorian-era grab bag of goodies.

We bought a caramel apple that took us a week to finish!

We both ended up picking up some silly, old, sex how-to books and some vintage photographs before heading home for a little Mexican & Margarita night.

Bill spent the night in AC for a friends birthday, so that night was girly, and silly, and very pink, as you can see. 

The next day, Nissa and I went to Midtown Village's Fall Fest which was just an excuse to eat a lot of food and drink some spiked cider. 

Yummy bites from Barbuzzo and Jamonera! 

Look at that nice man looking over us all! He sort of looks like God with that halo of light. 

And here we are! We basically both wore these two scarves all week. 

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Nissa and I spent the rest of the week watching movies in our PJs, walking around downtown Philly in pursuit of warm food and drink and finding ourselves always a little out of time and money. But we did get to eat at some great places... 

Like Continental... 

...and Bistot La Minette, and Tria, and the Twisted Tail. 

We also went to the Mutter Museum, which is a museum of medical oddities, many very grotesque, and the Penn Museum for their Maya 2012 exhibit. Of course, the only pictures I was able to grab were of worry dolls at the end of the Maya 2012 exhibit. I thought they were visually stunning, not to mention presented in mass quantities!  

And here's Miss Nissa at the reflecting pond at the Penn Museum or Archaeology and Anthropology. 

We also took advantage of the fact that it was the week of Design Philadelphia and hit up the opening party. It was held in an architectural warehouse and featured some genius, green designers who were able to create chairs and tables from cardboard and igloos from paper circles! It was pretty fun.  

We ended our visit with a night on the beach, which sounds very romantic but ended up being more like boy scout survival. It was extremely dark and Bill had to create a sand, fire pit and start a fire in ungodly winds. 

All the same, we had fun, singing songs around the campfire and eating picnic foods. They may have been covered by sand, but they were good! 

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And that was that! We just need to make sure its not another two years before I see my best friend! 

Speaking of best friends, stay tuned for my other one's wedding!