Christmas in Philadelphia

Our dilemma for this winter ... should we go and celebrate Christmas with the family in Europe or with Ross and Rachel in Philadelphia? In the end the decision was not that difficult: Philly it would be - although with a little pain in our heart because we would have loved to see family and friends in Europe!

We took off on Wednesday the 17th of December - after a delay of 3 hours - at SFO, had an uneventful flight to PHL and took the train to downtown Philadelphia where Ross and Rachel picked us up and took us - via a slight detour by "the donkey" - to their home. Both Will and I were very happy to finally be able to visit them, a year almost after they came to see us in Ecuador!

The following days were not so pleasant for me: I had felt a blatter infection rearing its ugly head for a while now and there was no more escaping it ... But a friendly doctor, considerable doses of antibiotics, a lot of sleep, water & tlc got me up and smiling again in a couple of days.

Rachel and Ross introduced us to a bunch of their friends and colleagues (including a tour of Ross' lab), took us to a fun play / musical (Cherry Bomb: the Worst Act in Vaudeville for the Holidays), showed us some of Philly's prettiest sights and streets and dragged us to the Redding Terminal Market where we had our first pretzels (! And no, they're nothing like what you imagine them to be: small, hard and very salty, but the very opposite: freshly made, big, hearty, and slightly soft, to be eaten sweet - with sugar and cinnamon - or salty - with some kind of mustard or cheese dip; absolutely delicious!!!).

The other thing that Rachel introduced both Ross and me into was yoga! I took four beginners classes and really enjoyed the physical exercise, tried a headstand for the first time in about 20 years and - luckily - it wasn't all about new age witchcraft love and peace as I had feared it might be.

Before Christmas we had to go yummy-food-shopping. Gil (Ross' mum)'s Christmas present to Ross and Rachel was a cheque to go and buy Philly's best food, so we went to the farmers market to buy a duck, chestnuts, plenty of fruits and veggies, cheese and other delicacies ...

Christmas Eve was celebrated in the Moffat tradition with Chinese take away food, a visit to the donkey and midnight mass in a beautiful church with a great choir singing. The only deviation from this tradition - mainly instigated by Ross and secretly supported by me - was the opening of 1 Christmas present!

On Christmas Day, Will & I woke up to an abundance of presents brought by Santa (I still can't grasp which chimney he would have used to enter the place!). Subsequently, we could finally open those presents that had been tempting us under the little tree for about a week now! At 14.00 h, the four of us packed the duck and the rest of the food and walked over to John and Siobhan's house to celebrate Christmas with them and Bruce, one of Ross' colleagues. Needless to say we had a great dinner, followed by Siobhan's home made desserts and concluded the evening with the cute movie about a small robot Wall-E.

Our enjoyment of Philly culture further included:

• the eating of the traditional Philly cheese steak (tried the three varieties: Cheese Whiz, American cheese and Provolone!),
• admiring the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (beautiful architecture!),
  
• a visit of the huge Philadelphia Museum of Art (amazing sunset that evening),
  
• the intriguing Mütter Museum or College of Physicians with its amazing collection of medical oddities, many of them on "strong water" and
  
• the Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

We spent our last evening in Philly in the company of Andre - who's birthday it was - and Clara having a great time playing cards and other games.

On the 31st, we had to get up painfully early and took a taxi to the airport where the plane had some delay in taking off due to a minor health related accident (one of our fellow passengers fainting ...). Will then went to work while I tried to defeat sleep by going food shopping with Andy & Steph. We had sushi for dinner and tried no stay awake as long as possible playing with Andy & Steph's Christmas present: a WII! A lot of fun, but to no avail ... We did not make it awake into the new year ...

We tried to make up for that the next day though by walking up Mount Davidson. Instead of the fireworks the previous night we were treated to a stunning view over Twin Peaks under a setting sun clouded in thick mist.

Some pictures ...