Give Me Broccoli Rabe, or Give Me Death: 48 Hours in Philly

City Center Philadelphia around lunch time, with plenty of bustle
and one of the numerous Pakistani-owned Halal food carts in the area

Granted, I have not visited all the big metro cities on the East Coast yet. But in terms of feel and bustling energy that only a big city has, Philadelphia feels the most like San Francisco to me, with a little more age and space added in, not to mention a couple dozen or three Halal-style food carts scattered throughout the City Center area.

A mere two days really isn’t enough to absorb a city the size of Philly, but it is enough to lend impressions like these, and enough to make you anticipate when you might be able to squeeze in another trip in the future.

Indy In Threes: Beer and Wine and a Voice Divine

Midtown Carmel, located to the north of Indianapolis. Not unlike Columbus,
parts of this city are undergoing a massive redevelopment effort

Indianapolis, the state capital of Indiana, has been a city that we have dabbled in on previous journeys, but have rarely dug in as deeply as we might like. With our current status of having to having to stick a little closer to home due to job-related duties, easy weekend jaunts to places like Indy (in this case, a mere straight three hours west on I-70) have a very high desirability factor.

This first post of this mini-series is composed of highlights, but only in the sense that these three destinations either inspired our trip to Indiana's capital city in the first place or stuck out in our minds immediately as definite must visits. As it turned out, we found much more to keep us entertained during our stay, with the realization that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of things to do here.

Polaris Fast Casual: What´s for Döner/Little Lebanon Cafe

Give me a pair of blue jeans and T-shirt (such as this retro music/Ohio
Alison Rose model) any day versus fashionable apparel

For me, fashion (to cop a David Bowie lyric) is like a new dance which I don't know the name.  I mean, if I have to, I can pull out the sharp dressed man motif, but I'd much rather slum around in T-shirts and jeans (or shorts in warmer weather.)

Perhaps that's one reason why I don't venture up into the Polaris Fashion Place Mall too much, except maybe to grab some gift cards for some much-more-fashionable-than-me relatives and friends of mine. A mall food court wouldn't normally give me the urge to drop by either (though I did see that that concept can be done quite well during a stint in Malaysia), but a fairly recent arrival to the Polaris scene in the German street food oriented What´s for Döner was enough to drop by and ask "Wie gehts?"