Spending this weekend with my friend Liz in Philly has inspired me to come up with the following list:
- Wawa – the best convenience store in the world! Meatball sandwiches, muffins, and several kinds of flavored coffee. When I lived on the Westminster campus with no car, Wawa was an oasis in the desert.
- The fact that chain stores haven’t completely taken over, and when you go into stores, you get the feeling that this is the person behind the counter’s long-term job. My favorite is Hibbert’s, the office supply store in Glenside whose building façade, merchandise and staff don’t seem to have been updated since the late 70s.
- Philly’s special brand of blue-collar-ness – on display at the above.
- The Philadelphia Museum of Art
- Kelly Drive – the scenic drive with hairpin (or almost) curves that makes driving from Chestnut Hill to downtown an adventure / pain in the ass, depending on your mood.
- The land and climate – PA is the golden mean between New England and the South, and the prettiest state I’ve lived in by far.
- The site of leafless trees flowering white, pink and yellow against gray stone walls in early spring.
- The parks and green spaces inside the city, with beautiful old neighborhoods nearby – it reminds me of the urban mission axiom that creation began with a garden and will end with a garden inside a city.
- Going for walks and runs in Wyndmoor, just outside the city limits – especially past that that huge estate with its own private road and uncultivated grounds that look like a patch of Scotland dropped down into the Philadelphia suburbs.
- The friends I made at Westminster and the larger Christian community that’s connected by the seminary. I didn’t realize when I was here how unusual it is to be surrounded by people who live in hope.
