Now that we, and our stuff, have been living here for a full week, we thought we’d share some of the key things we’ve learned:
1) Neighborhoods here change even quicker than in Chicago. We were told not to park on the cross-street north of our house because it’s not so great, but at the cross-street to the south, there are kids playing outside at 9pm with their parents completely care-free! Needless to say, we’re learning our boundaries quickly and are tremendously grateful for the built-in GPS navigation on our phones 
2) Not everyone in Philly is rude. Within 30 minutes of arriving the first day, while we were brining in the few items we had in the car with us, both our next door neighbors (a young married couple), and a woman from across the street came outside to introduce themselves to us and welcome us to the neighborhood – I never even got that in Chicago! Since then we’ve met several other people on our block, and one guy (whose family has owned his house for 3 generations) is trying to put together a block party for later in the fall, which we love!
3) You have to plan ahead to buy alcohol. Liquor laws here in PA are a bit tricky because there is no private enterprise within the alcohol industry. In other words, there are no Mom ‘n Pop stores nor can grocery stores (e.g.) have any part in selling alcohol. That means that to get beer, you must buy it directly from a distributor, which are of course few and far between and keep regular business hours for the most part. (There are a FEW bars which hold a special license allowing them to sell 6-packs to go, but it’s a little strange) Wine and hard liquor, on the other hand, are only sold at state-run facilities (also not greatly accessible), with hours of 9am-9pm and security guards all around. So, to sum it up, it’s not impossible, but will definitely take some getting used to!
Much more to come – now that we’re pretty settled into the house, we’ll be venturing out some more and will be sharing all the fun stuff we’re doing!
Loving Philly so far,
Brett and Kate
