Our friends dropped us off out in the northern suburbs at a train station that would take us further into the city. We got pretty confused finding and riding the trains, but eventually (Laura: by the grace of God!) we arrived at our home for the weekend - The Gables B&B. Probably didn't get there until after 8-9 pm, but still had time to grab some Indian food at Desi Village Indian, which was just a couple blocks away.
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| Just arrived in our room at the Gables B&B! |
Laura: The house was a HUGE mansion-type home from the 1800s and was filled to the brim with all sorts of interesting antiques, old pictures, and knick-knacks. It was fun just to stop and take a look around in the hallways or living rooms downstairs...for me at least. ;0)
Alex: After a decent breakfast at the Gables, the first stop of the morning was the Mutter Museum, a creepy place whose own signs admit it is disturbing.
The place is filled with various old timey medical instruments and body parts. Their analysis of the possible diseases referred to in Grimm fairy tales was pretty entertaining, and some of the odd skeletons and the medical examinations of presidential assassinations were interesting. It got to be a little much in the basement, however, with the casts of people's diseased faces and the pickled babies in jars. Seriously, how many babies in jars do you need? Isn't one too many? Still, interesting place.
Laura: I'll admit...there is some really strange stuff in the Mutter Museum. It definitely lives up to the description on the banner above - "Disturbingly Informative". As a medical student and someone generally interested in the human body and disease, I thought this place was WICKED AWESOME! A lot of really interesting specimens of diseases that we talk about in school but don't really see in person anymore thanks to advances in medicine or their shear rarity. Plus, where else can you see slices of Einstein's brain, a huge collection of skulls, historical medical texts, and so much more?!? The babies in jars were a little creepy though...but still educational...to me at least. Hopefully Walex wasn't too traumatized by the whole endeavor. :0P
Alex: From the Mutter Museum we continued to walk downtown...
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| City Hall |
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| City of Brotherly what again? |
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| 'ol Ben Franks got his start in Philly |
As we worked our way East we stopped by the Reading Terminal Market...
This is a pretty sizable indoor market with a number of various produce, meat, bread, specialty, and miscellaneous food stalls. Along with the take-home food are dozens of restaurants / food stalls of all shapes, sizes, and varieties of foods. We had trouble deciding on lunch, but finally went with shawarma and falafel.
After lunch, we continued East to the site of the original colonial government, first US capital, and famous Independence Hall. Typically you are supposed to buy tickets in advanced for the tours here, but we failed to do so since this was such a last minute trip. However...funny things can happen to those who wait....
We arrived too late to buy a ticket, the park rangers were turning everyone away from the ticket counter, so we decided to check out some of the museum in the Visitor's Center before heading out. On our way back to the exit, one of the rangers at the ticket counter whispered us over, saying "hey, come here. you want to take the tour? here ya go...". It felt like getting black market tickets or something, but at least he was at the info desk (granted, the far back corner). Apparently some large group hadn't showed up to collect their tickets for the final tour of the day, so we got to take the tour instead and for free! Thanks Ranger guy!
The tour of Independence Hall was pretty quick. It's a surprisingly small building (take a closer look at those old paintings -- those guys are really crammed in there!), with just a couple main rooms.
The supreme court room, along with our tour guide pointing around where the old British government symbols would have hung.
The Assembly hall is where the Declaration and original Constitution were drafted and signed. Exciting!
After the guided tour we made our way next door to Congress Hall, which housed the Legislative branch until the capital in DC was ready to house the government.
Photo-op with
Independence Hall!
We hustled over to see the Liberty Bell next. It was getting a little late, so the buildings were closing, but thankfully they grabbed most of the last minute stragglers (like us!) in line and shuffled them through rapidly. We didn't get to stop and read any info in the museum area or anything, but managed to grab a quick pic by the bell.
After some more halls of various founding fathers, assorted patriots, British officials and American Indian chiefs, we called it a day on the history bit and made our way south a different style of American pastime...BASEBALL!!!
Because the Cardinals were playing the Phillies that night! Awwww yeeeaaah!
We grabbed some cheese-steaks and found our way up to our seats.
It started to get a little chilly in the upper decks, so we didn't stay too long, but...
We got to our seats by the 2nd, and left after the 5th, so we saw all five runs in the game. Nothing like capping off the day with a 5-0 Cards victory!
Laura: We sure crammed a lot of adventure into one day! After the baseball game, we dragged our butts back to The Gables for one more night. The next morning we spent a little time at the 30th Street Train station (which looks awesome on the inside and even has the little flippy sign-board for telling you when trains are leaving!) and ran back to Reading Terminal Market for lunch before heading out to the burbs to meet up with our ride back to Rochester. Pretty great trip overall - not sure if I'd want to live there, but Philly is definitely a fun place to visit. :0)
Stay tuned for more fun times from earlier this year and then....ITALY!!!
-The Lorax-
There are lots of great places to visit in Pennsylvania. I haven't been to Philly since I was young. Have to swing by there next time we drive up.
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