Phun in Philly

This weekend I took the Megabus to Philly. I spent Saturday walking around Old City on a self-guided walking tour seeing all of the Colonial sites. It was fun, and so nice to be in a less crowded, less crazy city. I saw a lot of really old buildings, the oldest of which I think was Christ Church (1760's I think). I was really surprised at the number of historic buildings which are gone though....there were many signs throughout the city saying 'this person lived at a house that once stood here'....in particular, the house where Washington lived while he was president and Benjamin Franklin's house are no longer there. I guess they were just torn down before anyone thought of preservation. There were also a number of buildings that were historical reconstructions. But lots of neat things to see (the highlights are in pictures below).
Around 3:00, Keith and Shirly met up with me. We had homemade ice cream at a soda fountain type place (amazing!), walking down to Penn's landing along the Delaware River, and then walked through various other areas and finally to dinner at a great Vietnamese place. On our way to the train station to go back to their house, we went to a Macy's (used to be a Wanamaker's) to see a huge gold organ, and I bought a fun wallet on major sale. It was so nice to go to a Macy's that wasn't freaking crazy! I've walked into Macy's in NYC a few times, and almost immediately turn around and leave every time. We also walked into the lobby of a new skyscraper, Comcast Center, which is now the tallest building in Philly. The lobby was really cool - it had a huge LED screen along one wall with more than a million pixels, and they just show random clips of beautiful images (we saw ones of the ocean, trees, and the earth/moon seen from space). Oh, but my favorite building was City Hall. Very cool.
This morning, we went to breakfast near Keith and Shirly's place, and then they dropped me off at the Philadelphia Museum of Art while they both went to work. The art museum was pretty great....they had quite a lot of impressionist art, which I'm always a fan of. No Tiffany glass though, damn them! I really enjoyed the museum though.
After the art museum, I was walking back towards the city, intending to just walk through parts I hadn't seen yet before getting on the bus back to NYC. I ended up talking to my sister Jenny, who directed me towards the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts building....a cool old building she had learned about. So I walked to check that building out, and it ended up having an art museum as well. The interior of the building looked so cool that I figured I might as well pay the $8 to walk through and check it out. It was definitely worth it. I believe the PAFA was the first art museum established in the country, which is pretty cool. This building was built for the first American world's fair in the 1870's (I think?). After PAFA, I just walked through the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood since I've read about it a lot in Jennifer Weiner's books (In Her Shoes, Good In Bed, etc). Pretty swanky. I walked to the bus stop and got there just in time for the trip back to NYC.
The bus was convenient and cheap, but both trips were kind of crazy - the bus drivers swerved in and out of lanes and stopped quickly the whole time. Coming back to NYC, we were getting close and I could see the city, and the traffic was horrible. I figured it was because of traffic merging into Lincoln tunnel, but then I could see the emergency vehicles in the West bound lanes blocking traffic. There was a COMPLETELY BURNED OUT SHELL OF A BUS on the other side of the road. Nothing left but a charred bus frame. Not cool. So I'll have to watch the news tonight and see what happened. But it was a great weekend, and I'm so grateful to Keith and Shirly for hanging out with me and letting me stay with them! It was so nice to see some familiar faces.



Independence Hall. I didn't get to go inside, but I wish I could have.




The Mercantile Exchange building. If I remember correctly, it housed the first stock exchange. It was one of my favorites.




Elfreth's Alley - the oldest, continually inhabited street in the country. It was so cute, with really narrow row houses. I saw one for sale, and I wonder what something like that is worth!




City Hall - this building was huge and awesome. The tower has a stature of William Penn on top - its the tallest statue on top of any building in the world - the statue is 37 ft tall.




The good ol' Liberty Bell.




Looking up the side of the Comcast Center. This was the building with the awesome lobby.




The Philadelphia Museum of Art. These are the stairs that Rocky famously ran up (not that I've ever seen that movie though).



This was a set that Marc Chagall painted for a ballet production. It was huge and beautiful!




The Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. My sister could tell you a lot more about the significance of this building, but I think she said it was pretty wacky for the time period. You better appreciate this picture, because I was standing in the middle of the street to take it - there wasn't a sidewalk across the street because of construction.




The interior of the Academy of Fine Arts building. It was VERY ornate - crazy floor and wall tiles. This part had a beautiful red and gold wall pattern, and then the ceiling was blue with gold stars painted on it.