Philadelphia
Oct. 30th, 2007 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seldearPhiladelphia reminds me a little of Sydney. Maybe it's just the streets and skyscrapers, the public transport and the ability to walk everywhere, the parks and the weather (kind of late autumn/winter).
A mural - one of the many around the city.
On a Friday afternoon, cold and grey,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geneeste, slm76, and myself all ventured out to Philadelphia's Old City and the "Birthplace of Independance". We got to see the Liberty Bell and the Centre for the Constitution, as well as the First Ladies exhibit - the wives and (back in the earliest days of the Presidency) formal hostesses of the Presidents through the years.
Me, Daniel, and the Liberty Bell.
Just the Liberty Bell.
Daniel on the "We The People" Cow that was displayed at the Consitution Visitor's Centre. They had this rather cool media display that talks about how the US Constitution was put together and the checks and balances they tried to incorporate into it. Fascinating reading for someone with an interest in history.
There was a rather large 'interactive' section of the museum after the media display, and you could stand in front of a podium and take the Presidential oath. No bibles, though.
There were also places where you could write post-it notes about your opinion of everything from the Iraq war to...um, I don't remember. Stuff.
Oh, and Mohinder was on one of the history videos about the Constitution! Okay, so the actor who plays Mohinder from Heroes. But still! I yelped, "It's Mohinder!" when I saw it. And then we had to stop and wait until it looped through so I could showgeneeste and slm76!
They had this 'hall of statues' that was supposed to represent the representatives of the...uh...thirteen (?) states who signed the original Constitution. And you could walk among them and touch them and take photos of them. So I did!
Well, mostly, I took photos of Daniel with them.
I don't know who these two distinguished gentlemen are, but they seem to look quite kindly on Daniel.
Another gentleman, busily on his way to sign the consitution with a history-loving lemming in the crook of his arm.
The guy sitting in the front, with the cane? That's Benjamin Franklin.
An inventor-genius meets...uh...a small lemming with a bandanna that's named after a fictional archaeologist who believed in space aliens who used the pyramids as landing platforms.
Moving right along...
There was a book with the constitution written on it, and both Americans and people who agreed with the principles of the constitution could sign their names in the book.
This one you should click on to get the big pic. It's of "Independance Park", looking down from the Constitution Centre towards the Liberty Bell and Independance Hall. Sadly, we didn't get to see as much of it as we would have liked - everything shut at 5pm on a Friday.
Click on this one too and check out the black sign with yellow lettering: "Chinese Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant". What a combination!
Saturday morning we stormed the Univerity of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology... I mean, it stormed, while we walked to the UPenn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. We arrived just a leetle wet. There was apparently a display on Egypt at the Museum...except the main hall on it was closed that day for a trade show. BAH! So we had to content ourselves with the other displays.
Daniel and a sphinx.
One of the columns of the palace of...an Egyptian pharoah, whose name I don't remember. Because they all blend into a mix of Menehket and Atens after a while.
A tiled font in the "Islam" section of the Museum. There were some beautiful glazing and tiling work in the Persian ruins.
Daniel beside a segment of wall showing the dominance and sacrifice of some POWs by the Pharoah. This can be summed up in the phrase "PHAROAH SMITE!"
The next series of photos are of a model of the temple/palace from which a lot of this stuff came. I stuck Daniel in the diorama. I wanted to stick him on the dais as in "KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD!!!" Luckily for Daniel, my arm wasn't long enough. So he just wandered around the temple, reading the inscriptions and wishing he had Jack or Sam or Teal'c lemmings to tell all about it since his owner wasn't listening. (She does that sometimes.)
Some segments of Greek pottery/frieze. The Greek pottery section was awesome. Gods and goddesses and heroes (Hercules got a lot of grecian urn time!)
And, in true Sydney-weather fashion, when we exited the building, the rain had stopped and there was even sun that afternoon!
Sunday we wandered up antique row sinceslm76 wanted a look. She was rather disappointed with what we found (or didn't found). But I took some photos of houses along the edges and sides. The architecture is lovely, carrying a graceful history about it. Some cities don't age well. Philadelphia has - or, at least, the parts of it that I saw have.
Another mural. I love the colours and the size and the design. Sort of circus, but not quite. There were loads more murals, but we didn't have time to look at them all.
Really, I could have spent a lot more time in Philadelphia. Although my waist would probably have been non-existent by the time I left - the food there was wonderful! No offence to the south-west, but I much prefer the 'international' food options.
Tomorrow, I have decided to wake early and head in to Salem before I meet up withchiroho for a late lunch. That's right, I'm going to Salem, MA. on Hallowe'en!
It's gonna be mad.
A mural - one of the many around the city.
On a Friday afternoon, cold and grey,
geneeste, slm76, and myself all ventured out to Philadelphia's Old City and the "Birthplace of Independance". We got to see the Liberty Bell and the Centre for the Constitution, as well as the First Ladies exhibit - the wives and (back in the earliest days of the Presidency) formal hostesses of the Presidents through the years.Me, Daniel, and the Liberty Bell.
Just the Liberty Bell.
Daniel on the "We The People" Cow that was displayed at the Consitution Visitor's Centre. They had this rather cool media display that talks about how the US Constitution was put together and the checks and balances they tried to incorporate into it. Fascinating reading for someone with an interest in history.
There was a rather large 'interactive' section of the museum after the media display, and you could stand in front of a podium and take the Presidential oath. No bibles, though.
There were also places where you could write post-it notes about your opinion of everything from the Iraq war to...um, I don't remember. Stuff.
Oh, and Mohinder was on one of the history videos about the Constitution! Okay, so the actor who plays Mohinder from Heroes. But still! I yelped, "It's Mohinder!" when I saw it. And then we had to stop and wait until it looped through so I could show
geneeste and slm76!
They had this 'hall of statues' that was supposed to represent the representatives of the...uh...thirteen (?) states who signed the original Constitution. And you could walk among them and touch them and take photos of them. So I did!
Well, mostly, I took photos of Daniel with them.
I don't know who these two distinguished gentlemen are, but they seem to look quite kindly on Daniel.
Another gentleman, busily on his way to sign the consitution with a history-loving lemming in the crook of his arm.
The guy sitting in the front, with the cane? That's Benjamin Franklin.
An inventor-genius meets...uh...a small lemming with a bandanna that's named after a fictional archaeologist who believed in space aliens who used the pyramids as landing platforms.
Moving right along...
There was a book with the constitution written on it, and both Americans and people who agreed with the principles of the constitution could sign their names in the book.
This one you should click on to get the big pic. It's of "Independance Park", looking down from the Constitution Centre towards the Liberty Bell and Independance Hall. Sadly, we didn't get to see as much of it as we would have liked - everything shut at 5pm on a Friday.
Click on this one too and check out the black sign with yellow lettering: "Chinese Kosher Vegetarian Restaurant". What a combination!
Saturday morning we stormed the Univerity of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology... I mean, it stormed, while we walked to the UPenn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. We arrived just a leetle wet. There was apparently a display on Egypt at the Museum...except the main hall on it was closed that day for a trade show. BAH! So we had to content ourselves with the other displays.
Daniel and a sphinx.
One of the columns of the palace of...an Egyptian pharoah, whose name I don't remember. Because they all blend into a mix of Menehket and Atens after a while.
A tiled font in the "Islam" section of the Museum. There were some beautiful glazing and tiling work in the Persian ruins.
Daniel beside a segment of wall showing the dominance and sacrifice of some POWs by the Pharoah. This can be summed up in the phrase "PHAROAH SMITE!"
The next series of photos are of a model of the temple/palace from which a lot of this stuff came. I stuck Daniel in the diorama. I wanted to stick him on the dais as in "KNEEL BEFORE YOUR GOD!!!" Luckily for Daniel, my arm wasn't long enough. So he just wandered around the temple, reading the inscriptions and wishing he had Jack or Sam or Teal'c lemmings to tell all about it since his owner wasn't listening. (She does that sometimes.)
Some segments of Greek pottery/frieze. The Greek pottery section was awesome. Gods and goddesses and heroes (Hercules got a lot of grecian urn time!)
And, in true Sydney-weather fashion, when we exited the building, the rain had stopped and there was even sun that afternoon!
Sunday we wandered up antique row since
slm76 wanted a look. She was rather disappointed with what we found (or didn't found). But I took some photos of houses along the edges and sides. The architecture is lovely, carrying a graceful history about it. Some cities don't age well. Philadelphia has - or, at least, the parts of it that I saw have.
Another mural. I love the colours and the size and the design. Sort of circus, but not quite. There were loads more murals, but we didn't have time to look at them all.
Really, I could have spent a lot more time in Philadelphia. Although my waist would probably have been non-existent by the time I left - the food there was wonderful! No offence to the south-west, but I much prefer the 'international' food options.
Tomorrow, I have decided to wake early and head in to Salem before I meet up with
chiroho for a late lunch. That's right, I'm going to Salem, MA. on Hallowe'en!It's gonna be mad.
