FRIDAY JULY 18, 2014 “There’s no way this drive is 8 hours”. I say that every time I drive from Albany to DC, which is not often, but often enough for me to remember that it took 8 hours the last time, but not often enough that I won’t question it. We are heading to DC as the first leg of our week vacation/tour of the northeast. After some research, we decide to avoid the Friday Jersey shore traffic by heading through Harrisburg, PA. After getting caught in a mini-traffic jam between the New York line and Scranton, we find ourselves calling it a night around 9:30pm. That is exactly 7 hours in the car. Our evening is uneventful, since we are both tired and want to get on the road early enough to make it to DC by 9:45. SATURDAY JULY 19, 2014 The GPS tells us the ride in will be around 2 hours, so we plan
accordingly. Up and out around 7:15, Saturday morning traffic through Baltimore
and on into DC is heavy but moving rapidly. So far all is good as we made it to
Katherine's around 9:30. We drop our gear and I head off to find a place for
the car to live for a couple of days. One of the reasons we wanted to arrive on
schedule is that Katherine and El have planned to attend a knitting group and I
want to keep that schedule. I reach out to some Peace Corps friends to give me
something to do while I am waiting for the knitting group to finish. After the memorial I head to meet Patrick and Andrea, two of my
Peace Corps friends who are living and working in the DC area. They meet me at
an Irish pub called Fadó, which is close to the gallery where the knitting
group is meeting. I have plenty of time to get there, so I decide to walk
instead of taking the metro. I get to the pub around 12:30 and they are already
there. We do the quick catch up with what is going on in each of our lives today
and then move on to the mutual friends we have. It is obvious that these two
are way more connected than I am to people from my past. We order some food and
drinks waiting for El and Katherine to return from the knitting group. They get
to Fadó around 2:00 and eat some snacks before we move on. Andrea has some
other friends she needs to meet with and leaves from Fadó while Patrick stays
with us as we walk to Katherine's apartment. It is quite a hike, but the walk
is still comfortable. Half way back we make a pit stop at a place called Ted's
Bulletin. Kind of a cross between a bar and a diner. This place is known for
baking their own Poptarts (I’m not sure why Kellogg's doesn't have anything to
say about that). I choose a brown sugar and cinnamon Poptart (over the peanut
butter and bacon or blueberry cheesecake options) and get a toasted coconut
milkshake made with coconut rum. Both were pretty great (though we agree that
the coconut was less “toasted” and more just flaked). We continue back to the
apartment, stopping by our car to confirm we are in a parking space that is
valid until Tuesday. We spend an hour or two at the apartment trying to get a
plan together for the evening. Do we want to eat in or go out? Will Andrea meet
us later? What will we do tonight and tomorrow? One of the things on my DC to
do list is the “Exorcist stairs” in Georgetown. As the name implies, this was
the setting for the final scene in the film. We take the circulator bus from
Dupont Circle to Georgetown. It is a $1 per ride bus that just keeps making a
continuous loop around the route. There are multiple circulator routes and this
is the one that gets us to Georgetown. We get off and walk though Georgetown
passing a couple of businesses that prompt conversation...like a clothing shop
called Scotch and Soda and Georgetown Cupcakes where the line looks more like a
concert queue than what you would expect at a cupcake shop. They may be good,
but the four of us agree we don't need to find out that bad. We make our way to
the steps, which although recognizable, are a little less spooky juxtaposed
near the Exxon station garbage dumpster in the daylight. No matter, we made it
here and take our pictures and have some more laughs. We want to stop for dessert, but we are still unwilling to commit to the line at Georgetown Cupcakes and opt for Pie Sisters where, instead of cupcakes, they sell individual pies. Katherine's does all of the choosing and ordering. After these stops, it is back to the circulator. While waiting we decide to call ahead for some Indian take out. The order is ready when we arrive and we head back to the apartment to eat. The problem is that it is now close to 9:30 and eating Indian this close to bedtime can be risky. We eat and clean up, periodically discussing that Patrick has not heard much from Andrea and since he is staying with her and does not know her address to get himself back to her place, he seems a little stranded. After a short time, El and Katherine are ready for bed. I could go either way with my evening plans, go out, stay in, it's all good. I am willing to head out to a neighborhood bar with Patrick until he can make a connection with Andrea to either find out how to get to her place or arrange to meet her. Eventually he speaks with her around 11:30 and she swings by in her car to pick him up from the bar. This ends our evening and we say goodbye until the next time we see each other. I head back to the apartment and go to bed. SUNDAY JULY 21, 2014 In true El fashion, she sets her alarm for 7:00am on Sunday. When
she was doing her planning for the trip, she found something called the DC
Roadrunners Club that runs on Sunday mornings through parts of DC starting
close to where Katherine lives. She is up and out before Katherine or I wake up
and is back around 10:00. Katherine and I spend some time chatting over coffee
and catching up on topics that El may not find as interesting. We three decide
that we want to go to the Museum of Crime and Punishment. I go online to find
out about the hours and entrance fee. I see that today at 12:30, the museum
offers something called a "body decomposition workshop". We figure if
we hustle and it is not sold out when we arrive that we would do the workshop
and then see the rest of the museum before heading to our dinner reservation
later at Oyamel. Katherine has generously given us metro cards with a few
dollars credit on them so that we can get around the city by metro if we choose.
In order to save time getting to there, we take the metro to Galley Plaza stop
and walk just one block to the museum. The admission is $22 each, plus $8 each
for the body decomposition workshop, plus I chose to add an audio guide for $5.
As we leave the cashier's area, the first exhibit we see is a Volkswagon
Beetle. Not one of the newer ones, but clearly a 1970's model. As I listen to
the audio guide I learn that the car belonged to Ted Bundy for some time. The
museum is set up very well covering every facet of crime and punishment from
medieval punishments like drawing and quartering and thumbscrews, to modern
techniques such as lethal injection consoles and gas chambers. I was fascinated
by Bonnie and Clyde's bullet riddled car and John Wayne Gacy's clown costumes. The Bonnie and Clyde-mobile There were 30 exhibits that included things like the mob, the penal system, modern crime fighting tools and honoring those who advanced the science of crime fighting and those who perished in the line of it. During the self-guided tour, an announcement is made for those who have tickets to the body decomposition workshop to head to the lab. The workshop was treated like a class and we got a short lecture and watched some videos on bugs and how the life cycle of bugs aids forensic scientists in determining the time of death of a body. Each table was given a set of vials each with specimens of flies in various stages of development. We then had to match the samples "collected" from the body to the known stages of the flies.
On the set of America's Most Wanted getting a lecture about flies Then we had a worksheet to help us determine the time of death based on what we found at the scene. Afterwards, we continue with the museum exhibits and even though I could have stayed for hours longer, I think El and Katherine were content with the amount of time we had spent in there. We agreed that the workshop add on was not really worth the extra money for the presentation but that we liked the museum as a whole. As we leave we have a few minutes to make it down the block to the place where we have dinner reservations, Oyamel. This is a Mexican restaurant that was one of the last places El and I ate at when we visited DC before my staging. We both really liked it and asked Katherine if she would like to join us. Of course she was on board and we made 3:00 reservations to give us plenty of visiting time during the evening and also time to digest before bed. We ordered the fresh, tableside-made guacamole and then each ordered a few small plates- some to eat and the rest to share. I got some mini tacos and a tamale for myself and shared in the ceviche and queso. I also ordered a Coca Cola, which turned out to be "Mexican Coca Cola" that is made with real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. The taste was a wonderful throwback to my youth. Everyone had minor complaints, but agreed that overall the meal was really fantastic. A great jog down memory lane. After dinner we head back to Katherine’s with a pit stop at the supermarket for some staples and some mixers for the gin we were about to drink. We spend the rest of the evening chatting, catching up on various technologies, and basically just hang out quietly until bedtime. She will work tomorrow, so this promised to be an earlier night than last night. MONDAY JULY 21, 2014 The first night of our little tour. Having checked all of our DC
stuff off our list, we aren't hurrying to get out. We will go this morning to
see the "space window" which Katherine tells us is pretty far away,
but between the two of them, El now has solid directions to get there from
here. Afterwards we may have several hours to kill and might add something like
Ford’s Theatre (likely) or the Newseum (less likely based on entrance cost). We
have already found The Black Cat, which is where the concert is tonight and we
can walk there from Katherine's. I am hoping for an early evening, but
something tells me I won't get it. It is after 10:00 by the time we get on our
way. We eat at the apartment to keep from having to eat out, since we don't
know the dinner plan and that may include not eating in again for the 4th day
in a row. We will leave early tomorrow as we have to vacate the parking spot by
9:30am for street sweeping. One of the glass windows in the National Cathedral As I sit in the church pews journaling and contemplating, I reflect
on a podium that we just passed on our way in. There was a sign asking visitors
to add the name of veterans, past or present, to an honor registry. I didn’t
read any further into why one would do that, but it made me think of Grandpa
Bill. I wrote about my experience going to the WWII Memorial on Saturday, and
how I recognized his wartime contributions. As I sit and remember him, I start
to think about my other grandfather, Grandpa Charlie, who died in 1978 when I
was seven. It wasn't until years after his death that I learned more about work
he had done during his lifetime. Grandpa Charlie was a minister and made a
tremendous effort in the fight for civil rights in the 1960's. I didn't know
Grandpa Charlie as well as I knew my Grandpa Bill, but as much as I would like
to continue to recognize one's fight during war, I feel I should also recognize
the other's fight for peace as both efforts were equally important to the
history of our nation. As I get older and having gone through my Peace Corps
experience, I have more of an appreciation for the sacrifices made by our
military men and women, but I cannot fail to remember that the fight for peace
and equality continues to be a fight that is yet to be won. Georgetown Cupcakes- you can see the line going up the sidewalk on the other side of the car We passed this
place on Saturday night and saw a line that was probably 50 people long snaking
up the block from their doors. At the time we all scoffed at the idea of stopping..."I
don’t care how good they are, I don’t need to stand in that long a line for
anything" was the prevailing sentiment. I, however, did wonder what the
cupcakes at a place with a line that long, taste like. Today, El and I decided
to find out. We took the bus from the Cathedral down to Georgetown and walked
up to Georgetown Cupcakes. The line took us about 15 minutes to get to where
you can order them. There were about 15 varieties of cupcakes which retail for
a little over $3 each. We got a half dozen and head to a nearby Irish pub to
plan the rest of our afternoon. A couple beers gives me time to catch up on my
journal. We are able to find a bar called RiRa that has a few tap beers and a
nice staff. We finish a game a Scrabble we started in the motel room on Friday
and check emails. We update Katherine with our plans to arrive back at her
apartment just before settling up. Once we get there we are just about ready
for dessert. We break out the cupcakes and start our own evaluations. The general
consensus is that they are pretty good. The cake is moist and some of the
icings are better than others. The mint is very decent for my taste, but the coconut
is a little sweet and flat tasting for my liking. We enjoy our last
conversations with Katherine and head out to the show around 8:00. The club is
only a couple blocks from her house, so we are there within minutes. Having
opted for will call tickets we are able to bypass the line around the block who
are all waiting with printed to tickets to be scanned. We jump to the will call
line and are inside in a matter of a minute. We know the show is sold out and
expect it will be full, but for now, we have our run of the place and choose
seats in the back over standing up front. I will head closer after the first
band is done. Seeing Veruca Salt for the first time since 1997 is very exciting
for me. One of my favorite of the mid-90's bands, I am happy to be at the
legendary Black Cat for this show. It is about 8:30 now, but I hope for an
early show- I doubt I will get it. TUESDAY JULY 22, 2014 We wake up before Katherine heads to work to say our final goodbyes. Knowing we need to be out of the parking spot by 9:30, we waste no time getting on the road. Except for a couple of spots of around construction sites and a detour just outside of Philly, that our GPS can’t seem to help us through, the ride is rather uneventful. Once in Philly our first stop is food, after the hotel check-in. We read about a sandwich place called Tommy Dinics. And his place has pork sandwiches that were voted at some point, the “best sandwich in America”. We walk to Reading Terminal Market to order a sandwich or two. The line at 1:30pm is probably 50 people long, but we jump on. They have a wrap-around counter and as we pass by a mother and daughter who are finishing their lunch, I lean in and ask if the seats are first come first serve. waiting for the "best sandwich in America" at Tommy Dinic's. They confirm the
seats are indeed first come first serve and that they are leaving shortly. We
let the line behind us snake past while we get some ordering instructions from the
daughter. She recommends the brisket with provolone and broccoli rabe. The
sandwich they are known for is their roast pork and provolone. El and I order
one of each and split them. Both are outstanding- although sharp provolone is
not my favorite, it went very well on this sandwich. I am not sure if it is the
best sandwich I have ever eaten, but I am hard pressed to think of a better one
I have had right now. After lunch we walk to the Mutter Museum of Medical
Oddities. Though no photos are allowed inside, we are welcomed by glass slides
of Einstein’s brain. While some exhibits are mildly fascinating, most are
considerably tamer than what we have seen before. The museum is three sections:
general skeletal anatomy, pathology, and a special exhibit of war wounds. We
take about an hour to go through and there are a few points that are very
interesting. The autopsy on Siamese twins Chang and Eng was performed in the
Mutter Museum. The plaster cast of them and their conjoined preserved liver is
a feature of the lower level. Also a specimen of a gigantic colon from a guy
who died from his impacted colon is the centerpiece of the lower level (he was
known as the “Balloon Man” in sideshows because his colon had swelled so much
it made him look as if he was full of air). The exhibit includes photos of him.
A lot of photos and wax renderings of diseases, abnormalities and medical
curiosities are a majority of the museum. While some items are interesting,
most are in the “been there, done that” category for me. The wax replica of a
fetus developing this it's brain outside of it's skull, can’t hold a candle to
the real specimen in a jar in Bangkok! I was interested by the story of Henry
Eastlake- this guy had a disease that caused bone to grow inside his body where
it wasn't supposed to. When he died he donated his body to science to help
others with his affliction. His skeleton had grown bone to fuse his other bones
together and also he would develop bone that would grow into his muscles
causing him severe pain. At the time of his death he couldn’t move and was in
agonizing pain. I was mildly interested by the collection of skulls from around
the world whose method of demise is known, but not necessarily evident by
looking at the skull. I would be interested to see the neck bones of someone
who died of a broken neck, but without those bones and/or explanation card,
that skull looks identical to a person who suicided by a throat slash. Also,
the collection of over 4000 items that had been swallowed all laid out in a set
of drawers was kind of neat- they didn’t get into why the person had injected
the items. There were a couple of patrons who annoyed us during the experience.
Kids that were a little too excited to see a death by broken neck and wanted to
call friends from 20 feet away over to see the "cool broken neck”. If you
read the card you learn the broken neck was the result of a suicide of a 19
year old distraught by unrequited love. A tragic end to such a short life
deserved better than being branded the "cool broken neck”. Another family tried
to make tasteless jokes at all of their stops. By the time we got to the
section of preserved genitalia, I had had just about enough and just moved to view
the exhibit backwards to avoid them. The place was not that big and they do
cram quite a bit into the space they have. I did a semi-interactive exhibit that
illustrated the realities of Civil War era battle injuries that resulted in the
loss of a limb. You stand in a booth in front of a mirror that reflects your
whole body except your right arm. That is a computer graphic projected onto the
mirror showing in graphic detail the effects a bullet has on the human arm and
its timeline of medical procedures from injury to prosthetic arm. Anyway, it
was a $15 admission which, if you are into medical oddities, is worth it. If
you are not interested or get grossed out, may I suggest hanging on the bench
in the lobby? The sign out front states the museum is "disturbingly
informative" and I couldn't agree more. It is on the way back to the hotel we stop in to get some beer,
catch up the journal, and find potential post-concert stops. It is a little tricky
when you have the names and in some cases an address, but finding them on a map
and relating them to other places takes practice. We just haven’t been in town
long enough. We are set with a walking tour Wednesday. We are starting to put
together plans with friends while we are here and have already checked some off
the list. I would say we are off to a good start. WEDNESDAY JULY 23, 2014 Our first, and most likely only stop for the day is the Free
Walking Tours By Foot. We signed up online for an 11:00am tour that starts at
the Public Ledger building at 11:00. On the walk from the hotel, we stop for a
light breakfast. Just a bagel and a coffee for me. I know that one of the stops
on the tour is a 45 minute lunch break in the Italian Market. The tour is
scheduled to last 4-4.5 hours and today is expected to be a hot one. It covers
3.5 miles. We have also been in contact with my friend Kim who we plan to meet
for dinner and pubbing afterwards. We will have to play our post tour, pre-dinner
time by ear. The first stop on the tour is the Curtis Building headquarters of
a publishing company. In their lobby is a gigantic mural made of 100,000 pieces
of Tiffany's stained glass called “The Dream Garden”. we couldn't fit this who piece in one photo. it was very beautiful. It is one of those things that unless someone
told you about it, you would never have found it. Next up we find ourselves in
Washington Park which holds a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier designated by George
Washington for Revolutionary War soldiers [Arlington is War of 1812 onwards].
Down the street to the Philadelphia Hospital which is a working hospital and
medical school. Our tour winds up walking through Society Hill, a section of
the city where we learn about the certified historical landmark placards while standing in the
oldest historically accurate neighborhood in the city. Jenn, the tour guide,
also points out the placards on the second floor face of some of the houses.
Many years ago, if a fire broke out, it was up to the homeowner to pay the fire
department directly for their services. However, some people would purchase
fire insurance which would allow the department to start working on the fire
without hesitation- hence the second floor placards. I love learning about this
kind of stuff, because it's something I don't even notice until someone points
it out to me. Next, we learn about the “Percent For Art” program. In 1959 this
program was created and required that one percent of any public construction had
to be earmarked for arts. Today the program manifests itself mostly in the form
of sculptures on the grounds of the building, however, some buildings do have
paintings or murals put inside where only people who work there can see, but
they do exist...at least one percent worth. St. Peter’s Church is our next
stop. When you walk in the first striking thing is how instead of pews in the
church, you see stalls with high walls- think low cubes in an office. the church that George Washington used to attend when he was in Philadelphia Of course
everyone has the same question: why? Well, the answer is that they were built
during a time when the church was not heated and since services could last for
hours people would bring hot coals from home to put into a metal box to heat
the stall and the high walls would keep the heat in the stall longer. One of
the boxes was used by George Washington when he would attend services with
local friends. Then we head down South Street, right past where we were last
night. Jenn points out some mosaic artwork that is on many of the buildings and
alleyways in this area of town. We wind up at 1:15 at the Italian Market for
lunch. We opt for pizza at Lorenzo's which got positive reviews, although my
review would be somewhat mixed, slightly on the less than glowing side. After
eating our pizza in the less than air conditioned room at Lorenzos, we head
across the street to Anthony's Italian Coffee House for an iced coffee. I think
this may be the first iced coffee I have ever had in my life. I am going to
guess that the proportions may take some time to tweak, but will admit that the
coffee ice cubes seem to be a very clever addition to the cup. We sit in the
air conditioning and drink our coffees catching up on journaling and discussing
our post tour plans. After lunch we head through the “Gayborhood” and see part
of the “Mural Mile”-which is evidently a walking tour in itself which I might like to do. a mural of one of Philly's native sons The way it was explained to us was that Philly used to have a bad graffiti problem until someone figured out how to get the artists that got caught to work as painters for community murals. The community would come up with some image they wanted to represent them and these artists started working to paint these giant murals on the side of buildings, not only as a way to cover up empty walls by installing artwork, but also giving the community ownership of the mural resulting in a reason to prevent further defacing. It seems to have worked as these giant murals are all over the city and really do a great job representing the history and people of each section of the city. I know they have guided walking tours of the murals and I think that could be very interesting to learn more about. Isaiah Zagar
is the artist who makes the mosaic artwork out of broken glass and mirrors. He
has a permanent installation on South Street called “The Magic Garden”. inside the "Magic Garden" It is open to the public and we will go there tomorrow. It is now well after 2:00pm and I have to admit that I am quickly losing interest in this tour that will go on to last another 2½ hours! While some of the information is interesting, it is a little too much walking in between stops to provide too little payoff. In fact, one stop is Love Park which is known as a spot for rallies and protests. When we get there, surprise, there is a protest going on, so we can’t even see much of the park. After the tour concludes in the Comcast Center- where we see the world second largest big screen TV, we head back to the room for a shower before dinner. We head down to the lobby for 6:00 to meet Kim who is picking us up to go to dinner in the area of the hotel. I had put the pick in her court, but she deferred to my original suggestion of Indian food. We had passed a place called Saffron that smelled wonderful, however the Yelp reviews didn’t do it much service. We find a place that gets much higher reviews a couple of streets over. We decide to try that instead. It is called IndaBlue. It is happy hour, so they have a reduced price menu for a few key items. I get an order of samosas, chicken wings to share and an entree of chicken tikka masala. From the reviews, we hear that the make dishes a little on the spicy side. Even though we make a point to ask for mild, some of the food does arrive with a considerable bite of heat. This aside we are all happy with the choice. Forgoing dessert we head to a bar called Irish Pub closer to the hotel for a pint. Not such-and-such Irish pub, just Irish Pub. The beer menu is decidedly not very Irish and I order an Allagash which is OK. Kim and Lori's schedule sees them calling it a night after one. After saying our goodbyes, El and I head to a bar called Graffiti which is located at the end of a long alleyway. The music is loud reggae and the patrons are loud too. The beer is expensive and they do not have wifi. If any of these things were different, we might stay longer, but it is close to 10:00 and I am ready to call it a night after our first beer. THURSDAY JULY 24, 2014 We realize that our list of must-do things is a pretty small and
try to plan our day when we wake up. With all of the options we also want to
fit in eating a Philly Cheesesteak and eating at a ramen shop. Our first stop
this morning is Independence Hall. We find the Visitors Center on the corner of
6th and Market. You need a ticket to take the tour, but the tickets are free. As soon as we get the tickets we have 15 minutes to make it across the street to
Independence Hall. We arrive at 9:31 for our 9:45 tour. We are the first in
line and the ranger thinks we are late to our 9:30 tour and rushes us in to the
earlier tour. It starts off with a ranger telling us about the timeline of the
birth of our nation. We head into the next building to the assembly hall and
the first US Capitol building. Then we head to the next room which is
Declaration Hall which is where the Declaration was signed and Washington was
appointed the first president. The whole guided tour lasts 30 minutes. the actual room where the Declaration of Independence was signed You can guide yourself through Congress Hall and other meeting rooms of the continental congress. We take some photos and move on. Across the street is the Liberty Bell. There are no tickets needed for that. The line is long, but moves fast. It actually takes us longer in line to get our bag checked than we actually spend inside. I, like everyone else wants to get a photo of us with the bell. a) there are so many people with the same idea that it is difficult to seize the window of time to get it without anyone else in the shot. it really is shockingly difficult to get a photo with the bell without other people There just seem
to be a lot of people who are oblivious to others or just don't care if they
have to share their spot in the photo with someone else. It takes awhile, but we
are able to get a shot with the bell, just El and I, it is just too bad that El
has a better eye for setting a shot than the people we asked to take our
photos. I am pretty sure we stood in line longer than it took for us to get
through the rest of the exhibit. how to make "one whiz with" Reminiscent of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi you are to know what you want before you step up to order and they don’t seem keen on answering questions. In fact I said "one whiz wit". Then El came behind me and I needed to change the order to "two whiz wit" and he exasperatedly asked "you said one whiz wit and two whiz wit, you want three??" Luckily it was early enough in the day that I was spared from the phrase "nowhizforyou" or whatever they might say. We eat upstairs and enjoy the food without a crowd. The sandwich is a 12” sub roll slathered in warm cheese whiz, filled with grilled chopped steak and topped with caramelized onions. The sandwich is tasty, but I dare to say I like Dinics pork sandwich better. Our next stop is “The Magic Garden” on South St. at 10th St.. It is the full scale labyrinth art installation of artist Isaiah Zagar and is open for self-guided tours. The cost is $7 and you can spend as long as you like inside- we stayed about an hour. I journal inside while El takes most of the pictures. On our way out we run into the artist himself and pass our unsolicited praise of the garden. We want to get to the Phlash bus which is a public bus that makes a continuous loop around the city with stops at many of the popular tourist attractions. We walk up to the corner of 12th and Market to get the bus. A single ride is $2.25 and an unlimited day pass is $5 that you can buy from the driver. We opt for the day pass and jump on headed to the Rodin Museum. at the entrance to the Rodin Museum On a scale of 1-10 how much do you like Rodin?
Me? All I need to see is The Thinker and I will be all set. There are two parts
to the museum. The inside, and the outdoor gardens. We get off the Phlash at
stop #7 right in front of the museum. Expecting The Thinker to be inside we
head towards the entrance. As we walk into the garden entrance, though, we are pleasantly
surprised to be greeted by The Thinker himself! We take a photo and joke about
being done so fast we may be able to catch the Phlash before it pulls away. Of
course we stay a little longer and get some tripod shots of the two of us with
the iconic sculpture (I know there are several copies of this statue, some cast during Rodin's lifetime, and many not. I can't recall at this moment which version this is). The bus runs every 15 minutes and we get our fill of the
gardens and wait for the next Phlash to stop #8 which is the Eastern
State Penitentiary. The prison has been recommended by a few people, so we put
it on our list. El looks online and finds a promo code that reduces the entrance fee
from $14 each to about $10, but you have to purchase online. She takes a few
minutes to make the purchase and gets us in on the reduced rate. The entrance fee comes
with an audio guide and there are guided tours, but today's is sold out. The
audio guide is pretty good. It moves at a good pace and only lasts for about 14
stops. About ½ hour for the tour, but then you can do several additional stops
on your own. There are also some tours that are of specific parts of the
prison. We meet up with a guide to take us into the operating room in the
medical wing. the entrance to the medical wing or the prison The quick presentation only lasts about 5 minutes and at the end
the guide invites us to learn about the death of an inmate and debate the
definition of cruel and unusual punishment. We do a couple of stops on our own,
most notably Al Capone's cell before he was transferred to Alcatraz. All told
we were inside for about 2 hours. There were about 50 stops inside and you can
do as many or as few as you’d like. For $10 each, I think we got our money's
worth. The next and last stop on the Phlash bus for us is the Art Museum of
Philadelphia to go to the Rocky steps. We get off the bus at stop #14 and
quickly get our photo taken with the statue by an entrepreneurial homeless man
who is coordinating photos for tourists with Rocky in an orderly fashion for
tips. now here is a guy that knows how to take a photo without other tourists! I think that is what the Liberty Bell needs! We then walk, not run, just walk up
the front steps to get our photo in the iconic pose. Then, we head inside to
find a bathroom. We are done in a matter of minutes and through the back of the
museum to wait for the next bus. While inside we do inquire how much it is to
see the museum, not only is it $20, but the guard tells us they are closing in
½ hour. Whereas, if you buy a ticket on Friday, you get in free on Saturday.
This all works out fine with me since I don’t want to go anyway and we leave in
the morning. Afterwards we have one more historical stop at Elfreth's Alley before
going to dinner at a place for ramen. Back onto the bus we head back to the city
center for the Elfreth's Alley which is the oldest continuously occupied
residential street in the country. the oldest continuously used residential street in the country I am getting hungry so it looks like the
timing will work in our favor. The alley is not very long and it only takes a few
minutes before we are finished walking through and ready to leave. The alley is kind of interesting, still paved in cobblestones and with houses dating back to
the 1700's. Afterwards, we walk to Terakawa Ramen which is a Japanese
restaurant in the Vietnamese section of Chinatown. It took us a while
to get here, but it is easy to find. We order edamame and gyoza for appetizer
and each get the "siganture ramen" bowl. We will compare to the ramen we had in
Tokyo recently. The appetizers are certainly cheap and tasty. The bowls of
ramen arrive. Steaming hot and piled high. The first thing I notice is that
there is no seaweed. In Tokyo, each bowl came with a sheet of nori- that I put
aside without eating. The next thing is that the pork slices here are about 1/2
inch thick and very tender, whereas in
Tokyo they were more like dried out chips of thinly sliced pork. ready to dig into my ramen bowl The rest,
virtually identical. From shredded mushrooms and ginger to the richly thick
broth. At $9 for a bowl, this is absolutely wonderful stuff. Our next stop is a
dive bar called Dirty Frank's. On the way we make a detour at the hotel room to drop some of our load off. Also, of note, near the hotel is Camac St. which is the last section of street in Philadelphia (and possibly America) that is paved with wood. a street paved with wood We take a few pictures on our way to Dirty Frank's where the decor is trashy, the smell is stale,
and the beer is cold and cheap. It is on the corner of 13th and Pine. After our pint at
Dirty Franks we head up to Fergie's. I could stay at Dirty Frank's all night
except for the terrible selection on the jukebox. For our last night in town, we found a trivia game at Fergie's
Pub. We will meet another Peace Corps friend, Pete, there. El and I get there pretty
early on the suggestion that the little room tends to fill and finding a seat
can be tough. We get there in fine time and easily get a table. It does fill up,
but we are all set by the time Pete shows up. The game is a lot different of a
format than what we are used to. It starts at 9 and ends around 11. At the end
of it all, we tie for second place. Instead of splitting the prize for second,
he forces a tiebreaker with 5 questions. We lose the tiebreaker and come in
third in the game. Sadly, they only give prizes for first and second. We had a
good night and head over to Moriarty's Pub for a nightcap with Pete. After our hour
wrap up, Pete needs to call it a night and we follow suit. It was good to catch
up with another Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. We are both tired and want to get on the
road earlier than later in the morning. FRIDAY JULY 25, 2014 As we leave Phialdelphia, I think we are in agreement that this is a really fun city. The center city, at least, is very walkable with a lot of interesting things to fill your time with. Lots of museums, bars, restaurants, shops, cafés, historical landmarks and fun things. I thought that our hotel was a bit pricey, but the location made up for it. We didn't get a chance to go to the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood, but we found ourselves in other neighborhoods multiple times. Pete has only lived here a short time and he loves it. I think in respects it reminds me of Dublin...and that's a good thing. We have a crappy ride from Philadelphia up to Mohegan Sun in CT.
Between the heavy traffic and some personal disagreements, El and I make the three
stops in relative silence. First stop, I have been looking for bottles of wine
from the vineyard Underraga and a wine shop in Norwalk, CT has some. We brave the
incredible traffic that seemed to add on more than an hour to our relatively
short trip. Our second stop is one of the best pizza restaurants in the world
called Frank Pepe's in New Haven. I have been meaning to get here for years and
I figured a Friday afternoon would be a quiet time. I was right, and I was
wrong. With the line out the door and the place packed I think to myself that
they are very busy. I am corrected by some of the other regulars in that the
line only ends near the door, usually it winds down the block! For the place
being as busy as it is, the service is pretty quick and the food is very decent. not sure if it is the best I have ever had, but it was pretty amazing pizza We get a plain tomato pie with mozzarella to split. After lunch we head back
into the traffic to get up to our motel for the night in Niantic. We finally
make it and get checked in. We quickly change and get ready to head out to our
third concert this week. This is an off night for us from the Veruca Salt tour,
so I bought tickets to see Queen at Mohegan Sun. I hope the show will lift my
spirits from the shitty day I am having. SATURDAY JULY 26, 2014 We have a quiet ride from Connecticut to Boston. On the way through Rhode Island, I make a point to stop in West Warwick, RI to visit the site of the Station nightclub fire that took the life of my friend Matt in February 2003. There is a chain link fence around the site where the bar used to stand, and there is a small monument at one end- on the inside perimeter. Unfortunately, the monument seems to have a lot of overgrowth, but I can understand that any money the foundation has, is probably better spent elsewhere. We stay for a few minutes and finish the trip up to Boston. I drop El in Norwood for the day and head on to Allston to find a way to pass the time until our last Veruca Salt show tonight. I find a southwestern restaurant with wi-fi called the Sunset Grill and Bar and spend my day there. El meets me later on and we head to the show. The place is called the Brighton Music Hall and the show sounded great and started on time. It was the last night of the tour for both us and them. They head home after the show and so do we. The three hour drive home is quiet and we arrive home around 2am. The rest of the weekend is used to decompress before work again on Monday. IN CONCLUSION
|