One day to visit Philadelphia, the city. A town with much history, and a town with only a couple of buildings worth visiting. Today I visited the Liberty Bell, Independance Hall and wondered around the so called Historic District. This night I was not babysitting just the one kid, but three.
First off it was off to the city centre of Philadelphia. As I was in the suburbs I had to catch the train. I can see why the Americans have a love for the car - it's more convenient than public transport (in Philly anyways). Out in the suburbs - there is next to no public transport.
Anyhow, what did I go and see? The sights around the Historic District of Philadelphia. The first stop - the Visitors Centre. There we found out what we needed to do and followed the suggested plan outlined by the guide.
The Liberty Bell was the first of the sights visited. Quite an interesting story that the bell has - it cracked, was repaired, and then cracked again. Anyhow, turns out to be quite a nice bell (bronze). It does indeed have a massive crack up one side - as you can see with the photo taken below.
The next sight was Independance Hall. Guided tours take place every hour so i hopped onto the next available one. Unfortunately a school group came along as well (a high school group). Independance Hall was good to look at - a well preserved environment which preseves the way in which it looked when America broke away from England. In Independance Hall the Declaration of Independance was agreed to, signed, and publicly announced. Finally, the smart-ass kids that happened to come along to the tour should never be allowed off school property - a totally unruly bunch. Ah wel... I was young once too.
After viewing Liberty Bell and Independance Hall it was time to head down to Penn's Landing. Didn't quite make it all the way to the Landing but I at least at lunch nearby. I tried Philly Cheese Steak - the local tucker. I wish I hadn't. It was a reasonably simple meal: dinner roll + steak + melted cheese. Not for me. I'll take the standard Aussie Steak Sandwich anyday (steak + beetroot + lettuce + BBQ sauce + toast). It wasn't a bad meal, just that it wasn't exactly my cup of tea.
After eating lunch I spent much of the remaining time wandering around the Historic District. Visited the Quakers Church, saw the US Mint building, the Consitution Convention Building, and others... forgotten their names. Didn't go into any of these buildings, just looked.
Returned back home to my cousin's place and from there we headed off to dinner - one of my cousin's friends. The trip was a little longer than expected but that's because I thought we were just doing down the road. Haha.
Anyways, what happened was the we all had a lovely Vietnamese pho dinner. After that it was an intense night of babysitting. It all started out with playing catch with Matty. Then one of the host's daughters came over to play - Geraldine. The host's daughters love to play with Matty so it was inevitable that they'd come too. So what we ended up playing was pass the bouncy ball. An interesting game that lasted a while. Then it got tougher - alot tougher. (By the way, the other daughter's name is Martine).
All three kids decided to want to do something different. First off Matty wanted to keep playing pass-on-the-ball. Next, Geraldine (younger of the two girls) wanted some stories read to her and finally Martine wanted to show her gymnastic routines. Wow - I have so much respect for childcare workers now. It's crazy juggling everything. I can't imagine what it is like with a room of 10 or 20 kids! Even though it was tough - it was great fun. Kids are great. This lasted until about 10pm, by then it was time to head home (and the kids to sleep).
Liberty Bell
Independance Hall
Conference Room - Independance Hall
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