Apparently It Is Sunny In Philadelphia

Today was one of those days where it felt like we covered a lot, yet felt utterly relaxed while doing it. It helped that the weather was gorgeous.

We started by heading off for a pre-booked tour of Independence Hall, which is just across the road from our hotel. I admit, even though it's mostly reproduced, the moment I walked into the room where the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were drafted I found pretty breathtaking. It felt like there was a huge amount of history seeping around me.(I also may have spent 10 minutes trying to convince a nearby squirrel that it loved me and wanted to come home with me...)

We then did a separate tour of Congress Hall, again the history of knowing John Adams was declared President there etc, I found pretty riveting. (For those that haven't heard me ramble before, I have a degree in American History so this stuff fascinates me.)

After that we joined a line up to see the Liberty Bell, which we then found out had a 40 minute wait thanks to a bunch of tour groups so we exited the line and went to get lunch, intending on coming back. We ended up at the same place, my sister and I had lunch a Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia 10 years ago, Grande Olde Cheesesteak at the Bourse. Philadelphia Cheesesteaks = steak strips and cheese in a bread roll = awesomeness.

We then caught a hop on hop off sightseeing tour bus with no intention of hopping on or off because we wanted to get a good look at the city. Which we did, after finding Philly a little run down looking in the Old City area we're in, it was great to see just how beautiful it was, which it is. The area in the Center City around Logan Circle and further on at the Schulylkill River and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are particularly notable.

After getting back to the Bourse, we stopped for ice cream and then headed back to the Liberty Bell as the line was significantly shorter. 10 minutes later, we were standing in front of the bell. I have to admit, I had seen it before but it's not something I'd want to wait any longer for, Aaron was also suitably underwhelmed. It's smaller or something less than you expected. You sort of look at it, take a photo and then think "um, okay, now what?".

We finished our sightseeing with a walk up to Benjamin Franklin's grave, and then down to Washington Square for the tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary Soldier. I had a moment of real sadness at that tomb, there were apparently up to 20,000 soldiers buried in unmarked graves in the Square, and I thought just how sad it must have been for the families, who not only never saw their loved ones again, never actually found out what happened to them, or got to mourn their loss or visit their grave etc.

We ended up at a pizza place for dinner, and accidentally ordered what appeared to be the world's largest pizza (it was so cheap, we didn't realise!). It was delish but funnily we left a lot of it behind.

Finally it turns out that we have a small indie cinema just behind our hotel, on the same block, that happened to be playing Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so after dinner we went to the movies, which was a nice way to end our day. (Well technically my day is ending with the Celebrity Apprentice...)

I think we could very well have left Philadelphia tonight and felt utterly satisfied with what we've seen, but tomorrow we're doing an archaeology tour of the Independence Hall site, and I'm looking forward to the next two days being relaxing, before it's off to Chicago.