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Day 2: Philadelphia
We decided to skip the fancy schmancy restaurant on the 19th floor and find breakfast elsewhere. (Plus I’m pretty sure we slept past breakfast time). The front desk sent us to The Green Eggs Café which we quite liked. Marion got pancakes which turned out to be square and the size of a throw pillow. I had eggs.
After breakfast we walked to Independence Mall which was about 8 blocks away. On the way we passed the Walnut St Theater which was showing Sister Act. We’d seen signs all over the place for it and since we both liked the movie and the music we thought we’d see if we could get tickets. Not only were we able to, they looked like great seats right in the middle.
The Walnut St Theater is the oldest continuously operating theater in the English speaking world per the sign. (Or is ‘said to be’ according to Wikipedia). It seems like some place in Europe would have been around longer but who knows? They started in 1809 which is relatively recent. But it’s that ‘continuously operating’ part that I think gets them the nod. Knowing how theaters always seem to be in a constant state of near financial ruin, I can imagine that everybody else must have had a gap at some point.
Independence Mall, not too surprisingly, was full of people. And as it turns out, all the tours were booked. You can’t reserve in advance (not that we had planned to) so it’s first come first serve in the morning. As we were on Pacific Time, we had no chance. So we had a look around the outside and stopped into the old City Hall where we had a chat with the park ranger. The city hall building was the original US Supreme Court. The room they had set up looked like a set from 1776. Although I suppose it’s the other way around.
So since we weren’t doing the Independence Hall tour, what else is around? Well, there’s the American Jewish Museum nearby. Let’s go see that. As museum’s go, there was too much reading and not enough artifacts. Marion gave it a B-. Which is fair I think. But I enjoyed it.
The museum is linear in that it describes the history from colonial times forward and in terms of big cultural trends. So there is the initial small groups of Jews as part of the early colonies. Then some success but still small into the 1800s. Then the large migration of Jews from Europe, especially Eastern Europe in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. That’s the point where the Kesslers enter the story.
And it was quite interesting to see that we tracked the major trends. Immigrants from Russia, likely escaping persecution, settling into the tenements and poor areas of a big east coast city like New York or Philadelphia (Philly in our case). Taking advantage of public schools and working hard to be able to afford to send a child to college. In our case, also pharmacy school. The next generation gets more assimilated into society and moves up into the middle classes. But there’s still a lot of anti-Semitism, which my grandfather and father ran into first hand. That declines somewhat in the 60’s. Jews move into the suburbs (which my father did) and begin to lose some of their identity. With us that’s me, who doesn’t practice, and my son, who wasn’t raised Jewish at all. So, despite the lack of things to actually look at, I found it compelling.
When we came out of the museum we were right by the guys touting the city tour by bus. We just walked up and bought a ticket without any questions or analysis. It’s not how I normally do things. But it worked out. We got the 2 day deal. $35 for 2 days vs $30 for one. Which was good considering we were on the 3rd to last bus of the day so there would be no ‘hopping on and hopping off’ if we wanted to get back to where we started. And this way we could take the bus (vs a taxi) to the art museum tomorrow.
The guide had an interesting way of talking. He was definitely using his ‘speaker’ voice, like how some people answer the phone. He talked non-stop but then again, there was a lot to talk about and the bus kept moving. It gave us good lay of the land but it was hot out and we were both getting a bit ‘oogy’ so when we came around by the hotel, we got off. And as it turned out, we never did complete the loop since the art museum the next day was part of the loop we did.
Marion took a nap and kicked me out of the room since I type so loud (I was trying to write this). So I had a walk around the hotel looking for a place I could sit. I discovered the ballroom. It had a real ‘echoes of the past’ feeling to it. Partly because it was empty but also because it just looked like a 1940’s sort of room. You could envision Tommy Dorsey or someone like that playing and couples having drinks. Like a scene from White Christmas.
We had dinner at BareBurger, an organic beef (and elk, bison, duck, etc.) eatery. Basically a fast food restaurant with better meat. And it was good, but $14 for a small burger? I guess that’s why you don’t get the good stuff at Burger King and McDonalds.
We walked back across Broad Street the other way to Rittenhouse Square. Only because we were looking to kill a little time and get a little exercise and I remembered it from when Daniel and I were there for baseball as being a nice spot. The area was filled with trendy yet ‘same as all malls’ stores (Talbot, H&M, Cheesecake factory, etc.). Basically an outdoor mall (and loud and hot). It turned out the square was under construction so it wasn’t quite as nice as I remembered. And frankly it looked like a pickup joint. It certainly had that vibe. I’m not sure quite how to describe the feeling but it just seemed like the couples that were there didn’t really know each other and there were lots of people sitting on benches who seemed like they were waiting for something. Since we were already equipped in the ‘hook-up’ department, we moved on.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the WaWa (a great name for a mini mart) and discovered Tastycakes in mass quantities. We stocked up. I got a cherry pie (I had forgotten they made pies) and frosted crème filled cupcakes. Yum.
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