While in Philly we saw the following friends and family: Grandpop and his "lady friend" Dottie (who has been in his life longer than I've been alive and he still introduces her to us as "my lady friend," which is sort of cute and creepy all that the same time), Jackie (the newly certified RN) and Jon and their girls, and Jackie's mom and brother.
I did not see any of my other Marlton friends or family members, because I couldn't put out an all-call on Facebook because we were going to be surprising* Jackie, and the people I did contact were too busy doing important things like yard sales.
While in Philly we saw the following things: the LOVE statue, the Art Museum (didn't run up the steps... are you crazy???), the clothespin statue, the Mint, William Penn, Boathouse Row, Independence Hall, the Constitution Center, Penn's Landing, Betsy Ross's House, Edgar Allen Poe's house, Ben Franklin's grave, The Thinker, the Rocky statue, Reading Terminal Market, and lots more. Notice I said we saw these things. We didn't go into any of them except the market! We also got quite a thorough tour of the area where my Dad grew up, including my Grandmom's house (where we didn't stop because Grandpop was driving), Dad's middle and high schools, the church where - correct me if I'm wrong here Mom - my parents were married and I was baptised, and every creek or home/"estate" with a story, and Mama's - my Dad's favorite cheese steak maker.
While in New Jersey we saw: Evans Elementary, Marlton Middle, and Cherokee High Schools. Each has grown in the past *cough*thirteen*cough* years. We saw my old house, which now has white aluminum siding, gold numbers, a fancy stained-glass-like storm door and a tacky flowered mailbox that the current wife of the previous owner would probably love. It didn't look like "home" at all. We saw the Marlton 8, which I had a different story about every time we drove by, Olga's Diner, buildings I think my Mom worked at, some friends' old houses (in most cases, where their parents still live), the Amish market, Main Street, a few parks, the Super Fresh, and some other places.
We crossed Delaware River via the Betsy Ross Bridge, Ben Franklin Bridge and Walt Whitman bridge. We also briefly floated down the river via Duck.
And of course, we ate! We had a cheese steak, soft pretzels (buttery Amish kind, not stale Philly kind), fresh corned beef sandwich, Philly pizza, South Jersey pizza, Amish sticky buns and roast chicken, water ice, calzone... I realized this morning that I hadn't consumed a vegetable since Friday afternoon at Olive Garden (don't judge us for the OG - we went with my Grandpop!).
We took loads of pictures, mostly *not* of people, which I'll be editing and presenting later. For now, here's the first few I managed to pull off of Scott's camera before the computer decided it was done with photos. I'll try again Wednesday to get the rest done. Tonight and tomorrow are pretty full.
*oops...surprise was ruined, but not by me!
3 comments:
I can deduce from your entry that your cheese steak didn't come from Mama's ... if it had, it just might've gotten its own entry!
Where's the top hat and dominoes? Loved the pictures!
the top hat and dominoes are in a plaza across the street from City Hall. There's also a statue of Frank Rizzo at the same place. random, but somehow less so than the clothespin statue!
as for the cheesesteak, it came from a booth in Reading Terminal and Scott wasn't that impressed. truth be told, it didn't live up to the hype... wasn't half as greasy as the ones from Mama's. The Amish soft pretzels and the pizza though - he'll be craving those by next week!
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