Thurs, Sept 8th 2011, continued: So DH drove us into Philadelphia. Our hotel was booked on hotwire again and was sort of a chic modern number, great location though, right next to city hall. Unlike the Sheraton and Boston, which was the kind of 4 star hotel that is 4 stars because they take great care of the guest, it was the kind of hotel that is 4 star because it has artwork on the key cards, perfume at the entrance and customized music track in the elevator. As soon as we got checked in we headed back out walking. We walked over to a large indoor market, similar to the North Market hear in Columbus, and I got a Philly Cheesesteak, which was tasty. All filled up, we headed out to walk to the Museum of Art, which is famous mainly for being the stairs that Rocky runs up. The walk to the Museum of Art is all tree filled boulevard, its supposed to have international flags out lining it, but none of them were up. The weird thing about this walk was that while the trees and museums and fountains implied they expected people to walk this stretch, the traffic and pedestrian traffic layouts were total nightmares. You frequently had to wait at 2-3 cross walks to make it across one intersection. We did eventually make it and got some good pictures on the stairs. By this time the sun was setting and we headed back to the hotel to watch the NFL opener.
Friday, Sept 9th 2011: We got up on our own schedule, got moving, grabbed breakfast and walked over to Independence park to visit Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. We got our tickets for the Independence Hall tour and as we walked over to start it I started to feel quite unwell. DH considered just booking it outta there and letting me rest, but I wanted to stick it out and figured it was just pregnancy nausea crap. We did the Independence Hall tour, it was pretty neat, impressive how small the room was that the Declaration was written in, we both thought it would be bigger. Then we headed to the Liberty Bell that had a huge line to get through security. DH and I realized while we waited in line that we had NO idea why the liberty bell was significant. Turns out there really is no reason! LOL. What I mean is, does not have that much historic relevance. It was used as a symbol, and that is the bigger deal. As soon as we finished this we headed back to the hotel to get our car and head out of town as by this time I was feeling quite unwell. We took the Subway back to quicken the process.
A final note on Philadelphia - it is called the city of brotherly love, but their reputation, as sports fans for example, is of being anything but compassionate. I have to say that pretty much everyone we dealt with enforced the reputation rather than the motto. People were rude, you heard people swearing at each other on the street. There were homeless people everywhere. It was not exactly a friendly place to be.
As discussed in my previous post, I felt worse and worse as the day progressed. We went down to our friend's house in Baltimore and I tried to act like I felt OK. We grilled out, I got eaten by mosquitos, we hung out, talked a lot, watched a comedian, and went to bed early.
Saturday, Sept 10th 2011 I was feeling even worse in the morning, but did not want to wreck our limited time in Baltimore and limited time with our friend, so we went ahead and went down to the inner bay, walked around, saw all the ships, looked around the lighthouse. We almost went to the aquarium but DH could tell that while I said I was up for it really I was not, so instead we grabbed "lunch" and then headed out. I feel bad that I felt so cruddy while I was there, but it was still nice seeing our friend. DH drove the entire way back to Columbus because I was feeling so bad. We made it back around 9:30PM and I hit the sack. See my hospital post for what happened the next day...
Overall, it was a great trip. We are REALLY glad that we spent the money and time to do it, because we will not have that kind of freedom (in either regard probably) for a long time to come. It was just nice to concentrate on us for a bit without the stresses of work and pets and house and baby prep. We also got to see tons of new things, go to new states, and explore part of the country I have never been to. DH pointed out that we hit 20% of the country by states, lol: OH, PA, NY, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE, MD, WV
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