Saturday
Arrived in Philly around 11:30 AM. We went to the Reading Terminal Market first. Nice place. We split a bag of Fisher's Soft Pretzels to start with (half butter, half plain). I got Bourbon Chicken on a stick from a Chinese place - a real bargain at $1.75, and a mango punch from some deli. The chicken was good but the mango punch was way to sweet. Tom got a gyro he really liked from some Greek place. From there, we went around the corner to the Independence Brewpub. We didn't like it - the beer wasn't very good. We wondered through Chinatown to the historic area. We went to Franklin Court, where there is an underground Benjamin Franklin museum, a recreation of his print shop and lots of Franklin-related stuff. At the print shop, we saw a printing demonstation that Matthew and I really liked the first time we saw it, on his school field trip last spring. Next to the print shop is a house that has had all the renovations stripped away to reveal the original 1700's interior. I really liked that. We went to the Second Bank of the United States, which is a portrait gallery now, and then walked around Carpenter's Hall. On our way to check into our hotel, The Hampton Inn, we checked out The Bourse, a mall that used to be a stock market. That night, we ate dinner in Chinatown at the Imperial Inn. The food was good.Tom didn't like his too much, it tasted like fried chicken with gravy, not very Chinese. Matthew liked the Pu Pu platter with it's little fire to heat the food.
Sunday
Bitterly cold, with tempatures in the 20's and strong winds. A perfect day for a long walk up Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On the way, we walked through the grounds of the Rodin museum. Sunday is "Pay What You Want" day at the Art Museum and it was packed. We really liked the Arms & Armor display, the Japanese Tea House, the Cloister and the French Gothic Chapel. We didn't have enought time to check the whole place out, I don't think Natalie and the boys would have wanted to anyway. We ate dinner at the Nottinghead Brewpub on Sansom Street. Nice place. Good food and good beer (Billy's Pale Ale was our favorite). Natalie and I had the French Dip, Matthew had a burger, and Tom got a Cajun Chicken sandwich. We were all kind of worn out from the cold and the walking, so we just stayed in the hotel Sunday night. The kids went swimming in the tiny hotel pool.
Monday
Checked out of the hotel and went back to the Reading Terminal Market for lunch. Since we had to have a Philadelphia Cheese Steak while we were there and didn't make it to Pat's, we went to Pat's relative's place in the market, Rick's Philly Steaks. They were good but nothing to rave about (maybe I should have gotten one with Cheese Whiz). After that, we drove down to the historic area. We visited Elfreth's Alley, an area of houses built in the 1700's and still lived in. After finding a bridge over 95, we went to Penn's Landing - a Harbor Place type area without all the crappy stores and restaurants. Across the river, you can see the the battleship New Jersey and the Campbell Soup factory. Supposedly, you can see Nipper, RCA's dog mascot, over there in Camden but I must have missed that. The place was deserted when we were there. After checking out Penn's Landing, we drove back to Mom & Dad's for my 50th birthday party.
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