Philly for a Week

A few weeks ago, Zack was sent to Philadelphia for a conference. Since it's not a long drive, Ela and I decided to tag along and do a little sightseeing. We stayed in a lovely Embassy Suites hotel outside of town, and had a really fun week. Unfortunately, my camera has recently broken, so I had only my iPhone to use to snap shots. The result is relatively few pictures of the week. Instead, I'll just have to write about it.

Monday was a "figure out where we are" sort of day. I took Ela by train into town to the Reading Terminal Market. She fell asleep, so I just kind of walked around the shopping district down there checking things out. We had lunch, then I brought her back to the hotel, hoping to catch an afternoon swim. The pool was broken, but we took a rest in the room, and then headed back out in the evening with Zack for dinner and a bit more looking around.

Tuesday was rainy, so I decided to take Ela to the aquarium. My thought was "it's a week day. It shouldn't be too crowded." I forgot that it's also May, which is prime field trip season. I think every school in a three district area was there when we arrived. There were kids aged preschool (armed with those huge strollers for six) to high school (who had to fill out biology worksheets and were often to be found hiding out in the bathroom). The good news is that Ela loves to watch people as well as fish, so she considered the crowds a bonus. We saw lots and lots of fish, a few "dodos" (penguins in this case) and even a hippo. There was a place where you could touch a shark, but I told Ela she would have to wait for next time. She didn't seem to mind. The trip wiped us out pretty well, so then we headed back to the hotel, where the pool continued to be broken, and we had another quiet evening with Daddy.

Wednesday was rainy again, so we headed for the Please Touch Museum. I was skeptical about this trip, but we needed to be inside, and it was better than the hotel room. When I arrived at the museum, my skepicism increased because they charge for all people age 1 and up. I was mildly outraged at the idea of plunking out 15 bucks for Ela as well as me. Then I showed military ID, and it turns out military get in for free (two people per ID). This improved my opinion of the place significantly. I even shelled out the extra three bucks for a carosel ride.

By the way, it's super hard to take a picture with a phone while holding a baby on the horse.
My opinion of the museum got even higher when I found out that each area in it has one section reserved just for toddlers (aged 3 and under). They have a museum worker standing at the gate to keep the big kids out. This section, obviously, had age appropriate play stuff related to whatever the theme of the bigger area was. Ela loved it!

There were areas with water, fairy tale, city and transportation themes. It was more than we could do before we ran out of steam. We finally had to give up and go home for a nap, but we had a super time. The day was ended with an equally super dinner with some friends who live in Philly, Lauren and Steve. They introduced us to an excellent Italian place. Ela entertained the other guests, and we had a nice chance to catch up.

On Thursday, Zack got a day off from work to come hit the historical district with us. It was the first really sunny day we had, and we took advantage of that. We saw Independence Hall, Ben Franklin's home, Carpenter's Hall (where the first Continental Congress met), a memorial tomb for the unknown soliders of the revolution, and of course the Liberty Bell.

We were exhausted by the end of all this sightseeing, so it was actually quite good to go home on Friday. We arrived at a clean house, thanks to Zack's meticulous work before we left, and now we've recouperated and started to get back into the grind. It was a really fun trip, though. I was happy to get out and see a bit more of the eastern coast.

A Trip to the Zoo

I meant to post pictures with this post, but haven't had time to load them, so here's the text anyway.

Last weekend seemed like a good time to go check out the zoo, it being free and the weather being good. Ela has recently taken an interest in furry things that move and also birds (which she calls "Dodo"). We figured she'd enjoy it. The only problem was that everyone else in the DC area had the same idea, so it was pretty crowded. Also, it got a little warmer than we expected, so some of the animals were hiding.

All the same, we had a good time. Ela noticed the animals (an improvement from her last zoo visit) and really liked watching the wolf (which she told "woof woof"). She had a great time in the Bird House, and loved the flamingos, too.

I have to admit that I kind of missed the BioPark and Jungle Safari from Japan as we walked around. The animals there had a lot more freedom. We spent several hours wandering, and only hit about half of the zoo. Then Ela was getting fussy and Daddy needed a coffee and Mommy needed something cool, so we skipped the petting zoo and called it a day. We'll go back some time to do the other half. It was a good trip, though, and it is so cool that we live near a zoo that's free! Ela and I may check it out on a rainy day and/or weekday over the summer.