Over the holiday weekend, Carrie and I decided to head out of the city and visit Philadelphia. Having lived nearly all of my life in very, very large states, the fact that I can hop on a train and travel through four states in two hours is...incredible.
The hotel was also neatly situated several blocks from the historical part of Philly, which was nice Saturday even when we dragged ourselves back to the hotel. At least, it didn't quite feel like we were dragging ourselves back there.
It was really cool to visit Philadelphia so soon after finishing John Adams (which is a book I highly, highly recommend), because of course he was in the city so much during the Independence era and of course as president. And it was also kind of nice to have my own agenda of what to see (everything) instead of following one that was set out by parents...even if I did want to see it.
So...let's see, what did we do? Well, we toured Indepedence Hall and the Congress Hall next to it, saw the Liberty Bell, the Declaration House, Todd house, Betsy Ross' house, Christ Church, some other houses, Ben Franklin's grave and other signers' graves, saw the Franklin Mint (closed on weekends so no tour) and umm...quite a few other things. I guess maybe I should go back and look at what we didn't see. 
But I have decided I am in love with Philadelphia. It's up there with Boston and San Francisco on my list of favorite cities. Now I'm trying to plan when I can go back to Boston. It's been a long time since I've walked the Freedom Trail and I think, now that I've been reading a lot of US history books, that it's time to do so again. And of course throw some more tea into the harbor!
I'll post a link soon when I get pictures up online. There are some technical issues with my site I normally post pictures, so I'm thinking of just putting them up on Flickr. And when I do, I'll also (finally) post those pictures from Virginia last month.
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