America started here

Well today was an easy day, a day we didn’t do much. After a few chores & some shopping we headed over to the Philadelphia visitors centre without a GPS. (It throws a hissy fit occasionally and refuses to work.) It was hard without a mirror and directions but we fluked it and stumbled across the place we were after. There we found out about what to do/see etc and dad tried to find the part to the mirror. [ed…in fact I spent all afternoon trying to locate another mirror, visitor centre folk were happy for me to use their phone and to assist with googling! Long story… but overnight delivery is not really a concept that Americans are that au faix with… meaning the best we can do is have the mirror delivered to a place near to Washington next Tuesday. Driving without a mirror is far from ideal but nothing else we can do]

O well while we were waiting me and Amy and Emma made up a cheerleading routine where we throw her in the air its cool (we will show you it when we have finished) as usual, the weather was fine so we spent plenty of time practicing!! After we were done we headed back to Wal-Mart. Bye New York we really need our mirror tho!

Liberty bell

What a beautiful day, I thought to my self. No clouds, so I won’t need lots of jumper and jackets then! I was wrong it was freezing because the wind was so cold. Well Philadelphia is where American independents was signed!

Well we found a bus park to stay for the day, it was a while from where we wanted to be, so to solve that problem we took a taxi in to town. We arrived at the independence hall just a couple of minutes later than we should have so we snuck in the back…really interesting ranger talk explaining what happened in each room. Then went with them to the hall were the declaration was signed. Did you know Benjamin Franklin was a big person in Philly because:

1. He signed the declaration
2. He invented the bi-focal glasses
3. He discovered electricity
4. He helped gain support from the French, who helped supply the weapons etc, during the war of independence (and no doubt drunk red wine on his various visits to France)

So he was really famous, so half of the day was about him… he was really interesting to learn about.

[ed… In fact Independence Hall was where America basically started. Held there were several Continental Congresses where reps from each state decided whether to cede from the Poms, then debated and wrote the Declaration of Independence & Articles of Confederation (precursor to the constitution). It was also the US Capital between 1790 and 1800 and contained the original senate room… which was upstairs from there the congress met, thus the ‘upper house’. Washington and Adams lived in town during those years, along with Ben Franklin. In the mid 1800’s Philly had around 2.5 million residents, around 50% more than now. We also learnt heaps about William Penn and how he was given basically all the land in Pennsylvania to settle a £16000 debt owed to his father by the King of England (would you believe)]

We finished then it was time for the walking tour, the lady got it wrong so she there was no walking tour on in winter, but she could get us on another tour in an hour! We had our lunch and played a bit (more cheerleading practice) till it was time to go. For the first time we got a girl guide, she was very nice, she told us heaps about Ben and the declaration, while we were there we saw his house (well what’s left of his house) and threw a penny on his grave! Apparently they make around $4k per year out of the pennies people throw on his grave.

After that was the famous Liberty Bell which was reputedly rung when the declaration of independence was read. They had no luck repairing the bell, and the crack in it is really famous now. We took our picture by it!!!! It was a excellent day.

In the evening we went down town to check out a couple of free Christmas lights shows... which were a bit lame but town in the evening was cool. Their City Hall is the largest of some type of building of other - same category as the pyramids but they aren't inhabited which makes it a different category. (the americans seem to have a biggest or best of something in every town but this building was impressive!). while we were watching one of the shows the olds checked out the Christmas markets and had a mulled wine. And Emma found a huge eagle @ Macey's.

Tomorrow, we’re off to Amish country… from big D