6/5/09

philadelphia...

a little while ago the tour group had a chance to spend the better part of half a day, the part where you are up, in philadelphia...



i went to college in philadelphia and have a love for the city close to my love for the smell of parking garages.

as always (we were there for an hour or so six months ago and did the same thing first. actually it was the only thing we did) we went to geno's steaks. here's the 4 of us enjoying a nice authentic philly cheese steak (with provolone cheese) at the worlds famous and racist geno's steaks...



right by the order counter they have a sign that reads "if you could read thank a teacher. if you could read english thank a marine!" there were none around to do so. we ended up not thanking anyone. but damn good cheese steaks, damn good.

www.genosteaks.com

after geno's we drove down to old city and parked the van so we could walk around. get all historic and shit, sorta.

our first stop was the "christ church" on 2nd and market. it was founded in 1695 ad and has the burial ground that houses good ol' benny frank...lin. we will get to him in a little bit. below is a grave site of buckridge sims. i have never heard of him but his tomb caught my eye...

reason 1) because it was right at the foot steps of the church...



and reason 2)
part one - a, his birth date is the same as mine
part two - b, his death age is the same number as the year of my birth.
article c - his last name is "sims", my favorite football player growing up was phil "simms". i even had his jersey.
section IV(4)- my nickname was buckridge in college, sorta.

right up the block of my main soulmate buckridge was my favorite pizza shop in philadelphia. its still there and they still have no idea who i am, "self proclaimed biggest fan of your pizza, in philadelphia, there are better places in other places". whenever i see it a tear comes to my eye...



a couple of blocks up i saw a cardboard cut out of good ol' benny frank...lin. man he looked horrible and the breakfast he was trying to peddle was ridiculous. $17.00 for only a three station buffet. benny "F" you so crazy...



i think i wanna have your baby...


* benny "f"s tombstone.

we could never have a baby. he's dead, has been for awhile.

here's another tombstone at the christ church's burial grounds. it looks like it is giving me the finger. or you if you are looking at it...



right down the block was the betsy ross house. she was not there that day. again, dead and all. luckily one of her friends was hanging out. she was telling people cool facts about bets and the house. she let me take a picture with her while giving the international sign for "blowjob". it was pretty alright...



we spent so much time at all the other places that by the time we got to the u.s. mint they were not letting anymore people in. they stopped at 3:30 pm. talk about being a lazy mint. seth managed to find fun of the situation by sliding up the handrail. thats right, up the handrail...


*he was actually sliding down.

We then walked through the independence hall park. it was very different from when i was there. they added in a museum that surrounded the liberty bell and a huge park. here is a picture of the liberty bell...



although i have seen it many times this time it was a little bit different. i think it had a lot to do with the museum part leading up to the bell. a time line of the bells history, what it stood for, what it fought for and especially the very soft ken burns style music playing in the background. music always does it for me.

across the street was independence hall. it had no music and was some what boring. here is a picture of all 4 of us in front of independence hall pretending to have a good time...



i saw this one sculpture of this one guy in washington park right across the street from independence hall. this guy looks like if ronald reagan's face was on the side of his head and was frozen in carbonite, exactly like that...



we also got to check out glenna goodacre's "the irish memorial" the sculpture salutes the indefatigable spirit of the irish and its eagerness to engage the challenges of a new world. it reminded adam and i of the brady bunch...



to end the philly tour we decided to see the historic "rocky statue". it is a statue of the fictional character rocky that lives in each and every one of us. people kiss the feet of christ on the crucifix when they see that statue, people rise their arms in triumph in front of the rocky when they see his statue. here is drew...



of course mine didn't work out as well...



another thing you must do if in philadelphia is run up the front steps to the art museum just like rocky did. here's adam, seth and i doing it...



i'm convinced that the front and back of the philadelphia art museum has the best views of the city. if you were walking out of the museum through the front exit you would see this...



and greek style would be this...



the time had was great by all...



the next morning we woke up in a hotel in king of prussia PA (an actual town called "king of prussia", they have a big mall) before we made our way to washington d.c. one of the last images we saw was a best western employee taking down "eat balls" from the sign. oh philadelphia you are hysterical...



up next...D.C.