6th January

This morning we caught the hotel's courtesy shuttle to the Historical District of Philadelphia. As we had 30 minutes to wait for the trolley tour, we went across the road to see the Libery Bell. It was smaller that I expected but awesome just to be so close to it. It is not in a protective case but there is a rope around it and guards watching all the time.


We got on the trolley tour again and were going to go to Betsy Ross's house (she made the first flag) but it was closed for refurbishment - this is the off season - and, unlike New York, there aren't many tourists around. We got off at the African American Museum which was very interesting. We hopped back on the trolley and headed for the Rodin Museum. It was to kind of make for not seeing the one in Paris. There were lots of Rodin's sculptures but I was a little disappointed in the setting - very cold and harsh.

We then walked across to the Museum of Natural History and saw a very interesting exhibition on George Washington Carver. I have been interested in him since a read a story of his life when I was a child.

This is a large statue of Ben Franklin

This is a picture of the Philadelphia skyline. The Brown building is based on a phone jack and the taller one behind it is designed on a USB drive! It is a very nice city.

This is the City Hall. It is French Revival in style and is made of bricks with stone fascade. The only thing that spoilt it was the air conditioner in every window - on all four sides. Benjamin Franklin is on top of the tower and until about 30 years ago no buildings were allowed to be build higher than him!

The city has a public art program and all new buildings have sculpures out the front. This one amused me!!

We then walked back through the city to Independence Hall and did the tour. This is one of the rooms - I can't remember what they were all for but will update this when I know!!

This is the room where the Declaration of Independence was worked out. I had a really cool chandelier with candles!

We found a nice little Chinese cafe and had an okay dinner. We asked someone how to get to the Ice Hockey stadium and headed down to the subway. $4 and 20 minutes later we were there! Steve, Jess and Amelia were picked up at the hotel by someone they knew and met us there. Stephen had organised the tickets and we had seats just 12 rows behind the glass. I didn't take any pictures of the actual game but it was a lot of fun and the Flyers won - so everyone was happy!!!

At the end of the first period they had a children's game. This little goalie is only 7 years old. He was almost lost in his uniform

This is the kid's team. The kind of play like under 6s soccer - in a pack!!

This is Amelia in her Flyers track suit with a Flyers Tatoo on her cheek taking a picture of the children playing hockey with her mother's digital SLR!