It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The weather was quite impeccable today, as it has been almost my entire trip. With all the walking I've done these past two weeks, I'm better tanned than I ever was this summer.

Not everything I hoped to do panned out, but walking a big city is its own reward. I went up into the northeast quadrant of Central City to visit a house that Edgar Allan Poe briefly lived in, but for some reason they're only open three or four days a week. Then down to Chinatown I went to see the lovely Friendship Gate, and then back to 22nd St. to the Mütter Museum, a collection of weird and somewhat horrific medical oddities. Most gloriously last of all was a free performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra outside of the magnificent City Hall, in which they played one of my favorite pieces, Tchaikovsky's "Marche Slave." I don't think this trip could have ended much better.



Oh yes, and I spent over an hour in a porn theater. The details of that lurid excursion are soon to come.

Notes and Observations:

- People do come into porn theaters at 11 AM.
- I really hope the parents of all those miscarriages and dead Siamese twins now (re?)posing in the Mütter Museum were spared the knowledge that their unfortunate offspring would be preserved and leered at for generations after death.

Quote of the day:

"Ellen Jones was murdered with an axe in 1863."
- the first sentence in a placard explaining the shattered skull of Ellen Jones.

All in all, it's been a pretty phenomenal trip. I took in a variety of sites and museums, got a feel for two great American cities, and even made a friend or two along the way. I'm debating whether to even bother posting any photos here once I get back, since I'm pretty sure most of my limited readership will see them on Facebook anyway. But thanks to all--you know who you are--who followed along, apologies for being so damned general once I got to DC, and keep coming back for what I assure you will be substantial writings in the days to come.