NYC and Philly...

Wednesday, we rode the subway to Times Square. The subway was loud, or at least much more loud than the DC Metro. We looked around for a while, and went to the Toys R Us, Grand Central Station, and the NY public Library. The library was cool. It is an amazing building. They also have corrected copies of the declaration of Independence. Some people went to the United Nations, checked out the prices on broadway/off-broadway shows, went down to Canal street in Soho to see the deals available down there. This is a crazy big city. Lots of people, and about 100 degree F. Ugh. We met some friends in Central Park for a picnic. Pretty cool place! There was a play going on near by, it looked pretty impressive. The turtle pond was cool. There was a big turtle there. Overall, it was an interesting place. Everything is very tightly packed.

Thursday - We had bagels, and checked out of the hotel. We went over to the St Johns Cathedral. It was really tall, and an amazing building. There was good water to drink there, which counts a lot when it is so hot. Next we headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, over on the East side of Central Park. The Egyptian area, and the wall art, etc were amazing. All of the armor from the 16 and 17th centuries were incredible. It is incredible that someone could wear all that and move around. It is amazing to see this stuff. It seems much more real, not just to be in the movies/cartoons/etc. There was very cool decorative work on the armor. The inlaid wood in some areas was incredible. It looked totally 3-Dimensional. We took off out of town grabbing some pizza and Mr. Softee. We then drove out the Lincoln tunnel over to New Jersey, and set out on our way to the Philadelphia area.

Friday - Went to Philadelphia. We picked up Annika's friend Megan, and went to Independence hall. We saw where the first and second continental congress met. Also, where the Declaration of independence was debated. We saw the Liberty bell, and Franklin square. It started raining really hard, and we got fairly drenched. We were very impressed with the Philadelphia city hall. What a building!
We proceeded on to Valley Forge. The visitor center was closed, but we saw a few things and the site. It must have been a pretty miserable place to be over winter. There were lots of deer around. They had lots of fawns, who were cute.