Philadelphia Freedom!

           This past weekend I took a day trip to Philadelphia with some friends. The drive up was blissfully traffic-less, a miracle considering we spent a good deal of our time on 95. Despite the inconsistent weather leading up to the trip, it could not have been a nicer day for touring. One of my friends is originally from a Philly suburb and came up with our game plan for the day, so after arriving we walked directly to Little Pete’s diner, where I had challah French toast with fresh strawberries, which was fantastic. This was the first time I had seen many of my friends since during the semester, so it was great to catch up. I was momentarily jealous when they were talking about what classes they are taking in the fall, until I remembered how crazy school made me.

             After we stuffed ourselves on diner food we walked over to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, AKA home of the Rocky steps, as the street vendors hocking Rocky shirts would have it known. We saw some people foolishly attempting to run the steps in foam flip flops. Not a good idea, people. The Chagall exhibit was really great. We also saw exhibits on men’s fashion and controversial photography. The modern design exhibit was very cool. It was displayed like an ikea store, and the inclusion of a Mac desktop from 1999 made one of my friends observe that we are officially old now that our high school computers are museum relics.  We also wandered into what became my favorite exhibit of the trip. I am a huge fan of poster art, and this exhibit was exclusively health & medical posters promising tonics to cure everything from gout to alcoholism. Sure, some people stared at us as we laughingly yelled "check out the syphilis" and "the ten commandements of tuberculosis!" at each other, but these posters were really funny. My favorite was the anti-marijuana poster, which made me wonder two things:

1. Why are they injecting weed? 2. Why would a kid be discouraged if you are going to promise him wild parties and orgies? No wonder the war on drugs has always been a lost cause.

              We explored the permanent collection for a bit. If you’ve never been, I highly recommend it. It’s a really impressive and diverse collection, spanning across the globe and covering pretty much every time period. There is even a life size Hindu temple and Japanese tea garden. Before leaving Philly we settled into a bar called Bishop's Collar, where we had some very curious quesadillas. Fresh blackberries and blueberries were mixed in with the pico and the guacamole. We were all dubious at first, but the berries were a delightful addition. After snacking we buckled into the car and headed home.

             All in all it was a pretty perfect trip.  Oh, except for the part where a girl in our group got escorted by city police away from the Liberty Bell because she had airplane bottles in her person. Be warned, kids, Philly doesn’t mess around with bag checks.