Independance Hall, Liberty Bell and a damn good cheese steak

Here it is in all it's glory................Independence Hall.
This is the court house.
All law things, Dru gets his picture taken infront of it. LOL
Here's the inside of the court house.
I thought it was pretty great.

Independence Hall.
Inside Independence Hall.
Wonderful work.
The lady told us all about the history, but the kids were not having a bar of it. So Dru and I would juggle them and one of us listen to the lady.
So between Dru and I, we could tell you about the history of this building.



Then we moved onto Liberty Bell.
Little bit of 'Bell' history.
It was pretty packed. There was no way you could really get a picture infront of it with no one in the picture. This is the best I could do.

I think it's amazing we got to see this.
This Bell is almost 300 years old!!
Man the stories this bell could tell, the people it's seen.
Fantastic.
Then we got ourselves a Philly Cheese Steak IN PHILLY. (Thanks Jenny, you're my superstar)
There were two 'original' cheese steak places, right across the road from each other.
I dunno why we went to this one, but we did. See Dru walking to the place.

Nice face Dru.
Now I'm not a big fan of cheese steak sandwiches. I'm a real fuss pot when it comes to the meat.
Any chewy bits and I start to gag and don't finish the sandwich.
If anywhere could do a good cheese steak, it's HERE RIGHT?
Well I LOVED IT.
It was AWESOME.
So good job Geno's, you passed the fussy Milz test.
Philly is trying its hardest to be tidy, clean, and well kept.
I was impressed.
This was the kids WORST day however and I found myself thinking "Just take the picture of the bell and lets get outta here"
Which is a pity.
We ate lunch in a Ghetto park in the middle of the city is 100% humidity while some dude from ABC took pictures of us playing in the 'ghetto' park.
If you were watching the news in philly you might of seen our family.

It wasn't until we were on the road to D.C that I really was in awe of what I had been in and saw.
Oh well. Kids will be kids right.

Drive #2: NY to Philly

So today was going to be another day in New York. I wanted to see Ground Zero, the Yankee's stadium and China town, and a couple of other stuff.
I looked on line, about each, the night before and decided to bag it.
With the amount it costs to get into there, and the horrible parking situation, and our three kids in tow, I decided against it.
There'll be another time, I know it, and it was time to have a relaxing day for the kids.
So we slowly packed up, had breakfast, made our way to Philly, checked in and let the kids swim all afternoon at the hotels pool.
They loved it.
We had dinner, relaxed and had a great day.
I knew the next day was gonna be jammed with all the days events.
So I'm glad today was, what it was.




90 miles in the car
1.5 hours in the car

442 total miles in the car
7.5 total hours in the car

Time Square, Central Park and Natural History Museum

So the next day we went into the heart of New York City and walked, and walked and walked.
Who needs a treadmill when you've got traveling?

Time Square was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.
I've never been anywhere like it............EVER.
There were TONS of people around EVERYWHERE ALL.THE.TIME.
There were ads, lights shops etc.
It's an ADD person's worst nightmare.
Some parts would stink SO BAD and the rest was fine.
We got cheap t-shirts and some postcards to send to my family.
I just couldn't believe I was there.
Central Park is MASSIVE and nothing like I thought it was going to be. It's a maze of paths and more paths.
It's the only green for miles however, so there are TONS of people there ALL.DAY.LONG.
We saw a bunch of nannies, well we're guessing they were nannies.
There was a zoo in there and parks for the kids and a little concert in the water as well as rides and bikes and people running.
We walked the length of it twice.
We were exhausted by the end of the day.
There were a couple of baseball fields as well with games going on.
What I wanna know is, on a weekday, why where there SO MANY PEOPLE?
Does no one work in NY?
Were they ALL TOURISTS?
I was just flawed by all the people who DIDN'T look like tourists just sitting around reading, sunbathing, running and more.
What a sweet life.
Here's Dru making mates with the local kids at a park we went to at the end of the day.
Then we went to the "Night of the Museums" Natural History Museum
You go in and they say "This is what we recommend you pay, but you don't have to pay it, you can pay whatever you want, less or more"
Well what the hell am I suppose to say to that.
Now if I say more I'm an idiot, or less I'm a cheapskate, so I just said the price he told me. I, personally, think it was a little steep.
I should've just paid less, I'd never see those people again.
Of course Dru left it to me, like always, to make the decision.
Here are the kids in front of a huge elephant tusk.
My kids seem to like picking statues noses.

They had a pacific area and so I, of course, got a picture infront of the Maori section.
Recognize this guy?
That fish could have 10 of Yuki for lunch.
Mr T-Rex.
Look how massive a Triceratops head is.

It was a fun museum and a fun day.
We were lucky to see everything we did.
The day wasn't too hot. I just wish there were more picnic benches in Central Park and we got a map so we knew where we were going instead of kinda knowing sorta where we were in the Park.

Have you ever seen a Helicopter do this?

The same day as the statue and Ellis Island there was some kinda flight show going on. Planes were having races and this helicopter was doing this.
Can you believe it?
I never thought a helicopter could do this.

Ellis Island

Here is some of the original wall that passing immigrants engraved their names on while spending, roughly 5 hours on Ellis Island waiting to be admitted into the USA.
This explains the picture below.
Between 1900 and 1920 there was the MOST immigration to the USA.
Picture of where the slave trading went.
I found this very interesting.



Who's the best barbie?
They had Barbie's from around the world here. They didn't have one from NZ.
They had tons of others though.

Here's where they all waited.

It's funny, cause my citizenship certificate looks basically identical to this one.
Amazing aye.

I'll never complain about my job again.
They have a wall with all the immigrants names on it.
Dru found his mother's families names and so took some shots.
I tried to find our family but came up with nothing.
Bummer.


This was a really cool display. The flag and then all the different faces.
America truly does have many nationalities among it's nation.


For some reason I got really emotional at Ellis Island. Dru was looking at me and I'm like "I dunno Dru, don't ask"
Then about 10 mins later gave me the look again and I said "I still don't know, stop looking at me"
Maybe it was because I'm an immigrant, I dunno, but that doesn't make sense.
Does it?
Half the reasons I cry doesn't make sense actually.
They were treated well here. It's not as if the people were treated poorly.
Only 2% were turned back because of harmful diseases or were going to be on the nations welfare system for their whole lives.
I think they're good reasons to be turned back.
There were schools and hospitals here and places to sleep.
I'm glad I went.
It was a wonderful visit.