The Philly Apartment

The Philadelphia apartment is sparsely furnished, since we already have a houseful of furniture in Atlanta. The apartment has lamps (from Ikea); a desk, PC and chair; TV stand and TV; bookcase; kitchen table and two chairs (also from Ikea); and a mattress and box spring. On my last trip there, we added a Papasan chair and a loveseat. Prior to furnishing the living room, the apartment reminded me of dormitory living, but my better half missed that experience. (He commuted from his parents house when he attended college). The cat loves the deep window ledges, since she can perch there and watch birds, people, and traffic. (Any moving object gets scrutinized).

The apartment is only a couple blocks from the main campus of Philadelphia University, so there are many students living in the building. Despite the number of students, noise has not been a problem.

Cut Those Gray Hairs!

At a recent haircut, I told the hair stylist to be sure and cut off all the gray hairs. (I'm starting to get some around the edges. And because I still feel like I'm in my twenties, I should look it, right?) She laughed.

The stylist suggested coloring the hair. It was my turn to laugh. LOL.

Philadelphia Undergraduates

One of the fun parts of visiting Philadelphia is that there are cute undergraduates (that is, the men) everywhere because of the more than 80 colleges and universities in the metro area. Can you say eye candy? LOL.

The gym also had its share of cute, fit guys which always inspires me to work harder during my workout.

Manhattan Skyline

As seen from the ferry to Ellis Island, the Manhattan skyline was magnificent. My spouse, who was familiar with the old skyline, lamented the missing World Trade Towers.

Statue of Liberty

We enjoyed seeing the Statue of Liberty, a gift of France, and climbed the 156 steps to the pedestal's observation deck. That deck is where this picture was taken. Since the World Trade Center attacks, it's as far up as visitors are allowed.

The base of the statue has this poem:

Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
- Emma Lazarus

Touring Ellis Island

On Monday, my spouse (above, hating his picture being taken) and I toured Ellis Island, the entry point for millions of immigrants to the United States. My spouse had grandparents on both sides of his family who immigrated through Ellis Island.

At Ellis Island, the immigrants were inspected for infectious diseases, for mental soundness, and for physical defects. Less than 2% were refused entry. The island had several hospital buildings where immigrants would stay if they arrived ill.

After being cleared for entry, the immigrants could exchange money into United States currency, and buy tickets to anywhere in the country. About one-third stayed in the New York area and two-thirds migrated elsewhere.

We spent several interesting hours there, and only left because we wanted to see the Statue of Liberty.

Evacuating the Apartment

The apartment's fire alarm started wailing around four-thirty Sunday morning. Such a piercing siren, it was impossible to ignore. Moving rather slowly (it was 4:30, after-all and we had been sleeping), my spouse and I dressed, grabbed the cat, and descended the stairs. We didn't know the apartment building had that many tenants, all looking disheveled (like us) in either the lobby or just outside the building. It looked like we were one of the last tenants to evacuate the twelve-story building. It was a cool morning (at least it wasn't raining!).

Samantha (the cat) was not happy, but she behaved. She doesn't like noise, she doesn't like strangers, and she doesn't like being carried, but she must have realized that something was wrong. As the other tenants noticed her, cradled in my better half's arms, she sure received lots of smiles.

The police and fire department arrived. Entering the building, they quickly determined that there was no fire. So we joined the long line of tenants ascending the stairs, climbed to our floor (thankfully, we're not in the top floors), and gave Samantha several treats for behaving so well.

Gettysburg!

Saturday, we toured Gettysburg, the site of one of the most memorable battles of the United States' Civil War in July, 1863. After Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee would never threaten the north again.

My spouse and I stopped first at the National Park Service's museum. The current one wasn't very interesting, focusing mostly on military weapons such as rifles and cannons, but they are building a replacement which is slated to open next year.

We walked across to the National Cemetery, where Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

Afterwards, we started on the "two-hour" car tour of the battlefield, with a National Park Service tape as the guide. It took us considerably longer than two-hours, as we would stop to read each of the many monuments along the roadway. (Interestingly, the monuments for the Confederate soldiers tended to be big, elaborate, state-wide pieces, while the monuments for the union soldiers tended to be smaller, but more numerous, with one for each unit that fought. Only Pennsylvania had a statewide memorial, which is the picture above.)

It was interesting to see several famous Gettysburg sites, including the ones for:

• Cemetery Ridge, site of Pickett's Charge (famous for the slaughter of Confederates charging a union position)
• the wheat field (famous for the slaughter of Union troops charging a confederate position)
• Little Round Top (famous for Joshua Chamberlain's defense of the Union line)

Despite the chilly temperatures and the brisk wind, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.

My Space

I recently signed up for MySpace, to explore it. They have the ability to inquire by email address or name to find members. To my surprise, none of my friends are members. I guess we are not early technology adopters? LOL.

My Space allows members to join groups, and I've joined several hot guy groups (eye candy!) and history groups, and even one group supporting gay marriage. I've been inviting other members of these groups to be my MySpace friends. I suspect I'll meet some interesting people, although one of its purposes seems to be dating, which I'm not interested in. (Another purpose seems to be marketing; some businesses, particularly bands, seem to delight in inviting people as friends and then sending their "friends" advertisements that are labelled "bulletins").

So far, I like YouTube better. That may change, because MySpace seems to be integrating YouTube into its site (both are owned by Google).

Kentucky Crafts

Driving up to Philadelphia and avoiding Virginia (as noted in a previous post) took me through part of Kentucky. One of the reststops along my route had arts and crafts from area artists for sale. I discovered this mouse, which I bought for my better half. Isn't it cute? :-)

The cat sure sniffed it!

Too Many Choices

I hate running out of toothpaste.

Toothpaste is one of the product categories where there is an excessive number of choices. Do you want the tartar control, plaque control, bad-breath control, whitening formula, anti-cavity formula, oxygenating (I don't know what it does), or everything (now called total control)? Peppermint, spearmint, wintergreen, wintermint, clean mint, fresh mint, vanilla mint, or cinnamon (yes, they have it)? Paste, gel, or drops? Regular, large, value, family, or extra-value (aka, toothpaste forever) size? Colgate, Aim, Aquafresh, Crest, Ultrabrite, Listerine, or one of the smaller brands (like Tom's of Maine or Nature's Gate)?

Laundry detergent is another product with too many choices.

The grocery store only carries one product where I like the increased number of choices: beer. :-)

I Hate Forgetting

A few years ago, my spouse and I visited France. Before traveling, we tried to learn as much of the language as we could. While there, we made out OK, although it obviously wasn't our first language. (We would buy and actually read a French newspaper at breakfast every morning, for example).

At restaurants, what would usually happen was that the waiter would start in French and realize we were Americans trying to speak their language, and graciously speak to us in excellent English. (Although one of the waitresses asked my spouse if we were Russian, and he said yes. LOL.)

When my real estate agent and I started talking about France (we both had a great time, it turns out), I wondered how much of the French language that I still retained. Out came the French tapes (yes, cassettes, only my German courses are on CDs). Ye gads, how can I forget that much!

So I'm studying my French tapes once more. Who knows, maybe we'll visit Montreal again...

Such A Pretty Drive!

Since the moving company isn't moving us until we've purchased a place in Philadelphia, I'm usually delivering stuff to my spouse (clothes, and items for the apartment like dishes) when I go to see him. This next trip will be seasonal items (also known as coats, sweaters, long-sleeve shirts, and flannel sheets) and some additional furniture. Since I'm delivering stuff, I drive rather than fly.

I've enjoyed the drives from Atlanta to Philadelphia. There is no way to avoid the Appalachian Mountains, and I wouldn't want to if I could. They are so pretty, all heavily forested and breathtakingly beautiful.

This last trip I avoided Virginia, which has lowered their speed limit. Long stretches of interstate now are limited to only 60 MPH. The state also raised their speeding tickets to a maximum fine of $1000. The new speed limits and increased fines sounded like a way to raise funds from travelers. Therefore, I'm avoiding the state until they become friendlier.

So instead of Virginia, I drove through West Virginia. Such a pretty state! It was the first time that I'd ever traveled through it. As an added bonus, the gasoline per gallon cost less than in Virginia (must be lower state gas taxes). I must enjoy the trips now, because I'm sure they won't be so pretty in the winter time, when the trees drop their leaves.

Endorsed By All the Sweet Tooths!

Our real estate agent prefers us to be gone when the house is being shown; she thinks it encourages the prospective buyers to examine the house more closely as well as to speak more candidly about the house.

Swinging back from my errands, I see a strange car in the driveway which must mean the house is still being shown. What to do? Being a warm day, thoughts of ice cream danced through my mind. A brief ride later, I find myself at Dairy Queen trying a Waffle Sundae. (The pictures looked so tempting, I couldn't resist. And I got to pick two toppings from a list of a dozen or so.) Hot Fudge and strawberries poured over vanilla ice cream in a holder of waffle cone. Delicious! Endorsed by every tooth, each of which is a sweet tooth! May all the visitors be this slow. LOL.