Philadelphia Story, day 2

Now I am sitting downstairs, the girls are asleep, and Lynda is probably in bed. She is battling a cold and needs the rest.

Tonight I took Sarah to her second dance class--my first visit. It felt like I was the only male in a building that was crammed with women. And that's fine, really, except that so many of the girls and young ladies (and the teachers--who were probably in their late twenties) were all walking around in leotards and tights and such. I just felt like I had to constantly watch where I was looking and didn't want anyone to think that I was staring at someone or doing anything inappropriately. So, I sat and listened to my iPod while Sarah was in her classes (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban if you're interested).

But what I wanted to bring up was what Sarah said to me on the way to the dance studio. She said, "What would it be like if we were all dolls and everything was a dollhouse and there were really giant people moving us around?" I thought that was a very interesting thought and I played along, but it was great at one point when she was asking me to pretend that we could see the giant hands in the sky reaching down to move stuff. I said, "Who is the big hand?" and she was half listening and I said, "What if its God?" and she sort of ignored me and kept talking and then stopped abruptly and said "What?" It sort of threw her for a loop and she didn't pursue the idea, but it was a funny moment of "Whoa! What are you trying to say?"

***

But, now back to the Philadelphia travelogue.

On Day 1 I gave a brief description of our travels on the highway through Pennsylvania and Jack's hatred of deer nookie.

What I didn't mention was that we also attended the Rehearsal dinner that evening. I have a few pictures of that here.

On Day 2--the day of the wedding, we had time during the day to explore the historic city of Philadelphia. But the morning started with Hampton Inn continental breakfast. I knew something was up right away when Jack and I started walking around to get various breakfast dishes. Several of the hotel guests were all walking around with similar black t-shirts and many of them in various types of exercise pants or camouflage shorts. Almost all of them where guys and from what I could see on the shirts, these guys were some sort of martial arts group.

As Jack and I surreptitiously ate and eavesdropped on a group of them sitting next to us, our suspicions were confirmed. This martial arts group was in town for a convention. They were practitioners of something called Bando. It still felt vaguely militant to me, especially when I noticed that most of them were watching FOX News while they ate and then Jack heard on guy telling another that he needed to "remember what the pain [wa]s for."

I was too afraid to ask a follow up question on that.

We finished eating, caught up with Cordelia and Raisinette and set off downtown.

We quickly realized that there were only TWO things that Philadelphians did on a Sunday morning in late May--head downtown and see the historic sites (like us) or head for the Philadelphia Zoo. We knew this about the zoo not because it is "America's first zoo" but because the only traffic jams we experienced the entire trip were approaching the single exit to the zoo that morning and then again later that afternoon. It was about a fifteen or twenty minute crawl past that point and it seemed that everyone was headed that way. I hope it was worth it.

Once we made it downtown, Jack scored us a great parking space close to Independence Hall and we set off. You can read about our travels in the historic areas here and here.

Next time, WEDDING!!!