Philly Day Three

Woke up way crankier than I would have liked today. Probably had something to do with my inability to sleep at night anymore. I have become a third shift freak. When I do try to sleep at night, I tend to only be able to nap for a few hours and then wake up only to stare at the ceiling. Fun, no?
Anyway, other than that, I find we have surprisingly little to talk about. I keep my personal life just that, personal. We've never talked about that at all. We barely talk about anything like feelings. (probably comes from Dad, Mr. Career Navy) and so there have been a lot of quite times. Oh well. That's life.
Today was the day I was truly waiting for during this trip. We went to the Franklin Institute to see the traveling King Tut exhibit. It's on loan from Egypt and has been in Chicago, LA, and Ft Lauderdale prior to this; and this is the last US stop before heading to London this fall and then back to Egypt. The collection is over 130 artifacts from King Tut's tomb and several tombs of his relatives. The audio tour was done by Omar Shariff, which I thought was pretty funny, because he did the audio tour in the Egyptian section of the British Museum as well. They did have a sarcophagus on display, but it belonged to a relative of Tut's (a woman they believe was his great grandmother). It was simply beautiful. These artifacts were breath-taking. And it was simply mind boggling that they are over 3000 years old. Most of them look completely brand new. The gold still has incredible lustre; the carvings are still sharp and clean, the paint still vibrant. One of my favorite pieces was a fixed foot stool that Tut would have used in the afterlife. Not that it was particularly spectacular; it was carved wood with inlays and the heads of ducks for the legs. What I loved was the fact that one of the photos that Howard Carter took in 1922 was on the opposite wall, and you could clearly see the stool in the first chamber. There was also a wooden bust of Tutankhamen as well. It was amazing to be able to look the King in his eyes. The audio at that point was a commentary by Dr. Zahi Hawas (forgive me if I misspelled his name) saying that it was clearly life-sized. I was struck then, by how small the King was. Another favorite piece was a carved head of Nefertiti. It was carved out of stone, but was so life like it was hard to believe.
After that, I had wanted to go to the University of Pennsylvania because they had an archaeological exhibit on Amarna; but we didn't. So, instead we took one of the bus tours of the city. In fact, it was done by the same group who did the bus tour in London; The Big Bus Tours. It was good. Lots of things that we had already seen in the last two days, and then a lot of things that we hadn't seen. The stairs Rocky climbed...along with his larger than life statue; several other museums and of course, the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is now classified as a ruin, but was the first Penitentiary in the world. The Quakers felt that after committing a crime you needed to repent and be penitent; and so built the building for that purpose. I guess it was pretty harsh to say the least, solitary confinement, a Bible and a hole in the ceiling that let in light. Needless to say, many went insane instead of repenting. Supposedly a very haunted building as well.
We also saw the Seaport Museum; and if you're not into boats, I'd skip it; but they do have a WWII submarine to tour as well as the oldest steel ship in the country. I was simply astounded at how small quarters were on the sub. Someone my size would fit comfortably through the passages (I'm just 5 feet tall) anything else would have been difficult. And 67 men lived on this sub! It was just astounding!! I was pretty glad that there weren't very many tourists there when we were walking through because my claustrophobia would have been in overdrive.
So, tomorrow's plan is to go to the Reading Terminal Market (sound familiar if you've played Monopoly) there is a big marketplace there, and I guess on Wednesdays the Amish come with the food and crafts that they specialize in. So, a fitting way to end the trip--shopping!