Mission: Family Reunion, pt.II

Now, I'm cheating a little bit.  I'm going pass over two days, simply because I wasn't there, so I can't give a first-hand account of what went down.  Plus, I'm still bitter that I missed out on all the fun stuff so I don't even wanna talk about it. =)

Onto Philly! The more I visit the city of Brotherly Love, the more I like it.  Surprisingly so.  I don't know why it begrudges me to admit it.  Perhaps it's because I loathe all teams Pennsylvania or maybe because the very first time I went was quite underwhelming.  No matter; I like it now.  Miraculously, we left only 15 minutes behind schedule.  I drove all the girls down which made for a fun ride.

Car 1 - First Class

Hello, Philly!

We quickly split from the convoy and made it to the Independence Visitors Center first and got tickets for the whole group for the Independence Hall tour.  After finally reuniting with everybody, we made our way to the US Mint. Since it is purely automated, there really wasn't much to see but hey, it was something to do.

Where coins are made

The next stop was the Liberty Bell.  Oh, I forgot to mention...it was over 90 degrees!  Even though each site we went to was only a few minutes walk away from each other, the heat and humidity just made it unbearable to be outside.  Even though there really wasn't much to see at each stop, the quick respite from the heat was still gratifying.

Surviving the heat & humidity

So anyway, after a few pictures of the big bell with the crack in it, we continued on to Independence Hall.  Nothing much to see, so it was a good thing it was free.

The Liberty Bell & Independence Hall

Pat's Cheesesteak was our next stop...but not before I took the wrong turn and ended up back on the bridge to Jersey.  No matter, we made it back to Pat's, a tourist trap.  I was very shocked to NOT see the usual long line.  Instead, it was at Geno's, right across the way.  Bully for us.  Adrie dropped by for a few minutes to say hello and then we went on our way to Franklin Mills Outlet Mall.

So delicious

Besides buying two skirts and some ice-cream, I mainly sat and waited for everyone to meet up.  After a few hours, the shopping was done and back to Jersey we go'ed.  Dinner at U-yee was great as always but it was going back home which was pretty eventful.

Tasted even better than it looks! 

One of the girls BADLY needed to use the restroom so we stopped at a Burger King.  I'm downplaying it but it was pretty freaking hilarious.  On the way home we were telling ghost stories, so it was to Ate Ela's and my terror to pick up Ajay from the airport all by our lonesomes.  Well, not really, but the drive was pretty spooky.  We finally arrived home a little past 12.  Exhausted, I fell asleep almost instantly, only to be woken up not 6 hours later for our next big trip.

stay tuned.