Unfortunately, there was no photography allowed in the museum, but here are the pictures we did take of our fun trip. The museum itself was really neat, but not for the squeamish. There was a lady who turned to soap after she died and Amy got really freaked out by her face. (A picture of the soap lady can be found on this page.) There were entire brains and cross-sections of brains and skeletons and skulls galore, but the thing that really broke me was the multitude of pickled punks: deformed babies preserved in formaldehyde. It broke my heart -- all of these babies denied life or even a proper burial, to be gawked at forever by tourists and thrill-seekers. There was the skeleton of a guy who, when he was five, broke his leg and his entire body went crazy repairing the break. I felt bad for him -- if he's got a tombstone somewhere marking his life and death, his body isn't there with it. It made me really sad and I had to sit down and stop looking after a while.
Anyway, here are Amy, Anna and Onil standing in front of the Museum:
On March 20, we're going to see the Mountain Goats at the First Unitarian Church, which happens to be around the corner from the Museum.
We walked down Chestnut Street and stopped at Liberty Place to do some window shopping. We also went to the food court and blew some of the $20 I found on ice cream. Onil and I got ours right away, so we found a table and left Anna to wait there all by herself. Haw!!
Then we went out to Market Street and walked over to Chinatown. On the way there we took a couple of pictures of City Hall and the Clothespin statue (check out Onil with his cup that's bigger than his head):
Once in Chinatown, we visited some shops (lots of Hello Kitty stuff!) and took some pictures of the Arch and the Pagoda. We also laughed at some poor sap who got a ticket.
After we were done in Chinatown we went to Reading Terminal Market to get something to eat. Most awesome place ever. We went to Rick's Steaks and got a couple of cheesesteaks. I used to go there to get cheesesteaks a lot when I worked in Philadelphia, but I think it's changed. If I remember right, it used to be Oliveri's Steaks and the actual sandwiches were better constructed. Didn't really matter, though, because a bad cheesesteak in Philadelphia is a billion times better than the best cheesesteak anywhere else (and that includes Lancaster county who, although they're only an hour away from Philadelphia, can't make a decent cheesesteak to save their lives).
Onil found a couple of tables in the middle and while we were eating we were entertained by the most awesome piano player ever. He was great! He played some older songs but also a lot of Earth, Wind & Fire, for some reason. There was also a guy with him who kept an eye out to make sure no one walked off with the tip jar. He was also an occasional singer.
We took the train back to Jenkintown station and drove back to Lancaster county. On the way we stopped at the Walmart in Ephrata for a few things and found this atrocious car in the parking lot. So we took a picture of us laughing at it.
Fun!! Happy birthday, Little Lord!!!!
