Adventure #21: There's a Famous Person at the End of this Post

Disclaimer: To anyone who is already intimately aquainted with Philadelphia, this post might prove boring.  But to anyone who, like me, is new, I hope you will enjoy my adventure!  Today I took myself on a mini field trip. I was trying to get to Uhuru flea market in West Philly, but I got confused about how to get to the trolleys after getting off the Broad Street line at City Hall, so I just decided to wander around Center City for the afternoon.  It was gorgeous today - upper 60s and sunny.  What wonderful things might I behold?

First, I found a frozen yogurt place called Yogurt City - the kind of place where you choose what kind(s) of froyo you want and then add all the toppings you want and then get charged based on how much it weighs.  I got the original tart, cheesecake, pomegranate, and cookie dough, and for my toppings chose strawberries, mango, juice balls, cookie dough, and some crunchy chocolate stuff.  Deeeelicious.   

Next I walked over to City Hall and explored.  That building is so cool.  I didn't realize that when you go through the entrance you end up in an outdoor courtyard area.  I'm not an architecture person, but being there, in this historical place with all its unexpected surprises, made me feel very calm and happy.  Here are a few pictures of the building from the courtyard:

 

 

Here are some surprising architectural details and sculptures in the archways:

 



 

There were also two plaques of William Penn's prayer for Philadelphia, written in 1684, which I copied down because I really liked it. 

 

"And thou Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, named before thou wert born, What love, what care, what service and what travail have there been to bring thee forth and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee.  O that thou mayest be kept from the evil that would overwhelm thee, that faithful to the God of thy mercies in the life of righteousness thou mayest be preserved to the end.  My soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayest stand in the day of trial, that thy children may be blest of the Lord, and thy people saved by His power."

I think that maybe we need to start praying this prayer again!

I came out of City Hall and took pictures of the Man on a Horse statue, and of this building across the street:

 

General George B. McClellan

What is this building?

Moving on...I walked across the street and studied this sculpture, called Government of the People.

It had something to do with the family, and government by the people, for the people.  Then I realized that behind it were sculptures of giant game pieces.  You can see them here, along with City Hall from the outside:

 

And here is a statue of a previous mayor of Philadelphia, Frank L. Rizzo.  He was mayor from 1972-1980.

 

I realized then that I was near Love Park.  There was something going on there with lots of young people, but I didn't investigate it much, mostly because I was scared of the shirtless muscular guy in the little pink shorts.  I took these lovely pictures, saw that the Art Museum was nearby, and decided to walk in that direction.

 

 

I think where I was now is called the Parkway.  It is the area where all the museums are.  They are sort of in a circle with a big beautiful fountain in the middle.  The ground around the fountain is loose gravel/dirt/sand, so I felt nostalgic for the beach.

 

 

 







I continued to walk around the circle and realized the the first large building was not a museum, but was the main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Of course I had to check that out!

I walked over to the library and read the sign out front: today Justin Cronin (who I'd never heard of ) and R.L. Stine were going to be there for a talk, Q&A session, and book signing!  At 2:00! And it was 1:15ish now!

For those of you who did not grow up in the 90s and/or are not as obsessive about children's literature as I am, R.L. Stine is a VERY famous children's book author.  He wrote the Goosebumps series, which has over 40 books and is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Now, I would have been more excited about his being there if I had ever actually read Goosebumps.  However, I was completely terrified to read them as a child, and I believe that still to this day I haven't read any.  I may have to now, though.

So I explored the library for awhile.  It is huge.  When I walked up the stairs, I felt like Belle in Beauty and the Beast.  The children's section was not as impressive - I prefer the children's library in Bloomsburg - but it was still quite nice. 

I went into the auditorium (an auditorium in a library!) just before 2.  It turns out that both Justin Cronin (author of The Passage and The Twelve) and R.L. Stine are hilarious. R.L. Stine read a short story he'd written for children and then talked about his new novel, Red Rain, which is his first attempt at writing for adults.  He decided to write a story for adults because the members of his original fan base are all in their 20s and 30s now and asked, via Twitter, for him to write something for them!  I also found it interesting that he tried writing joke books for children before writing scary stories, and that the reason he started writing scary stories is because a publisher told him she needed a scary story for teenagers.  So he read a bunch of scary stories for teenagers and decided to do something "younger and cuter."  And Goosebumps was born.

My one regret for this day is that I didn't stick around to get my picture taken with R.L. Stine.  Also, I didn't have anything for him to sign.  So I left after the Q&A because I had to get back to my library in South Philly before it closed at 5 (I needed dinosaur books for this week.)  So here is the one terrible, blurry picture I have of R.L. Stine:

 Ah, well.  It was still a great day!

Adventure #20: In Which Debbie Gets Lost (Again)

Yesterday I decided to try being independent.  On the first Friday of every month, there are art galleries in Old City that are open for free from like 5-9.   I worked until 6:30, but decided to go check it out afterwards.  I Google Mapped the directions, decided on which bus to take, and made my way to Old City.

Mistake number one was getting off the bus at the wrong stop.  I realized later that I'd gone one stop too far from my Google directions, but even if I had gotten off at the right stop, I still wouldn't have known where I was.  Where I got off, there were not many people, or shops, or really anything that looked good.  I did what I always do in these situations - texted Becky.  She told me what streets I wanted to get to.  I also saw where the tall buildings were, which helped get me oriented.  They were beautiful, lit up at night.  I tried to take a picture...this is the best I could do:

While walking towards 5th and Market Street, I also ran into Franklin Square by accident.  What a neat place!  This park was decorated for Halloween.  There was a fountain that had purple lights shining on it, a carousel, a concession stand, and what I think was mini golf.

This is supposed to be the purple fountain. I can't figure out how to make it bigger. :-/

After leaving Franklin Square, I kept heading towards 5th and Market.  Finally, I came upon what was probably First Friday.  There were a lot of people and restaurants.  I went into a cool art supply store that had everything under the sun.  I needed to use the bathroom, and was pleasantly surprised to find artwork on the walls.  This, however, would be the closest I would come to finding a gallery.  I went up and down Market Street between 5th and 3rd, but apparently the art galleries are elsewhere.  I saw a couple stands where artists were showing their work and stopped at those, and I saw a souvenier shop and stopped there for postcards, and that was about it.

Now came the getting home part.  I wasn't sure how to do that, so I texted Becky.  She said to take the 47 bus.  It took me a long time to find a bus stop with a 47 on it, but I finally did.  And here is where I made my biggest error of the night.

If you are ever in Philadelphia, you should be aware that, generally speaking, bus stops located on odd numbered streets go north, and bus stops on even numbered streets go south.  I picked up the 47 bus on 7th Street.  And I live in South Philly.  Here's the other thing about riding buses at night: if you don't know exactly where you're going, you're already in trouble because you can barely see out the windows to see the street signs, and they don't announce every stop, or even stop at every stop. 

I rode that bus for, oh, twenty minutes or so before I started really getting concerned.  None of the street signs that I could see looked very familiar, and it just felt wrong.  And then, there were a few familiar streets in a row - and I realized that the reason they sounded familiar was because they were the streets near the Brightside Academy headquarters, waaaaaay in North Philly.  So I (say it with me) texted Becky.  I also asked the gentleman sitting beside me where exactly we were, and he said the bus went way north and named some places I'd never heard of.  He also, bless his heart, tried to help me figure out how to go south again.  He was very kind and is probably wondering right now if that poor girl from the bus ever made it home.

So I got off the bus and started walking back the way I'd come.  I tried to find 8th Street, since Becky had texted me back and said that's what I wanted to do.  I was on 5th Street when I got off the bus, and didn't know which way to go to get to 8th, so I just picked a direction and started walking.  I ended up near some street that looked like a highway, with no street signs in sight, almost cried, turned around, and started walking down 5th Street again (at least I think it was 5th.  I'm still not sure.)  All of a sudden, I saw a bus sign with a 47 on it, and I said to the gentleman standing there, "Excuse me.  If I want to take the 47 bus south..."
"This is it," he confirmed.  I noticed that this sign said 5th and Oregon, remembered Oregon was in South Philly, and was reasonably certain that I was now in the right place.

An hour later, I was home and vowing never to leave my house again.

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Speaking of my house, I would like to share a few pictures of my room:

The rug, quilt, comforter, and the fan on the wall were all Grandma's.

 



 

The papers on the wall are drawings and messages from the K-2nd graders at my home church...I used to teach them in Sunday School. :)

 

 

Pictures on my wall.

 

 

 

The scarecrow was Grandma's too.

 

 

Have a great week everyone....hopefully next time I blog, it won't be another story about me getting lost!