So I am sitting on our balcony at Embassy Suites in Center City Philadelphia. The hotel is right on the Ben Franklin Parkway. Our view is the picture you see up there. I took the photo yesterday.
Earl, Jamie and I are in town for the weekend, we’ll be heading back up home in a few hours. Earl and I visited with his family yesterday. I haven’t seen anyone since New Year’s, it was good to see everyone. Jamie visited with some friends and rode his bike around the city while we were doing the suburb thing with the family. The day was quite enjoyable.
As a quick aside, I don’t know how the fine folks of this area deal with driving the Schuykill (Interstate 76) on a daily basis as it’s a clogged mess of frustration. I was posting photos from my iPhone to my Facebook account whilst sitting in traffic. If you were following that, you will know that:
“Whomever thought the Schuykill was a good idea should be flogged.”
“I’d rather drive on 128 around Boston.”
and
“God I miss the 401” (referring to Toronto. At 18 lanes at it’s widest point, the 401 is busiest freeway in North America)
And referring to the Ben Franklin Parkway, “I don’t drive across your park, don’t have a festival in my street. M’kay?” I had to explain to Earl that “M’kay” was a sarcastic was of saying okay. He didn’t know. I’m vague like that.
Anyways, after we got back to Center City we went out to dinner at an Irish Pub called “Moriarty’s”. I may have mentioned before that I enjoy a good Irish Pub.
After dinner we went for a walk around the gayborhood. One of the beautiful things about Philadelphia is the small residential streets in Center City; I know the houses are quite expensive but when you stand on one of these streets you hear hardly any noise from the hustle and the bustle of the city. Now that is an environment that I could definitely live in.
We got back to the hotel room a little after 10 and decided to watch a movie; “Titanic” was on so we watched that. I still think it’s one of the better movies out there; I haven’t seen it in a long time and I have to admit I found the green screen effects a little startling. I guess I never noticed how far we’ve come in the past 10 years or so in that department. It didn’t detract from the movie though, and that’s what’s most important.
After “Titanic” it was time for bed. Embassy Suites provides robes and slippers for our furry friends. I think it’s cute.
Wikipedia for the 401 says it is the widest in the world at 18 lanes, but the wiki entry for the “El Toro Y” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Toro_Y) which is where I-405 and I-5 freeways meet in south Orange County, CA is 26 lanes wide. I always thought that was the widest in the world. And it can STILL be stop and go traffic!