American Travels, Week 4 part two

Day twentysix, Tuesday 21st of August

Philadelphia

Today we drove to the beautiful city of Philadelphia. First stop was the Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park. This synagogue was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and stands as another one of his masterpieces. Thanks to Billy's friend Stephanie we had excellent directions and we were able to find it without any trouble. To our surprise there was no visitors centre or anything like that, just a sign saying that the building could only be visited by appointment. We decided not to let that deter us as we'd driven quite a long way to be able to see it so decided to ask for more information inside.


Beth Sholom Synagogue, outside

Beth Sholom

We were greeted by some very friendly ladies who said that allthough they were too busy at that moment to properly show us around, they would find someone to let us into the building. Only a few minutes later we were greeted by a janitor who was going to let us in. The same as with Falling water, the buildings of Frank Lloyd wright have a quality that doesn't come across on photographs and drawings, but has to be experienced. Here especially its the sublime way the light enters the building. Unfortunately we just had a few minutes to walk around inside and we weren't allowed to take any pictures, but it was well worth the visit anyway. Stephanie had joined us at the Synagogue and we decided to go and have lunch together.

Skeletons and brains

After lunch we had something weird and creepy on the agenda. A museum we had found in the book: Weird Pennsylvania. It's the museum of the College of Physicians called The Mutter museum and it consists of a collection of medical rarities and deformities. The museum itself is located in a few rooms of the grand College of Physicians and is perfect for its interesting but disturbing collection of bones and preserved specimens.


Interior of the Mutter museum

King Tut

After the museum closed we still had plnety of time to visit teh largest and most famous museums in Philadlephia; the Franklin Institute. We especially wanted to see the current exhibit of King Tut's tomb and combined this visit with a visit to the adjacent Imax theater which showed a program about Egyptian tombs. The King Tut exhibit was so busy that we had to get tickets for a specific time, but luckily the Imax showtimes allowed us to do both things within the museum's opening times. When we finally went outside again it was already dark and an approaching storm was visible in the distance, so we just took a small walk around taking pictures and went back to the parked car for our return journey home.


Views of Philadelphia

Getting into Philadelphia had been easy, but getting out again was a lot harder with rain and hard wind turning the roads into churning rivers. But thanks to Billy's expert driving we made it out safely. Tired but still full of the sights and experiences of the day.

day twentyseven, Wednesday 22nd of August

Not yet fully recovered from our Philadelphia experience, today we had to help move into our tent at Grange Fair! I had heard so many stories already about the famous Grange fair, but now I was to experience it first hand. Fortunately moving in day wasn't as bad as you'd think. Billy's father had already loaded up the truck and all we had to do was unload the truck and move everything into the tent, then make ourselves comfortable.




Funnel cake haus


Grange fair tentrows

The Grange fair is a truly wonderful place, consisting mostly of places where you can get food! As the actual fair hadn't started yet, there actually wasn't much else to do. So we got ourselves some delicious hamburgers for lunch and did some reconaissance of the fairgrounds, while Billy told me everything about the famed funnel cakes and other local specialities I was to sample over the following days.