Last Saturday I got to pick up the bestest best friend ever from the airport!!!! Shayla arrived around 11:30 am and I decided to park to give her a real warm and friendly attack by baggage claim. I got there a little early so I decided to use the restroom. I was walking a few steps behind a woman who was going to the restroom as well but was headed into the men's room. I tried to warn her but she just went in. Oh well, welcome to Philadelphia. I glanced around the visitors brochures for ideas of what to do with our two days. What to do? Both days doing all the historical stuff or to sit around the house without pants eating ice cream and watching movies? Well, little of both then.
Got a call from Shayla saying that she was headed my way. I sat there looking at the people around me noticing that most of them were holding signs for there passengers. So I decided to join. I dove into my gigantic purse (no exaggeration, I keep my wallet, sunglasses, phone, iPod, lip accessories, eye wash, mail, 2 server books, pens, server apron, book, & camera inside it) for paper and pen to write my sign on. I wrote STEPP-FRIESEN on it in large letters. Including the 'Stepp' part for hilarity reasons.
(*Note: This moment was later re-enacted outside the Liberty Bell)
After a couple minutes, we locked eyes and I ATTACKED. I ran at her at a kind of retarded skip and then went for the full embrace. Not gonna lie, started to tear up. I could not be more excited that my best friend came all the way to PA to visit me! Shayla informed me that they didn't even give her peanuts on the flight so she was starving. We headed to find my car to begin our journey. Got to the car ok but managed to not understand parking garages. Took a few wrong turns because this certain parking garage was budgeting there EXIT signs. Suffice to say, couldn't figure out how to fucking exit.
Made our way downtown. After 30 minutes of me not being able to find it, we finally arrived at Reading Terminal Market. We walked around a while until we finally decided on Chinese. I decided to cheat on the diet this one time. Well, day. Well, two days. Frick.
After lunch, we headed towards the Historical area. Arrived behind Independence Hall in the park area. Took a view glamour shots before we made our way to the front to go through security to get to the Constitution. It took them a few minutes to go through my luggage AKA purse. Tickets were already sold out when we got there around 1:30pm. This is the second time that I've almost seen the Constitution. I'm started to think it is a conspiracy. I find myself wanting to blame Nicolas Cage for some reason...
This story probably explains why. We were in the Great Essentials wing of Independence Hall. The Great Essentials room houses copies of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence & Articles of Confederation. While touring around the wing, this woman in stripes
proceeds to ask the guard/information guy if that is the same Declaration of Independence that Nicolas Cage stole. When the guard proceeded to, in more words or less, make fun of her, she began to defend her question loudly. I turned to Shayla and said, "I got to get out of here." Yes, people like her exist. Everywhere. Frightening, isn't it?
Before we left Independence Hall, I decided to make Shayla take this picture next to the line for the Constitution:
Afterwards, I noticed the people in line staring at me. So I responded with, "I'm taking a picture of her almost seeing the Constitution. That's why she came up here." Moving on.
Then we made our way across the street to see the Liberty Bell. We walked through the introductory museum area. I noticed that it was separated into time periods (revolutionary beginnings, Civil War, Civil Rights, women's suffrage, etc.) And for each time period it said, "The Liberty Bell means...". And it changed for each period. Whoa, this bell has a lot of power.
It's cracked.
There was this couple taking kissy pictures in front of the bell. I was like - are these people trying to bring sexyback to the bell? I thought that was really funny and repeated it throughout the day. Also, another dude was leaning over the railing taking pictures from the bottom of the bell. I exclaimed that this fool was feeling frisky with the bell. You know, looking up her skirt.
I'm going into comedy.
Shayla and I paused outside the Liberty Bell building for some glamour shots.
Normal.
Not so normal.
And on down historical lane we went. We traveled to the Independence Hall Visitor Center, Constitution Center & Benjamin Franklin's (BF) grave. After giving a shout out to BF, we made our way to Betsy Ross' House. I warned Shayla that there wasn't a lot to see at Betsy's casa. You walk in the gift shop and can purchase a ticket for the tour. I have managed to fight the system by instead of actually buying a ticket, you simply lean over the railing to look at the rest of her house. Cause it's tiny. They sell a lot of interesting stuff at Betsy's gift shop. Like little bottle cap magnets that say things like 'America Rocks' on it or t-shirts that say BRH on it.
"Hey dude, cool t-shirt. What does BRH stand for?"
"Betsy Ross' House."
"Sick."
This is the fountain outside BRH. It has kitties. So I did what any normal person would do.
I petted the kitties and made loud, obnoxious cat noises.
We made our way to Elfreth's Alley and then back towards Independence Hall to check out the banks near by. After that we walked back to my car and I gave her my personal driving tour of the rest of downtown. We went to South Street, Rittenhouse Square and the Avenue of the Arts. South Street was bumpin' because it was a Phillies play off game that day. There were a lot of fans and freaks making there way around town. Outside the comic shop, I witnessed this:
Yup, a few men were in capes light saber fighting. However, only one of them was up to my standards costume wise. I'll probably go back there later to cruise for dudes.
We made our way back to Glenside where we decided to go out to eat for dinner. We chose a place called Earth Bread & Brewery that Jonathan & Katy have been wanting me to try. The food was good but we had the worst service ever. Apparently, I slept with her boyfriend and don't remember it. Oh well, luckily Shayla & I are used to shit like this happening to us. There is nothing worse than being a server and getting bad service. Somehow, I still wanted to blame Nicolas Cage.
We got ready for bed and snuggled in my bed. Shayla put on 100 pounds of warmth because she was freezing. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. We rented It's Complicated because I was in the mood for something comical and I had heard good things about it. If you haven't seen it, rent it now. You cannot go any longer in life if you haven't seen Alec Baldwin post-sex grabbing/cupping Meryl Streep's crouch saying "Home Sweet Home." Perfect. I can die now. Alec Baldwin brought up past memories of our youth. When we were little, my Ken doll was always named Alec Baldwin because I was obsessed with him. When I was in primary school. It was Alec Baldwin in a sea of Days of our Lives soap opera barbies. I would re-create the show's happenings. Shayla & I would call it a day, then re-set for the next days continuance. Normal.
Sexy.
"It reminds me of the heady days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets. Now they will tremble again - at the sound of our silence. The order is: engage the silent drive."
-Captain Marko Ramius played by Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October
You thought it was going to be a Nicolas Cage movie quote, DIDN'T YOU?!? Well guess what, it will NEVER be. Because he is TERRIBLE. And he STEALS SHIT.
