Days 2 and 3 - Philadelphia

I meant to post something about my day last night. Really I did. Problem was, once we finally got back to the room, I turned on the TV, and there was a Biography about Mama Cass, and I totally got sucked in. I was so tired, that all I wanted to do was lie there and watch that show.

We spent our Maestro day Thursday at the Reading Market. It was certainly an interesting place - the students found great story ideas and worked very well on their page designs. Lots of sights, smells, flavors. But, by the end of the day, our clothes and hair smelled like we'd spent all day in a fish market/butcher shop/Chinese restaurant/Mennonite Bakery/Flower Shop, etc.

The smell in our hair and clothes kind of reminded me of the old days at the Eagle when we'd go to Ty's for lunch. Everyone in the office knew where you'd been for lunch before you even said so.

Here's a few photos from Thursday.

While the kids were scouting for stories and doing interviews, we had a tiny bit of knitting time interspersed with walking around time. (By the way, Hi! to those of you linking from Amy's blog - sorry I didn't get this posted last night)

We had lunch at Rick's - I think this is the place I saw on "Food Detective" on Food Network. Adam DVRed it for me about a week before the trip.

Chocolate cigarettes? Really? They still sell this kind of crap? I remember even when I was a kid my mom and dad wouldn't let me have candy cigarettes.

Here's a closeup of our lunch. We shared a Philly Cheesesteak.

Hmmmmm...yummy.

The market is interesting - lots of business types, tourists, locals, homeless, and these little old Mennonite ladies who run the bakery.


And, we go from the little old Mennonite ladies to...

A clandestine photo of the weirdest adult store I've ever seen. This photo was shot out of the back our cab on the way to dinner. The store looked like it was once a Rainforest Cafe, and it was a cross between a Spencer Gifts, an adult video store and Priscilla's.

On the way home from dinner, I almost got a nose job. Our cabbie was a friggin' maniac. After speeding up to about 50 mph in a one-block span, he slammed on his brakes. Of course I wasn't wearing a seat belt, and I seriously came about 1.5 inches from slammin my face into the divided between the front and back seats.

Can you believe all this stuff happened to me yesterday and I was too tired to blog about it?

•••

This morning, I got up early and ran five miles with a sophomore from Snoqualmie, Wash. She's training for a half-marathon and needed a running partner so she wouldn't be on the streets of Philadelphia by herself. We ran to the Philadelphia Art Museum (cue the Maynard Ferguson), but I didn't go up the steps yet. That's on tap for tomorrow. Trust me, they'll be photos.

I kinda felt bad for the girl I was running with - I'm sure she wanted to go much faster, but she was very nice, and she said she was just happy to have someone to help her get the miles in. I'm telling you - being a runner really helps you get a feel for the strange city you're in when you're on the road. I saw so much before 8 this morning that I hadn't gotten a chance to check out yet.

The first convention session I went to this morning was on improving writing in high school yearbooks. The teacher used a song from "High School Musical" to demonstrate the details students should be reporting. It was a great strategy, and I'm totally going to steal the idea when I get back to school.

Then, it was off to the Asian bistro, Mixx, for lunch. We shared a bento box, and I had sushi. No sushi for Amy, though, since she's "in a family way."



The last thing I did tonight was spend six hours judging high school photography write-offs. It's interesting to see the varying levels of ability and subject matter that students are working with.

Don't we all look really excited to be there? This was one of the last categories.

I'm sleepy. I need to go to bed. I've got to teach a "Basic Camera Handling" session in the morning, and then I've got to run those steps, and we're going to hopefully see the Liberty Bell and some other cool things.