Day #3 - Philadelphia

We started the day off with a big breakfast at the Kok's house. It was delicious! Then we piled into the cars and drove off to explore the town of Philadelphia. Our first stop was  going to the Eastern State Penitentiary. We went on a guided tour with Nick, our awesome guide... The Penitentiary was built to look like a castle, as an intimidation factor. We learned that although it would stink to live in complete silence, they had pretty good lodgings at first! We also learned that money CAN buy you happiness (or at least a better cell) *cough* Al Capone *cough*.
Here is the outside towers that a guard would be able to sit and watch over the walls in case anyone tried to escape.

 This is the inside - each door was a separate cell..

We left the Penitentiary to go visit the National Constitutional Center. Here we watched a short presentation, and toured the museum after. They had a sweet exhibit with all the forefathers' statues, and this was the only place we were allowed to take pictures.

After this, we laid outside for a bit, and walked over to Macy's to see the biggest organ in the US, and the Philadelphia City Hall. Unfortunately, were weren't able to get into the City hall to visit. 

These are all the pipes of the organs.

Here you can see Independence Hall. Unfortunately our tour guide was not quite a Nick or Jim from our previous tours, but we still enjoyed where our history started.

We took a short break because we were ahead of schedule and stopped in this neat street. Here is the oldest residential street in the US. Today it is still inhabited... by rich people. Displayed are some tacky tourists.

Next we visited Betsy Ross's house. We rested at her fountain and pet her "cats". She loved cats.

As stated earlier we had a lot of free time before dinner so the group stopped at the Delaware River where some people rested while others played. There was a large dredge ship docked nearby which the boys (and several girls) toured, the rest of the girls caught up on vitamin D.

Benjamin Franklin's Garden: pictured here are some wanna-be signer statues. It took them a while to get to the pose and still they are lacking the muscles of the signer :D

Group shot right before dinner. Don't we look hungry?

DINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNER!

The entertainment of the evening. Want to see your fork marry your spoon? Ask Sterk to perform the ceremony. Darren's fork is the happy father of a recently married spoon! This is where sporks come from. True story. Food was.... unique. Just kidding it was awesome.