Philos Adelphos!

(Above) Cinzia and Garim with one of 20 Phillies' baseball mascots



We even met Benjamin Franklin in the historic district of Philly!

Maju, Miriam and Kennedy loved seeing the Liberty Bell!

We all loved the stairs at the Museum of Art and the Rocky statue outside!




Hippolyte, Tom and Ingrid look at Benjamin Franklin's tomb

Philos Adelphos became Philadelphia, the “City of Brotherly Love”!!! And what a beautiful day to be here!

Today is Wendy’s 17^th birthday! On the way to our tour everyone sang the “Happy Birthday" Song in English and in their own languages (German, Italian, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese) to Wendy. It was pretty awesome to hear different happy birthdays. This is the best blessing ever in Wendy’s life.

We started our tour at the Visitor Center, where we were separated into 2 groups. Our tour guides had on very unique uniforms. They resembled the costumes of women of Philadelphia in 1700s. First, she took us to see the Liberty Bell, which was designed and made in England. After it was made, it was sent to Philadelphia to represent the freedom of the United States of America from the British. But unfortunately, in 1776 it was cracked the first time it was rung. After that we took a group picture and we left for Independence Hall, which is right across the street from the Liberty bell. We took a look from the outside. It was a pretty interesting historic place.

Then we walked to a beautiful park, where the sculpture “The Signer” (Thomas Jefferson, the "father of the U.S.") is located. We walked to the nearby Franklin Library and the second national bank, which was designed to resemble the Greek Parthenon. Then we continued to Franklin Court, which had lots of replicas of the furniture and Benjamin Franklin’s belongings.

We left the court and we entered the print shop. The park ranger showed us how the old-styled printing machine worked. It was so amazing and interesting. We then continued to the first church in Philadelphia, Christ Church. The interesting thing is that there are over 20 people buried under the church and so their tombstones are on the floor.

Time for LUNCHH H H H.! We went to Philadelphia Bourse, in the historic district, and ate and shopped there.

Then we got on the bus and had a bus tour with one of the two guides. She took us through Philly's China Town and had a quick stop at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We took the picture with the Rocky sculpture and ran up the museum stairs just like Rocky (Silvester Stallone) did in the movie. We also learned that one of our tour guides is married to Stallone's cousin!

We got on the bus again and the guide took us through the different neighborhoods around Philadelphia, such as Society Hill, and we also saw the house that Thomas Jefferson rented when he was drafting the Declaration of Independence.

At the end of our tour early this evening it was time to say good bye to Philadelphia and say hi to Washington D.C. after 2 and a half hours in the bus!!!

We had dinner at the Fashion Center at Pentagon City Mall. We had Thai food and Häagen-Dazs there. It was tasty!!! What a great meal for Wendy’s birthday :)

After we were done with our quick meal, we started to shop. The time was too short- for such a big mall like this we would have needed at least half the day!!! We rushed and run all over the place to visit all the stores we liked!

Finally we got to a nice and beautiful hotel, the Courtyard Marriott. Now it's time to relax and rest for the next busy and fun day in the capitol!

Ra-thre-sa-wat ka! (Good Night)

Written by Chawisa Chen (Wendy) and Pitpimon Sukpanyatham (Taew) from Thailand