Poe No!

My next stop was Gloria Dei (Old Swede’s Church). It’s the oldest church in PA. It was a cute little church but surrounded by traffic so not very peaceful.

Then it was onto the Edgar Allan Poe house. It was odd right from the get go because the entry door had a sign on it that said “knock once”. I tentatively knocked, expecting a raven to come swooping down and answer the door. Alas, it was only a park ranger. For some reason, they keep the front door locked (I later realized this was probably an indication of the part of town this house is located in). The ranger was very nice and escorted me right into the theater where I watched a short film on Poe’s life. Then he gave me a sheet of paper with a self-guided tour on it and let me loose. As you’ll notice in the pictures, there is no furniture in this house and this is deliberate as this was how the house was left. There are paintings of what the rooms may have looked like and shelves filled with random poems and documents and...stuffed gorillas!? Despite that, I had a great time taking pictures of myself in various states of fear (I thought it suited the atmosphere). I’d only had limited exposure to Poe’s works in high school but I gained quite an appreciation for him at this site (except for the fact that he married his 14 year old cousin). The creepiest part of the home was the cellar that inspired his short story “The Black Cat”. Some of the scariness was lost however, by the stuffed black cat. However, when I was typing up this post I decided to find the story online and read it to see what the fuss was about. OMG, it is terrifying!! Especially for someone like me who has a huge aversion to cats. Here's a link if you want a good scare: http://www.online-literature.com/poe/24/

Jess still had not left the ground in Florida yet so I decided to just go find the hotel and get settled in. I drove by the Deshler-Morris House (aka the Germantown White House) but it was in a part of town that I did not feel comfortable stopping in so I just did a drive-by. As an FYI, it is the oldest surviving presidential residence, having twice sheltered George Washington during his term of office. I checked into the hotel and I still had time to kill so I decided to take a walk through Fairmount Park because I had read that it had cherry blossoms. Well, I walked all over that dang park and didn’t see a single cherry blossom! I did find a very nice view of the skyline from the Belmont Mansion but the rest of my walk consisted of strolling along cracked and broken sidewalks, dodging litter and cars. When I later told Jess of my walk she was incredulous that I had walked through Fairmount Park by myself since apparently it has a bit of a reputation.

By the time I got back to my hotel I found out that Jess was now on a plane from Orlando to D.C. and then finally to Philly. I sat by my computer, waiting for it to show her flight had actually left D.C. before I left for the airport. I arrived at the airport just as she texted that her plane had landed. I pulled into the arrivals, thinking she would be right there but it turns out her luggage did not come on the plane with her. After finally tracking down her suitcase, we left the airport and headed to South Philly for a cheese steak. We went to Pat’s because 1) it’s the original and 2) the line was shorter. Now, if you have never ordered a cheese steak before there are explicit instructions to follow:

One guy in front of us had done something wrong and the lady behind the counter proceeded to yell at him and kick him out of line. I practiced my order under my breath and when it was my turn I confidently stepped up and ordered like a pro. Jess decided to eat in the car while I had to wait until we got back to the hotel because I didn’t want to attempt eating a cheese steak while driving a stick shift through Philly traffic. It was worth the wait though because all the flavors had congealed nicely. After that hardscrabble day, BBB 2011 was finally underway and we couldn’t wait to see more of Philly the next day!