Museum Hopper

i went to the morgan library today because they have a new exhibit about babar, the elephant king! i went to the morgan alone today. i love the morgan. it had a lot of little kids running around today because of the exhibit. the exhibit was drawing babar: early drafts and watercolors . they have some really cool original drawings and first editions of the books. it was so cool to see the originals. they had great captions that really explained the differences and what some of the original ideas for the books, illustrations and plot were. they also had all three of their gutenberg bibles on display! times visited: 4 time spent: 30 minutes overall: A

i went to governor's island last weekend because the island was advertising free bike rental. so, i headed over to check it out, since the weather was pretty close to perfect. the island (during september at least) is open friday through sunday. the ferry , which is free, runs more often on the weekend. on my weekend, the ferry ran every 1/2 hour. i got over to the island and went over to rent a bike. the line was over 300 people long...so, that was the end bike riding possibility. i would have even paid for the bike rental. i was a little frustrated that they advertised it and they did not have enough to follow through on it. so, since i was there, i decided i should walk a lap around the island. as i walked, it reminded me a lot of mackinaw island. it was trying hard to do it, but wasn't quite there yet. they had a lot of construction going on and most of the historic buildings had yellow construction tape across the front. another point to note is that the

after visiting the liberty bell and then before going to independence hall, we went to the national constitution center thinking we'd see the actual constitution. i guess the museum is brand new, but it was a little weird to maneuver. we couldn't find the constitution (or a copy of it) if it was there. my friend did get to pretend like he was signing it (or maybe the declaration of independence). we also got to see life sized replicas of all the signers as well. they had a cool interactive section. unfortunately, we did not have a section to play in it for lots of time. they also had a presentation called "we, the people," a combination of a narration and some film. it was decent. a little obnoxious that told us to get there at 3 pm sharp, but it didn't start until 3:20 and we weren't even allowed in the theater until 3:10. overall, not sure if i'd go again, but if you have the time, it was okay. times visited: 1 time spent in the museum:

the main goal of the philadelphia trip was to see the liberty bell . we decided to go to it first since it had a line wrapping around the building when we got there. the line ended up moving really quickly though. it turned out just to be a line because it took a while to go through a security check into the building. this building was also free and air conditioned! they had a nice exhibit leading up to the actual bell. i think my favorite part was this section where you could touch a duplicate of the inscription on the bell. "if you feel the need to touch liberty, reach out and feel this actual casting of the bell's famous inscription." it was crowded, but expected for a sunday during the summer. times visited: 1 time spent at the bell: 45 minutes overall: A-

i went to philadelphia for the day with one of my guy friends. we had decided to visit upenn and then do the "historical philly." once we got to philadephia, we realized that we could see independence hall for free (although they do run out). we went to the visitor center and got tickets for a particular time (4 pm). we were told to get there 15 minutes before the tour, which we did. the bulding was air conditioned, which a nice break for the day. we got to see where the declaration of independence was written and where the constitution was drafted. the tour guide did yell at us a lot. they were a little intense. it was definitely worth the stop since it was free. times visited: 1 time spent in hall: 1 hr overall: B+