The Family Has Come and Gone

It's been over a week since I blogged, but I have good reason: my family has been visiting from California. They arrived last Wednesday night and Joe dropped them off at the airport a few hours ago (sans my youngest brother, Brian, who is staying with us an extra few days). We had a pretty packed week of activities planned / sights to see - which I will write about over the next few days - and so we are all exhausted. But it was great to see my parents and brothers, and it was a great opportunity to get to know my new city better.

Since arriving in Philly, I've been a bit of a hermit - mainly focused on unpacking and decorating our apartment, and afraid to venture out. I don't handle change well, and big cities intimidate me (despite the fact that I've lived in San Francisco - I am still a small town girl at heart), so I've avoided much exploration. With my family here, we were forced to get out of the house and navigate the city, ride its buses, and tour a large portion of downtown.

I've come to realize that I really like Philadelphia. The people are very nice (unless they are behind the wheel), the city is pretty clean, and I can't get enough of the old buildings and history! I hate that I am so far from my family and friends, but at least I am living in a place I like and could possibly grow to love.

But that's enough of me making excuses for being M.I.A. ;) - time for something fun: vacation summary!

(er - I guess it would be stay-cation summary for Joe and me...)

Day 1: Thursday, June 20

Thursday's first stop was the Mutter Museum.

It's tough to describe exactly what this place is, so I'll steal the description from their website:  

"America's finest museum of medical history, the Mütter displays its beautifully preserved collections of anatomical specimens, models, and medical instruments in a 19th century 'cabinet museum' setting. The goal of the Museum is to help the public understand the mysteries and beauty of the human body while appreciating the history of diagnosis and treatment of disease."

Given that it's a medical museum, I knew Joe would be interested. Given that it's supposed to be creepy (skeletons, skulls, body parts in jars of formaldehyde), I figured I'd love it!

I can get a little emotional / sensitive about people dying, so Joe didn't think I could handle Mutter. I told him he was wrong - I could take it - after all, I successfully toured The Museum of Death in LA.

He was right. I couldn't take it.

It didn't start out bad, except that the whole place smelled of formaldehyde (which only I could smell. I'd think I was pregnant if I wasn't already a confirmed bloodhound). The first area was actually pretty interesting. There was a huge display of skulls (139 to be precise) with the gender, location, age, and method of death (if available) of the person who had died. There was a wide variety of people - from a tightrope walker who fell to her death, to a child-murderer who was executed, to a sad number of young people who killed themselves after they were caught stealing.

There was also a very interesting display on Grimm's fairy tales, and real world cases of characters' body injuries/ailments/conditions. For example, there were displays on Rapunzel syndrome and dwarfism. Fun fact - one of the Grimm brothers was pretty sickly and had bad experiences with doctors throughout his life. That's why medical professionals in fairy tales are not looked on with reverence or favor.

At this point, I was ready to rub it in Joe's face that I could handle the museum. And then I went downstairs. Downstairs they had more graphic displays of medical maladies and then the one display that made me leave: a huge display of DEAD BABIES.

Yes. You heard it right folks. A display full of DEAD BABIES. There were skeletons from the embryonic stage right up to full term, and then skeletons of babies who died after birth. I think there was a baby in a jar, but I quickly closed my eyes when I saw something resembling flesh and ran away.

I can take a lot, but I couldn't take that :( Poor things never had a chance at life. And, with my biological clock ticking like it's on speed, I think it hit me especially hard.

So I spent the rest of the time in the gift shop, which was pretty cool. They had some fun things like these plush microbes:

Anthrax

Chlamydia

Bird Flu

After the Mutter Museum, we bummed around a bit and then went on a tour of the historical area of Philly.

This wasn't just any tour, it was a "Grim Philly" tour, where we learned about the darker side of the city's history. Tons of fun stories of prostitution, booze, bodies buried under parks, and even a vampire and ghost story thrown in for good measure.

It was a bit risque, but that made it fun and different :)

***Side Note*** I impressed the guide (and horrified my mother) by knowing what a merkin is. For those of you not full of such naughty facts - a merkin is a pubic wig. In this context, they were worn by prostitutes who shaved their nether regions (to avoid things like crabs and lice and to cover signs of other STDs). At the time, merkins were made of beaver pelts. And now you also probably get the beaver thing. ***End of Side Note***

Enjoying our tour

Here are some of my favorite fun facts from the tour:

• High class prostitutes made $60 a "session." Comparatively, the average sailor made $15 per MONTH.

• Charles Dickens HATED Philadelphia. Before he died, he asked that no statues be erected in his honor anywhere. Philadelphia is the only city in the world to have a statue of Charles Dickens. 

• Drinks of the time were so strong you could light them on fire. If they did not light on fire, it meant that the bartender had watered down the drinks. If caught doing this, by law the bartender had to give you 6x the amount you paid in booze.

• During the yellow fever epidemic, 2/3 of Philly's population left or died. The bell of Christ Church rung so often for those who had died, the mayor eventually told the church to stop because the constant ringing was freaking people out.

• Betsy Ross had 3 husbands - 2 were pirates. Speaking of pirates, John Hancock was also a pirate and pirates invented the first cocktail (beer, citrus, sugar, and rum).

• In the 19th century a gentleman's agreement was made stating that no building would be erected that was taller than William Penn's statue atop Philadelphia City Hall. If this agreement was broken, a "terrible curse will befall the city." In the 1980's a building surpassed William Penn in height, and the Philly sports teams immediately started playing poorly. When the Comcast building was erected in 2007, someone put a bronze replica of this statue at the very top. A year later the Phillies won the World Series. Then, someone stole the statue, and the teams once again are struggling.

 *** I can't be held responsible for the validity of these facts - I'm just repeating them ;)

As you can probably tell, the tour was super informative and a ton of fun. I highly recommend anyone visiting Philly go on a Grim Philly tour.

And now that I've finished day 1, I'm going to head for bed. More to come tomorrow...

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