A Day in Philly
At dinner on the last night of Farpoint back in February planetx mentioned that there was a Star Was exhibit in Philly at the Franklin that our kids might enjoy. He invited us all up to see the exhibit and make a day of it with him and his wonderful and talented fiancée, blackwell. We took them up on their invitations this past Saturday.
After some planning, I bought tickets to the exhibit for the noon slot. In retrospect, I should have gotten them for a bit later. We meant to get on the road at seven thirty to be at planetx and blackwell's place at ten. We arrived at closer to ten thirty to find yogcmarthoth and scifilaura already there so we headed over to Reading Terminal Market. Neither andreahg nor I had ever been to this market, it is huge, bustling and amazing. We only regret that we were so rushed and didn't get chance to peruse and sample some more.
We just managed to make it in time for scheduled entrance to the exhibit. We had no traffic problems getting to the market or The Franklin but parking was a mess at the museum. We got to the exhibit actually a few minutes after our entrance window but they weren't checking that closely. The four of us went ahead of our friends who kept hitting all the traffic we were lucky enough to miss.
The exhibit was a bit smaller than I was expecting, but packed. There were a lot of prop and set pieces as well as visitors. I took a few dozen photos that I'll post to my Flickr stream soon. The kids were drawn equally to pieces from all size movies, though only Liam wanted his picture with any of the costumes they had on display. andreahg is no real fan of Star Wars and I was more interested in the items from the original movie. The exception were the video installations with some of the exhibits. Hearing the folks at ILM, including Grant Imahara, talking about some of the challenges like making a three legged droid walk convincingly was pretty cool.
While our friends made their way through the crowded exhibit, we checked out the Identity exhibit and Newton's Loft. The kids were only interested in the interactive video walls in the former and could not get enough of the latter. Not surprisingly, Newton's Loft is all the classical physics experiments in hands on form. Unfortunately, the loft was a bit too large for andreahg and I to just sit and keep an eye on the boys, we had to follow them as they darted from experiment to experiment.
We headed back to planetx and blackwell's place to record some thoughts on Star Wars for The Voice of Free Planet X. The boys alternately explored all the models, props and other fascinating bits to planetx's immense collection and playing on the Wii. Thanks to the latter, they were well behaved while we recorded, relaxed and chatted.
After we finished recorded, we discussed dinner. blackwell offered a couple of options in walking distance and we settled on Abraccio mostly because of the promise of a kids' menu and chicken fingers, Calum's favorite food bar none.
The service was a little slow but the food was excellent and the company even better. Several of the staff commented, laughing, about the unusual range of topics overheard. One also commented on scifilaura's backpack, a Yoda, that we had been playing with all day, especially to the delight of the boys.
We got home close to eleven, concerned at leaving the dogs alone for over twelve hours. No accidents, thankfully. Everyone was pooped so it was not difficult sending the monkeys straight to bed. Despite the unusual length of the day, we very much enjoyed it and the highlight was definitely spending so much time with our friends, with the places we visited a close second.
After some planning, I bought tickets to the exhibit for the noon slot. In retrospect, I should have gotten them for a bit later. We meant to get on the road at seven thirty to be at planetx and blackwell's place at ten. We arrived at closer to ten thirty to find yogcmarthoth and scifilaura already there so we headed over to Reading Terminal Market. Neither andreahg nor I had ever been to this market, it is huge, bustling and amazing. We only regret that we were so rushed and didn't get chance to peruse and sample some more.
We just managed to make it in time for scheduled entrance to the exhibit. We had no traffic problems getting to the market or The Franklin but parking was a mess at the museum. We got to the exhibit actually a few minutes after our entrance window but they weren't checking that closely. The four of us went ahead of our friends who kept hitting all the traffic we were lucky enough to miss.
The exhibit was a bit smaller than I was expecting, but packed. There were a lot of prop and set pieces as well as visitors. I took a few dozen photos that I'll post to my Flickr stream soon. The kids were drawn equally to pieces from all size movies, though only Liam wanted his picture with any of the costumes they had on display. andreahg is no real fan of Star Wars and I was more interested in the items from the original movie. The exception were the video installations with some of the exhibits. Hearing the folks at ILM, including Grant Imahara, talking about some of the challenges like making a three legged droid walk convincingly was pretty cool.
While our friends made their way through the crowded exhibit, we checked out the Identity exhibit and Newton's Loft. The kids were only interested in the interactive video walls in the former and could not get enough of the latter. Not surprisingly, Newton's Loft is all the classical physics experiments in hands on form. Unfortunately, the loft was a bit too large for andreahg and I to just sit and keep an eye on the boys, we had to follow them as they darted from experiment to experiment.
We headed back to planetx and blackwell's place to record some thoughts on Star Wars for The Voice of Free Planet X. The boys alternately explored all the models, props and other fascinating bits to planetx's immense collection and playing on the Wii. Thanks to the latter, they were well behaved while we recorded, relaxed and chatted.
After we finished recorded, we discussed dinner. blackwell offered a couple of options in walking distance and we settled on Abraccio mostly because of the promise of a kids' menu and chicken fingers, Calum's favorite food bar none.
The service was a little slow but the food was excellent and the company even better. Several of the staff commented, laughing, about the unusual range of topics overheard. One also commented on scifilaura's backpack, a Yoda, that we had been playing with all day, especially to the delight of the boys.
We got home close to eleven, concerned at leaving the dogs alone for over twelve hours. No accidents, thankfully. Everyone was pooped so it was not difficult sending the monkeys straight to bed. Despite the unusual length of the day, we very much enjoyed it and the highlight was definitely spending so much time with our friends, with the places we visited a close second.