Philly Cheese Steaks and the Constitution

Last weekend we (the Washington Seminar program) took a trip to Valley Forge and Philadelphia to see cool historic things.

Here are all of the pictures I took (I brought my nice camera) in an album you should click on:

View Full Album

And here are some with narration:

This was our tour guide for Valley Forge.

These are some people I like.

This is Independence Hall, where the Constitution was signed.

I was distracted by the pretty chandelier inside.

Also, the liberty bell.

And the perfect authentic Philly Cheese Steak for lunch from Jim’s.

Eating it looked like this.

The line to get in was long but worth it.

This shiny wall made out of broken plates was distracting too.

And doesn’t this look like the tower of terror?

There was a cool park where cool things were happening and Annique made friends.

There was also a wedding photo shoot my sister would have liked.

Apparently dressing up is normal here.

Overall the city was fantastic. We had a great time and there is still a ton more to explore.

For more stalker photos of my group mates like the ones below please go to the album. There are about 170 pictures in there, and I didn’t necessarily post the best ones in my blog…

Fin.

Winner!

Since I never ever win anything I figured I had to write about this. While I was at the Embassy open house shindig they had a drawing for a year membership to the Rosetta Stone online package (usually$1,200) and I actually won! So now I’m going to learn French. It seemed like a good idea because I felt like a total idiot when I could only communicate by pointing to things while in Paris.

So basically I’m excited. I’ve done some of the Spanish Rosetta Stone (got it for a great price on craigslist last summer) and it’s thoroughly addicting.

Here’s a picture of me with the actual Rosetta Stone:

(It’s bizarre that will have been two years ago this fall…)

Embassy Hopping

As college students, we are always looking for free food. This weekend we discovered an excellent source for this: the embassies. Apparently every so often they have open houses where anyone can come in, walk around and eat samples of food from their countries and such. It’s pretty sweet.

We only went into a few of them (it was hot and the lines were long), but here are my awards for the ones we went to:

Most party-like: tie between Columbia (salsa dancing out front with live band) and Trinidad and Tobago (you could hear the music from down the street and they had awesome dancers in bright dress)

Coolest building: definitely Columbia. It was so warm and inviting I wanted to stay forever. Indonesia was pretty fancy too.

Most free stuff: Australia. We got tote bags, Australia (children’s) tattoos, pens, kangaroo stickers, tickets to the wine tasting… That last one may have been an accident. Don’t worry, we didn’t use them.

Here are some pictorials: (I didn’t take many… my bad. Other people have more, so just wait for some facebook action)

Columbia. Note Australia tattoo.

Entryway of Indonesia.

Cool stuff. I want them to do it again soon.