Lovely Day for Some.....Sweltering Heat

Well i've had quite the Saturday. It started with my very first "Great Architecture of Philadelphia" class, which I am taking every saturday in June at Temple. The class consists of an hour or so lecture, followed by a walking tour of whatever part of the city we studied that day.

Today, being the first class, we started with a brief history of main styles of architecture, and William Penn's layout for Philadelphia, in 1682. COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE! YAY! You can imagine my glee.

Would you like to know what I learned?

Well, Independence Hall was built in the 1730s (or 1740s? I wasn't taking notes...) and it is in the Georgian style. You can see this by the windows, and pedements. The top spire/bell tower was added later, as were the buildings on either side, which housed the Congress and the Supreme Court ( i think). These side buildings were in the Federal style, which was after Georgian, and they had smaller window casements. (I don't have a picture of this, we were walking, i was in a hurry).


We then moved down Chestnut St, where we saw what had been the Second National Bank, designed by William Strickland, Philadelphia's first architect. Here it is:Notice that it looks like a big monstrous Greek Temple. I never quite understood how this came to be right down the block from all these brick colonial buildings. I learned today that it's in the Greek Revival style. See, this building was built post-Revolution. Georgian style, from before? That comes from England. Post-Revolution us Americans were not feeling anything English, so we went back to the Greeks, who, as we all know, were our role model for democracy. It's starting to make some sense now, right?

I also learned that one of my favorite movie theaters, the Ritz 5, was in the International style, as seen by the exposed steel beams and basic geometric shapes. And the cool-looking building across the street from the theater, I learned today was the Mercantile Exchange! And the beautiful curved part of the building was the trading room. Interesting indeed.
So at this point we have gone over our time limit on the walking tour, its 90-something degrees out, and i've started to melt. And by started, I mean am sweating through my tank top and feel like i'm going to die. So I came home to my nice air conditioned apartment and vegged on the couch.

Here is where I found my next surprise- Army Wives. There was nothing on tv, and I was still too hot to do anything productive. So I stumbled on an Army Wives marathon on Lifetime. I never was too interested in the show, since i'm not a huge fan of the army. But after watching way too many episodes, I kind of like it. Although Kim Delaney needs to tone it down a notch. I think she would be hard pressed to overact anymore than she already does. But some of the other characters are actually interesting. So good. A summer show to watch, on Lifetime no less.

Around 5 I went on my drinks date with eharmony guy. Kicking and screaming, I got myself dressed and ready, and met him at Tria on the corner (it was too hot to walk much farther). There we had a drink, and I had an awesome duck salad. I learned that he's from Colorado, lived at home for college, moved to Jersey for Rutger's law, likes Jersey, and plans to eventually go back to school to get a masters of Divinity. Divinity. Quick show of hands for all the many things I have in common with this particular gentleman. Now, he was a gentleman, he paid, he agreed to go for ice cream when I suggested (i'm going to breeze past his choice of chocolate banana- ew). And he tried very hard. So I definitely give him credit. But come on. There was zero chemistry. I can already hear my therapist telling me to give him another shot, but i'm sorry Laura, I don't think I can do it.

And so here I am, back at home, having finished the Army Wives marathon, getting ready for bed. Kind of a busy lazy saturday, if I do say so myself. And it's only day one of my vacation!