I had a really great weekend.
Meeting of Swedish friends!
Clockwise from top left: Azi (from Western PA),
DC Linuxchix-PhillyChix meeting!
Not sure why this turned out so grainy, hopefully someone got a better picture. From left: Erin (Philly),
Sunday morning I got up before everyone else and did some cleaning up of the beer bottles and dishes from the evening before, and then got to work on making pancakes for our guests. The Swedes had never had pancakes for breakfast before, and were shocked when we put butter on them. It was an amusing breakfast, and everyone was stuffed when we piled into cars to drive down to Philadelphia.
Morgana and Grifter rode with Michael in the Civic, and Sand, Azi and I rode down in Azi’s Prius. The idea was that one local would ride in each car to help if we got lost, but I don’t know anything about the city and I just wanted to ride in the Prius ;D The Prius is a great car, the whole dashboard display of gasoline engine/electric engine/battery usage was so cool. It also tells you how much gas mileage you are getting, so Azi was able to show off his coasting ability that he’s refining that uses as little power as possible. Nice. I want one.
We arrived at the Constitution Center around noon, parked in the parking garage right by it (probably a mistake, since it was so expensive to park there). On our way in the bottom of the cars were searched with a mirror on a pole to check for bombs or something. Azi and I were somewhat surprised by this, but our Swedish companion just said “I thought you’d be used to this sort of thing by now.” Sigh.
It was a beautiful day for this meeting. We all waited in front of the center to meet with the LinuxChix. We decided to go out separate ways once we all got together. Michael went with Morgana, Sand, Grifter and Azi, and I went off with the LinuxChix.
Amusingly, we both chose to have lunch at the same place, the Independence Brewpub near Market East station. Disappointingly they were out of their yummy pale ale %( but the food was good, and so was the conversation. It’s fun to meet up with LinuxChix, you always get such a great mix of smart people!
After the long lunch us Chix went to visit the Liberty Bell (this is where I apologize to
After seeing the bell we walked outside through gates, and were stopped in a “gate pen” with a bunch of other people and spoken to by a park ranger dude about the buildings across the street. I couldn’t help feeling l
ike herded animal while he blabbered on about the buildings where our freedom and democracy were etched out. See why an essay about this all is begging to be written?
By the time we saw a couple buildings it was close to 4PM when I was due to meet with Michael and company again. I said goodbye to the Chix and we went our separate ways.
Michael had a nice time too, I’m no sure where they all went, but he got this nice picture of Morgana, Sand, Grifter and Azi in Philadelphia:
We left Philadelphia shortly after 4PM and went back to our house. I heated up some apple pie that we got from Whole Foods, which went over very well, there wasn’t any left by the end of the evening.
By then I was beyond exhausted %) I didn’t even bother with the dishes.
And now I’m back at work, Michael stayed home this morning to see them all off. The two cups of coffee I had this morning hardly put a dent in how tired I am, but I can function well enough, it was so worth it!
I’m going to bed so early tonight.