An Autumn of Travel

I've actually done some traveling this fall. Much of it has been to neighboring U.S. states, but it's still getting out of New York City, right? Because of New York City's geographical position, you can cross state lines in less an hour, so going to another state isn't necessarily as far as you might think. :) These trips were very quick jaunts, but I enjoyed them. Here's a taste of my experiences, which I didn't document as well as I should have.

I went to visit my college alma mater (some of you would call it "university" or "uni") for an overnight visit. I've never taken pictures of where I went to college, even though I tend to love the look of the campus. I love that it looks so old, even if some of the buildings were really built in the 1920's and 30's. I really enjoyed college. I enjoyed it much more than high school or grad school. Much more.

I spent some time in these scary library stacks.

I love hearing the bells from this clock tower. They play both classical and modern music. One afternoon, it was a Prince song! I've heard U2, too. :)

I'm hoping to get more involved with alumni events and organizations next year, so it's nice to be able to live relatively close to campus.

I also tend to get in a little trouble when I go back to visit there. This was a big alumni weekend, so a friend gathered a large group for some traditional "toasting". I'll leave it at that. Don't ask what I am doing in this pic below. Just know that I did it a lot senior year. By the way, this is communal, so there was no way I was finishing whatever was in that cup. (Yeah, I know. EEEWWWW....)

Yes, I am over 30. :(

The weekend before Halloween, Husband J and I went to Pennsylvania to visit his friend and his young family. We ended up being caught up in a freak snowstorm that hit the East Coast. New York got very little since it's right on the water, but as you got further west where our friends live, you really got to see the breadth of the storm. It felt more like January than late October.

Say what you want, I think they may be on to something re: global warming.

Happy Halloween! :)

Husband J's friends were kind enough to take us and their kids to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Philly, as it's called, is so close by to NYC, yet I really feel as if I don't know the city very well (if at all). There is a blogging conference that I'd like to attend there in June, and I'm hoping to go down a day early to explore the city. We'll see.

The National Consitution Center's main hall with the flags of all 50 U.S. States

This is a bad pic of an actual original copy of the U.S. Constitution. There are less than a handful of original copies.

The Center has this one room of life sized-bronze statutes of the signers of the Constitution. These guys were pretty short! :)

I took a picture with Alexander Hamilton, the only signer from New York State. Being a proud New Yorker, I was very surprised that he was the only one. Given the travel costs and hardships back then, most of the signers were from the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware (a new fact for me), which are close by. Mr. Hamilton would go on to be very instrumental in early years of the United States' history.

A blurry phone pic, but that's me and Alex.

I hope you history buffs enjoyed this. :) This was our only stop in Philly for the day since it was cold and snowy, and we had small kids with us (did I mention that we were cold?). I hope I'll be able to write more about Philadelphia next year.

Have you had any fun weekend trips in the past few months? Where did you go, and what did you do? Does anyone have any Philadelphia suggestions for my possible trip there next year? I think weekend trips are a great way to add a little traveling to your life.

Happy Weekend!