Friday

Today I felt good and walked to the Collingswood train station to catch a ride into Phily. The first stop is a place called the Gallery, aka a big indoor shopping center, ranging from a Big K and a typical mall. I wondered around town trying to get my bearings, not having a map or a plan, made this dificult. I got to see the Phily culture. Comparing it to the next largets city like it, New York, it is a more quiet, but just as intimidating. I saw very few latinos. It does not seem as poor as New York.
After I figured out where I was I headed towards the historic district, running right into the Liberty Bell. There, amazingly, was a short line. No pictures because right as I was going to take one, the batteries in the camera ran out. So I strolled around old city and grabbed an early lunch at a place called Jones, and I had the special, a pulled pork sandwich. Later that afternoon, I was heading over to the museum and found St Peter's church and as I walked in mass started. Interesting! Who has mass at 1:00, anyway. Felt compelled to stay for mass and ended up enjoying the quiet prayer time. I walked over the museum part of town, and took a slow and mindful time with all of it. Art Museum and Rodin! Came back to Collingswood and had a nice dinner with Stephen. After dinner we strolled down to the a coffee shop where they were having some open reading. A young man named Malik Abdul-Jabaar was reading some powerful writing about his Phily life. What a great and profound moment. The coffee shop is called grooveground and the manager helped me out the whole trip, good guy.