Hello and welcome to a vacation Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Greetings from the city of brotherly love! Today is August 22nd.
The past couple of days, we've been galavanting around Philadelphia with CK 3.0*, aka the original WAKWIR**, enjoying the sights from his perspective.
We started with a tour of his college, getting the insider's view of all the music studios we'd hoped to see on his first college tour three years ago. How thrilling as a parent, to see my son stroll confidently around, not only the campus, but the city. We are now SEPTA experts as we hopped back and forth between University City and Old City.
It feels both like we've not done much other than "walk around" and yet, at the end of the night, when I tally the day's events, we've actually done, like, 15 things a day!
We've hit some food-musts such as the Philly Pretzel Factory, Kiwi frozen yogurt, and Sabrina's Cafe. We swapped Philly cheesesteaks (actual) with cheesesteak egg rolls. Fun and yummy!
Of all the things - and we have more to do today - here are my top three favorite things at the moment:
1) Rocky statue - Not the statue so much, as the people. Tourists from all walks of life, did the iconic race up the steps, then turned and stood at the top with both fists raised, smiling triumphant as loved ones filmed or snapped pics of their momentous occasion. It was both nostalgic and uplifting, all these people, strangers to one another, reenacting this same scene. It felt hopeful. And uniting. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all carried that Rocky determination in our hearts every day?
2) Rodin Museum - The At-Home Oldest and I visited the Rodin Museum in Paris in 2025, so this museum stateside was an absolute must. Like Rocky, it was both nostalgic and uplifting. The AHO*** readied herself for "statues of more naked bodies" but also quite enjoyed the familiarity of the style and the memories they conjured up from last year's trip. We delved deep into the study of hands and got close-up looks. We learned how bronze statues are made. There were smaller renditions of The Thinker, the Kiss, a ginormous bust of Balzac. A new favorite was a piece that was a cast of Rodin's real hand in his final days that his apprentice had made, holding a small female torso Rodin had sculpted. The entire collection is a thought piece on creation.
3) Ministry of Awe (MOA) - This was not on our list of must-sees, but we stopped at it along the way because CK 3.0 knew the museum bouncer. She gave us the shpiel on what we were missing, so after the quick run through Betsy Ross house, we returned to MOA to be amazed. It did not disappoint. This former bank had been totally reimagined by over one hundred artists. Per the website, "A new, ever-evolving immersive art experience in Philadelphia, housed inside a 19th-century bank and transformed into a surreal world where the only currency is the human spirit. Each act of wonder yields infinite returns." Surreal was right! Wild, goofy, clever and fun! Just a very few of the highlights including signature forgery, a sculpture of giant feet standing on a head (the feet stretched up into legs ending in hands), a funeral parlor where you could memorialize yourself, a heaven filled with cosmos and constellations of a large-bellied cat, a winged dog, and woman birthing eggs, and gorgeous stained-glass robbers dotting a bathroom floor. It was blissfully wild and invigorating. The CK had never been there, so I loved it best for being a new experience for him.
We've got one more day to fill with adventures before returning to Wannaska, starting with real Belgian "Liege" waffles at the Top Hat Coffee House. Not a first food experience for me, but definitely a first for the kids!
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