Sabbatical Tales Continue:

Saturday 12 July

This morning we went into Philadelphia to have a quick look around. Because of the short time available we took a Duck Boat Tour around parts of the city and a brief dip into the Harbour. The view from the harbour of the city is not as interesting as that of New York, and the tour not as interesting as I might have hoped. We had to put up with a lot of corny jokes from the driver. However we saw some sights and enjoyed what we saw.

Philadelphia looks like a fairly attractive city, major feature being the Delaware River running alongside the city. The city is historically very important for being the area where the American Constitution was written and voted into law. We visited the iconic Liberty Bell, which is of huge significance to the Americans for symbolizing the abolition of slavery and the unification of the sates of America. A continual stream of people were lined up to view the bell now housed in a special visitors’ centre. We passed by the house of Betty Ross who sewed the first American flag.

Maurie and I had a drink in the City Tavern, very old beer house where Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin used to drink. Great to be following in the footsteps of such important historical characters and carrying on such old traditions.

Around 2.30pm we caught a train back out into the countryside to a place called Ambler and got picked up by Maurie’s mate Scotty and his wife to be’s brother, Steve. They drove us to Blue Bell, where Faith’s parents live. This is a very attractive area of large farm styled homes on blocks of land about 7-10 acres in size.

We were made to feel very welcome by this large family, plus Scotty’s family who were also there. Charlie and Jean, Faith’s parents, well into their 80’s, were very welcoming.

From here on it was settling down to many beers and a Philadelphian BBQ. Very tasty range of food, but the local sweet specialty called “Sweet cakes” can stay in the area! Very sweet.

While here I rang Alastair M to wish him a happy 65th birthday –nice to heart a good old kiwi friend. My timing was great as Dallas was also there so I had a chance to speak to her and catch up. Kind of weird when you ring home from America and it is 11.00pm Saturday night and about 2.00pm Sunday in NZ.

We had an interesting ride back to our hotel by Faith’s brother and his wife. Both had had a fair amount to drink, and Jamie was pulled over by the State Highway patrol for speeding. Luckily they do not automatically breath test as they would in NZ, so he got away with a $95 fine. For a while we had visions of being stranded for the night on the motorway as non of us would have been under the alcohol limit to drive. Anyway, after about 20 minutes a ticket was produced and we carried on safely back to our hotel.


The afternoon and evening g was kind of surreal for me, being in the middle of the countryside outside Philadelphia being hosted by a very welcoming family I had never met before, in a very attractive rural setting.

Sunday 13 July

This morning I spent looking at and answering emails and the Maurie helped me set up a blog site. This was quite exciting and lots of fun, also set up a link to Flckr to store photos and connect to my blog site.

At 3.00pm Faith picked us up and took us to the wedding which started at 4.00pm, held in an old renovated railway station. The ceremony was outside, on a very hot afternoon.

This whole wedding experience was very interesting and developed a very Kiwi flavour, mainly as a result that Maurie had been asked to MC the procedure. We did not realize that they do not have speeches at weddings in this part of the country, so with the introduction of Scotty by Maurie, starting with a whaikorero, was a real novelty for them. Maurie did a great job, very humorous and contained a lot of kiwi,isms and interesting ideas that were a novelty to the Americans. They love the NZ accent, and just want to listen to us speak, doesn’t particularly matter what we say!

Maurie continued to conduct the order of speaking well, and the American whanau rose to the occasion and joined in with their speeches. Charlie, Faith’s father was really endearing with his wonderful speech about his daughter.

Many people complimented Maurie at the end of the speeches, often commenting that this was the best wedding they had been to because of the humour and sincerity of the speeches. I have to keep telling him he was terrible just to keep his feet grounded!

The wedding wrapped up at 9.30pm and many of the wedding group returned to our hotel where they had booked in for the night, so the drinking continued on back there. We called it quits around midnight.

Many fond farewells with the family and friends before we left –a really nice, warm, welcoming family who seemed to genuinely enjoy having us as their guests.


Monday 14 July

This morning we left Philadelphia for Boston, about a six and a half hour train ride away. Tomorrow we start the BLC 80 Conference with a trip to providence to visit a MET school.