Last time on Philly Phun: we arrived safely, but with a crying baby, stressed mom and an irritated dad.
After I exited the vehicle in the hotel pull thru driveway, one of the guys outside approached me and asked me if I’d like to self-park or use the valet. I mean, really, was I going to self-park after what had just happened? I don’t think so. Choosing valet made sense and would be easy on all of us (except on the day we left). Now, however, I had a new problem – the hovering parking attendant. He never said anything to make me feel rushed, but he was making me feel rushed. Dara had disappeared inside with Quincy to check-in and try and calm him down. I was left with a trunk full of stuff and a backseat full of even more stuff. A combination of my being tired, grumpy and feeling rushed, I didn’t get everything out of the car before it was whisked away. Crud.
We went up to the room to feed Quincy (yes, I remembered to grab his food). We had requested a few things for the room which we were told was not going to be a problem. Well, there was a problem. 1) No ‘fridge 2) No crib 3) No high-chair. Fortunately, these were easily fixed. They brought the ‘fridge easily enough and the “crib” which turned out to be like our pack-n-play and a high-chair from the restaurant in the lobby. Okay, great, now we could get settled into the room and wind down. Nope.
I, because of the car incident downstairs, had left my cellphone and wallet in plain view in the car. I sometimes take my wallet out when there are tolls to pay, and this time I just never put it back in my wallet. Dara was very nice and took care of. They brought the car back, and she grabbed all the items that I had left in the car. I am told there was money sticking out of my wallet in plain view. See what happens when you are rushed?
Now things were going well. Quincy had his food and we got settled into the room. Being downtown in Philly meant that it was easy to walk to things for food and whatnot. In trying to find the hotel, I had noticed a Chili’s restaurant that was very close, so we ended up having our supper there that night. Quincy did great there eating his supper as well, and then we headed back to the hotel.
I’m not sure if any of you have figured out the next hurdle we faced….Quincy goes to sleep at 7pm or 7:30pm. We do not. Did I mention the hotel room wasn’t very big? I set up his pack-n-play on the far side of the second double bed so that he wouldn’t be able to see us. The good news is that he slept great and napped great, but the bad news is that we spent a lot of time over by the sink/bathroom sitting on the floor reading, eating, or whispering to each other until we could go to sleep. One night, I was tired and asked if I could go to bed yet, and Dara told me no because it was only 8 something.
Dara’s conference started early in the morning, so we found ourselves getting up even earlier than when at home. The weather was supposed to be the best on this day, so I decided that Quincy and I would wander around the historic sites. I had no idea what to do with him really. I mean, how much sightseeing can an almost 8-month old really do? The answer is: zilch. So, we spent a long time walking around downtown Philly looking at various sights. I also found out that Quincy will not nap in his stroller. When he gets really tired, he justs gets upset and won’t relax and sleep. So, I only made that mistake once.
I did manage to take a some pictures. Here is one of Independence Hall:
If I had been alone, I would have done more stuff, but since Quincy still requires 4 short naps a day, that put quite a crimp in what we could do. We did walk down to the Delaware River to see if we could locate the World War II era battleship New Jersey. Sure enough, there it was across the river.
We were both pretty tired by the end of the day. Dara got home, we had some food and then just hung out before it was time to go to bed. I should also mention that I didn’t sleep very well the night before, so I was very tired. I just don’t do well sleeping in hotels, or pretty much anywhere for that matter.
The next day, the weather was still good. I had made plans to see some friends of ours that live in Wayne – which was not very far outside of Philly. Deep breath – this meant driving again. Long story short – I never had an issue with the driving again on this trip. We had a great visit with our friends, and Quincy even took a nice, long nap there as well. That trip took most of the day, so it was nice to not have to figure out what to do – the last day would be the problem.
The last full day we had in Philly was on a Saturday. It rained. All day. Hmmm. What to do, what to do. I decided to take Quincy out to the King of Prussia mall which is this huge mall in, well, King of Prussia, PA. The good part was that it took up a lot of time, the bad part was that I was miserable. I hate crowds. I hate people in the crowds. We didn’t stay long in the mall because everybody thought that the mall was a great idea for a rainy Saturday. I fed Quincy his lunch there and then took off. I found that it is very hard doing things alone with Quincy when you out and about and in a bad mood. The King of Prussia mall is now on my list.
The rest of the trip went fine except for when we wanted to leave. Leaving from a hotel on a Sunday morning is fine unless you are the mercy of the valet parking guys. We called down and was told it would be around 30 mintues for the car. Well, that was just wrong. We had to wait over an hour. It was getting pretty tense down in the lobby. When the car was finally brought to us, I took my time and loaded it the way I wanted to load it – no valet punk was going to rush me out of there. Our drive back to NY went smoothly. Quincy actually smiled when we walked into the house as if to say, “Ah, home sweet home.” Too bad we’re moving soon, twice. Stay tuned for those stories as they occur.
Thus endith the Philly Phun saga.