The City Of Brotherly Love...

Here we are in the "City Of Brotherly Love".



Anytime I come to Philadelphia, it is always the same, I have to stop at my favorite pizza place on South Street (Pizzeria La Fourno), and have some authentic Italian style pizza with Stars and Stripes. We went back this evening and it's still exactly the same way it was last May when we last visited, soft and crunchy at the same time, thin crusted marvel of the old world. My pizza was a triumph of color in an orgy of taste, hope you get the concept, it was really good.

I want to thank our friend Bob in DC for being once again such a wonderful host, for the great southern meal with Michael on Saturday, and for the Mexican fiesta with Pat, Bill and Jim at "La Placita" on Sunday night, it was nice meeting Jim, and it was great to see Pat and Bill again after more or less a year since we had last seen them.

Today we visited the Arlington National Cemetery as planned.

Another place that can really send shivers down anybody's spine. I had been in similar places before, especially in Italy while I was attending the Air Force school to pay my tribute to those who fought to free the Italians in WWII, but I had never been to such a beautiful, nicely maintained cemetery who could, even with all the grief and pain people that pass through those gates for a funeral go through, transmit such a sense of peace.

This is exactly what I've experienced today, a strong sense of peace combined with something that I have hardly found anywhere else in the world, and that is a sense of belonging to the same community, with one flag whose stars and stripes Americans wear anytime anyplace. This is what makes America such a beautiful country.





We had the time to visit President JFK Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (God Bless them all), the monument for the astronauts died in the two separate accidents of the Space Shuttle "Challenger" and "Columbia", the amphitheater, and walking back towards the Visitor Centre, many other monuments commemorating the sacrifice made by these brave soldiers in all the battles fought by the United States of America.





After we left the cemetery, our next planned stop should have been the other Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, VA, but we decided at the last minute to go straight to Philadelphia because of time calculations in order to avoid rush hour here in Philly. Needless to say, we did avoid rush hour but at the same time got involved into a pathetic traffic jam that took us about 30 minutes of stop and go because of a totally destroyed truck on I95 some 3 or 4 miles away.

Anyway, we made it to Philadelphia right on time, which is good.

Today we started our journey in the District of Columbia, and visited four states: Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.


Maryland:

Delaware:



Pennsylvania:

Tomorrow we're off to Doylestown, PA where Fran and Lynn, respectively Hap's brother and sister-in-law live. We're going to have dinner with them and some other friends, I'm looking forward to seeing them again as they left Florida almost a month and a half ago while I was still busy with school.

I think this is it for today, good night from the city of brotherly love my friends.

Cheers,
Nico