Monday, October 28, 2019, Philly,

Started this morning with a trip to the Reading Terminal Market where had a crepe and looked around. While there are a few produce, fish and meat stands, it is mostly a very large food mall.

Maria bought a pumpkin spice butter cake at the Flying Monkey to share. She said it was most delicious thing she has ever tasted!!!

From there we walked over to China Town to have a cup of bubble tea. Unfortunately, the tea house was not open yet.

So we decided to move on for now and visit Eastern State Penitentiary. Purported to be the world's first true penitentiary, designed to inspire penitence, or true regret in the hearts of prisoners. https://www.easternstate.org/

In operation between 1829 and 1971, the penitentiary was the model for prisons throughout the country and hosted criminals like Al Capone, before he was sent to Alcatraz.

Unfortunately for us, today they had some kind of town hall meeting going on and the majority of the prison was not available for touring. We got to walk through the solitary confinement wing, where we did see Al Capone's refurbished cell.

Once you saw one cell, all the others, except Al's, looked the same.

Al Capone's cell

We caught an Uber and went to find the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

Independence Hall. We should have reserved tickets as they were booked for the day. We did however get to go through the Congress Hall where the House of Representatives and Senate met.

The House Chamber.

The Senate Chamber on the second floor.

Committee rooms.

Then we went to the Ben Franklin Museum.

We had a light lunch at the Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar (http://www.cubalibrerestaurant.com/en/philadelphia). We got a couple of appetizers and shared a serving of Ropa Viela (a braised, shredded and stewed brisket, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, red wine, white rice, maduros).

The appetizers we selected were the Tropical Chips and Trio of Dips and the Signature Mango Butter on grilled Cuban bread.

The braised brisket

We then walked down Elfreth's Alley (http://www.elfrethsalley.org/), the nation's oldest residential street

Our last stop of the day was at Betsy Ross's home (http://historicphiladelphia.org/). We had a nice chat with a seamstress living historian. She brought us up to date on the turmoil in the Colonies, although she did not take any stand herself.

The day was very nice, so we spent a bit of time on the deck. Tonight, we have reservations at 

For the final evening meal of our trip, Maria made reservations at Zahav, an Israeli restaurant not far from our flat (http://www.zahavrestaurant.com/). Maria said the place was about five years old and historically it has been hard to get reservations. We had reservations for 8:00 pm and it was packed, with a waiting line, when we arrived. We were finally seated at about 8:15 pm. There was little to no atmosphere, a very plain decor and it was very busy and noisy. With all those strikes, we thought the food must be outstanding.

Neither of us was terribly hungry, so Maria just ordered some duck hearts and I ordered Tunisian egg in brik and the Crimini mushrooms. They also brought us some grilled cauliflower. It was all very tasty.

Tunisian Egg in Brik

Maria liked her duck heart so much and I was anxious to try it, so we ordered another. It was good and I would not have guessed I was eating heart.

Since it was too noisy to have a nice conversation, we played chess instead. I lost...again!

Tomorrow, we pack and depart. Our flight leaves at 12:35 pm and arrives in St. Louis at 2:00 pm.