America day 7

We were strongly advised this morning NOT to go into New York to celebrate New Years. Apparently watching the ball drop is very underwhelming, expensive and cold. Instead we decided to go to Philadelphia (Kaz's home town) to watch the fireworks from Penns Landing. We did quite a few things so I'm going to write this like a report:

1) Saw the liberty bell. Apparently it had cracked because it was built with a strange mix of alloys.

2) Had a philly cheese steak. It's really the American equivalent of a kebab. It's good, don't get me wrong, but my heart will always lead me to greasy Turkish food.

3) Saw the Jewish History Museum. I really enjoyed this - I got a few answers to questions I'd been wondering about for a while. Apparently it's an indisputable fact that Jews were actually slaves in Egypt - but the biblical story of them marching for 40 years through the desert is very likely false. Also, one of the main reasons for long standing antisemitism is almost entirely religious. Constantine the Great made Christianity the offical religion of Europe in the 4th century and that didn't go down well with groups that denied that Christ was the son of God. Also, persecution of the Jews was a lot more widespread than just Germany in the 1900's. Jews had been persecuted in Russia, England and Brazil too. In England they were expelled from the country by royal decree in the 1200's. Woah.

4) Went to UPen in University City. Unfortunately everything was closed so we couldn't look around too much, but that was ok.

5) Went to Prince theatre to see STAR WARS episode 8 - the last Jedi. The movie was a bit of a disappointment, but the act of seeing it in America was great.

6) We stopped by an Irish pub and had a few good quality beers. I almost got rejected for not having ID, but after flashing my grey hair to him, he reluctantly let me in.

7) We saw the fireworks. They were surprisingly good! It was really nice hearing the cheers and screams with each burst while munching down on a pretzel.

Sadly by the end of the day Kaz had quite badly hurt her ankle - we think it's her tendon. Hopefully this won't effect what we do tomorrow, or the hike we plan to do on the 2nd.