Day 2 - Princeton-Philadelphia
Previously featured:
Part 1: Flight to Newark, Day 1 - Newark-Princeton
The McIntosh Inn was one of only 2 motels we stayed in to provide breakfast, and they had huge Sara Lee muffins, which my sister described as more like pound cake.
Me having my usual luck, I discovered that my formerly temperamental Canon Powershot A70, already slightly wonky before getting on the flight, though working acceptably with some patience and jiggling on my part, refused to function properly when I tried using it, being capable only of producing purple-tinged and fuzzy-static bordered shots (and now that I'm back in Singapore, the tinge and most of the static has gone - weird electronics).
At about 8am we drove into Princeton University. It being early on a Sunday morning after term had ended, we didn't see very many people about. The buildings of Princeton were made of (or at least fronted by) stone, and were in a faux Old European architectural style, dubbed by my sister as 'Neo-Oxbridge', that I felt was pretentious, especially since they were unable to pull it off, the buildings looking too new, too clean and all of the same age.
Archway
Ivy
Facade
Perhaps the time of day and year contributed to sample bias, but between a third and a half of the students we saw wandering around wore clothes with their University's name emblazoned proudly across them. Hell, even their garbage trucks have: "Princeton University. Princeton, NJ" marked out on their doors. University pride - something that the Premier Institution of Social Engineering has failed to arouse in its students.
Dei Sub Numine Viget
Lanterns
Statue
Stained glass
After we spent some time wandering the empty grounds, my sister decided that she wanted to attend a service in the chapel, so we had to kill time before the service. So after walking up a mall of shops, we applied the popularity rule of thumb, which has failed me but once - when I tried the worst bak chor mee in the world at Hong Lim complex, beside the crayfish hor fun, and checked out PJ's Pancake House, outside of which there was a long queue. We probably disgraced ourselves in the eyes of the owners, since although everyone was ordering a large plate of food, the three of us just had a two-fer breakfast.
Two-fer at PJ's Pancake House
The Princeton shop sells cosmetics. Decadent Americans...
Sunday afternoon saw us stuck in a horrible traffic jam for two and a half hours on the I-76 from Philadelphia west to Harrisburg. The cause of the jam turned out to be roadworks carried out over a long stretch of road. The strange thing was that we saw almost no one working on this long stretch of road, raising the question of why they'd closed off such a long stretch if they didn't have the manpower to work it. Probably there were restrictive union rules on Sunday work, restricting the length of time worked as well as mandating high overtime pay. In which case they should've imported 200 Banglas, who would have finished the job in double-quick time, and at less than half the cost. Oops, that's the wrong part of the world. In the States they'd hire Mexicans. But then there're those damn union rules...
We'd originally intended to visit Hershey to look at the chocolate factory, but with the jam derailing our plans, we pulled into the King of Prussia mall and dined. And shopped, for the first time in 2 days (and 1 full day). There was a teddy bear shop ('Build-a-bear workshop') where you could stuff your own bear, and buy teddy bear clothes and accessories. I asked my brother-in-law to bring Brown Bear down so his vagina could be sewed up, but he refused.
At night for some reason the other two tuned to the televangelism channel. Supposedly they find it funny. I suppose it's fascinating in the same way that a car crash is, watching all the mindless sheep watching and listening to the televangelist rapturously.
Sister's food diary: "Day 2: breakfast at hotel (480 calories a pop muffins, cranberry juice, piss-weak American coffee). Second breakfast at famous pancake house, Princeton (two-fer breakfast plate, pancakes). Massive traffic jam outside Philadelphia = arrive late afternoon at King of Prussia mall. Philly cheesesteaks (original and chicken), buffalo wings."
Parking was expensive in the big cities, and I'd been to most of them before, so we generally avoided them.
Knowing the obsession of the anti-high fructose corn syrup people, Coke sneakily lists their flagship product's second ingredient as "High fructose corn syrup and/or sucrose". It tastes the same to me, though, so I suspect it's mostly psychological.
Seen in a bookstore in King of Prussia: 'How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls'.
Blurb:
"The teen years can be tricky -- especially if you are a girl. Let's face it, teen girls deal with pressures and dilemmas that teen boys couldn't even dream of, let alone handle! In How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls, Donna Dale Carnegie, daughter of the late motivational author and teacher Dale Carnegie, brings her father's time-tested, invaluable lessons to the newest generation of young women on their way to becoming savvy, self-assured friends and leaders.
How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls offers concrete advice on teen topics such as peer pressure, gossip, and popularity. Teen girls will learn the most powerful ways to influence others, defuse arguments, admit mistakes, and make self-defining choices. The Carnegie techniques promote clear and constructive communication, praise rather than criticism, emotional sensitivity, tolerance, and a positive attitude -- important skills for every girl to develop at an early age. Of course, no book for teen girls would be complete without taking a look at how to maintain friendships with boys and deal with commitment issues and break-ups with boyfriends. Carnegie also provides solid advice for older teens beginning to explore their influence in the adult world, such as driving and handling college interviews.
Full of fun quizzes, "reality check" sections, and true-life examples, How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls offers every teenage girl candid, insightful, and timely advice on how to influence friends in a positive manner."
They sure start them young. Now we know why they're screwed up from a young age.
Photographs: I'm having trouble finding non-sucky image hosts/galleries with abundant webspace and adequate bandwith. Hotlinking is a bonus, since I'd only post a select few images here anyway.
I'd intended to go for Imagestation, but it seems they no longer offer free, unlimited image storage; they have some words about premium members having "Unlimited access to full-size original images", ie Free members get reduced resolution images. Which sounds like how Yahoo Photos cripples their images.
Imageshack is promising but has a 1024kb file size limit (though that isn't really a problem). The main thing is that it's hell uploading hundreds of images through their free system.
Blogger has free, unlimited photo hosting, but you can't put the photos into galleries.
Dear me.