Few other angles here.

But the very best thing in the whole building, even better than the beautiful giant turtle, or the gorgeous colours of the jellyfish, was the sign on the desk at the entrance.

I bent in half laughing, with the staff staring at me in confusion, and Kim staring at me with resigned familiarity. I can’t wait for them to get it working! All those physicists will look pretty silly when they have to go to the New Jersey aquarium.

Rest of the pics here.

Edit: Ooh, 1000th blog post.

Oops.

More pics.

I was in town with my sister, and she was paying for parking. I took the opportunity to put my gloves on my nephew, Wil, and then laughed until I hurt. Crappy phone pics, but click on them for a larger version. It’s officially the funniest thing ever.

But be warned: some are really frightening.

Click for bigness

Other nephew highlight: Wil running around the house saying, “Gogglygogglygogglygogglygog,” in a serious and important voice, and then looking at me as if I’m a moron for not understanding.

So let’s begin with my chopped off leg. As you can see, it was not only a very painful and dangerous injury, but also one I had to take very seriously.

Slightly earlier in New York, we did the tourist thing and went up the Empire State Building. What impressed me most was how New York looks an awful lot like a game of Sim City.

Later that day we saw Time Square, right before getting the train to Philly.

Returning to England always depresses me. It’s such a nasty, stingy country in comparison. The very notion of eating out requires checking your bank balance first, and then probably wanting a sandwich when you get home. America is already 50% off right now thanks to their collapsing Dollar, and then when you take into account that they think of feeding people as something that should be naturally affordable, it’s literally a third as expensive. And the cliches aren’t always true – the portions aren’t always ludicrously big. However, that they sometimes are is bloody brilliant. And this, from the International House of Pancakes, was fantastically insane. It was an omelette, with pancakes. I figured: an omelette’s not so big, coming with pancakes isn’t too silly. Good grief. I barely got halfway through.

Arriving in Philly, we were greeted by Philadelphia founder William Penn exposing himself.

Here’s a sermon we were devastated to have missed.

Important things to see in Philly obviously include the Liberty Bell. Which we didn’t see. Because we are better than that – we went to visit Rocky at the Museum of Art. What’s hilarious is seeing this statue surrounded by hundred-year-old statues of some of America’s most significant leaders in the same stone.

And of course Love Park. Here’s a couple of shots (fixed the link for the second pic now).

A lot of the things in Philly are dedicated to the very many significant individuals in American history. However, this particular paving slab was not. Good to know.

But if you’re in the area there’s one feature I particularly suggest you check out. A super-cute baby (you know, in second place to my nephew) called Elena.

Which Dexter seems to approve of.

Say happy birthday to Dexter everyone.

So, what did you get him?