Philadelphia + NYC Day 1

An incredibly long day yesterday - arrived at Union Station (beautiful, huge) - stress-free 2 hour train ride to Philadelphia, arrived at 30th Street Station (very beautiful, huge). Met up with N's cousin Shannon, who had agreed to show us around town.
Shannon is an incredibly nice guy, and very fond of his niece N.
He took us first to the Mutter Museum (note: I can't find an umlaut, but Mutter should have an umlaut). It is a museum of medical oddities, and incredibly strange. We saw the preserved bodies of Chang and Eng, many preserved examples of deformed foetuses and people and lots more extremely difficult-to-look at stuff. It was all fairly repugnant but fascinating. I couldn't come at the extensive exhibits of infected and damaged eyes, but otherwise was ok to look at everything. The place attracted a fairly strange crowd.
We next wandered around the Rittenhouse district, had a coffee and an icecream then went to the beautiful Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts - a famous and impressive school for artists, located in an absolutely amazing old building (and also in a new building next door) and with a great art museum.
Shannon was great - having never met us, he gave up a huge chunk of his Saturday to showing us around Philadelphia. He was friendly, interesting, a big personality and incredibly knowledgeable about film (including Australian film).
We said goodbye to him mid-afternoon, then headed to the historical district. We shared a Philly Cheese Steak, then felt sick. We napped on the ground near the liberty bell, then wandered around. Viewed the liberty bell - much less impressive I think for foreigners who dont'have the deep reverence for it as a symbol and just see an old, cracked bell.
An early dinner at Lolita - an awesome modern mexican place in Rittenhouse - it was BYOT, so we bought a bottle of tequila and enjoyed their fresh (and fantastic) margerita mix and food, then caught our train to NYC.
Arrived about 10pm and stress-free logistics to the hotel. Doubletree Metropolitan. Adequate. Went for a late-night wander to Times Square and around.

Today we wandered the streets - the east side at midtown is beautiful... there was a street festival in Lexington right outside our hotel, with lots of stalls. Spent most of the day at the Met - I'll write about it another time, but it was incredible (of course) - and we'll be making another visit. A walk around Central Park, including a great nap, and now off to dinner.