What do I want to write about first... hmmm; to be perfectly honest, my favorite part of today was the Ben Franklin House! (Oh and Wicked!!!! More on that in a few) This was a complete accident; we were taking a walk after lunch (during free time) to find ice cream (of course) and happened to walk by Ben Franklin's House and I was like - what??? Everyone knows Ben Franklin lived in Philadelphia, duh. But actually, after he retired from being a printer, he moved to London to do political work in favor of the colonies... while here he rented rooms; he had a parlor and a study. The house still has the original flooring and staircases, along with most of the wood paneling and shutters. Some of the fireplace mantels and harths were original as well (marble). They started to tell us about the paint colors within the rooms, (I already had some background knowledge thanks to my Williamsburg field trips :-) though there is a reason behind the paint - London was so sooty that they began to paint the walls colors so that they didn't look as terrible when blackened; the colors caught on as high fashion, but truth be known, there was a real reason before the trends/styles. The 2 victorian era stoves that were built into the fireplaces were put in later after Ben Franklin returned to the colonies permanently, but they were still cool!
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