We left Washington in a ball of rage. After getting to the train station, we realised (or rather, remembered, having discovered this before the greyhound bus… ick) that all things American are deliberately oversold, and then - too late, so sad. And then they have standby as well, so all american transport companies make a killing - and all areas for gathering people for mass commercial transport are crap-diddle. Stand, wait, get a seat, old person arrives… feel guilty about sitting, offer… But getting on the train itself was easy, so was the trip, and you’ve already got your bags with you. And the leg room is completely superior to that of planes, and (for some reason) noone brings screaming children on trains. Ahhhh (blissful sigh). Trains rock. Trains are better than planes (apart from in speed of getting somewhere) and are waaaaaaaaaaaaay better than greyhound buses without toilets. With people on there whose religions prohibit them from using deodorant. Noone’s pointing any fingers (hint hint Amish people, who apparently don’t want to HAVE cars, but are OK with taking buses… Whaaaaa????)
So basically, we got there - Philadelphia. To be honest, it was probably one of the places on the US itinerary that I was least interested in. Hadn’t really heard that much about and didn’t know what to expect. Especially after the barren, boring, hell-on-earth that was Washington D(on’t) G(o). So not my joke, but so funny.
The taxi ride from the train station was noteworthy in that I think I still have some of the guy’s back seat upholstery under my nails. We HURTLED there. Thankfully I couldn’t see the speedo as was on the wrong side (and had my eyes closed), but Nick said we were up around equivalent 170km/he which is nice…
The comfort inn was so aptly named. For the first time in a long time, the air conditioning was cold, the bed was a King, the bed was comfortable, and not only were we comfortable walking down the street - in day and in night - there were places to go. And the lift didn’t take 20 minutes to pop up a couple of floors. God forbid you leave anything behind in the room at Chicago - it was dead to you til the end of the day.
The comfy comfy room, and the view from one of our windows. Yes, we were between two major roads, but it was quiet as, and only a 10 min walk into town.
First day’s walk around in the stinking heat brought us past maybe 6 or 7 pub/bars, more delicious-looking small restaurants than you could poke a stick at, philly cheese-steak vendors, beautiful old buildings, narrow streets - a crap load of coppers, showing their presence - and not a bad vibe in the place. It was an OASIS after the horror of dry (where are the watering holes???), dull but irritating and apparently dangerous (I’m hungry! But I’m back at the hotel… But the pool party is driving me mental, after 3 damned days… and I can’t go out to get food because it’s either ’not for our type’ or 5km walk, and even then, dull and tasteless… Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)
Back to Philly, beautiful Philly. We walked, we had a couple of quiet beers in a nice big air-conditioned sports pub - all the while gob smacked that an hour and a half away from HOE (“hell-on-earth“, get with the program) could be such a pretty, character-filled town that was so laid back. Philly cheese steak was delicious, although being from a beef farm I kind of have a question about calling chopped up meat (even beef) ’steak’. For those who don’t know, it’s pretty much chopped beef cooked on a hotplate over a flame, and with ’juice’ (meat juice) poured over it to keep it juicy, then cheese melted onto it while it’s on the hotplate and then juice poured over your finished product as well. We had onions on the shared cheese steak on day one, and then day two Nick had the same and I was (cough cough) convinced into having ’hot sausage’. Which is a mildly spicy hotdog sausage on a roll. Just so you know. The cheesesteak is delicious and the hot sausage, so so.
Philly cheese steak - not much to look at, but way delish.
After a nap, it was my turn to decide somewhere to go for tea. OMG! Yayyyy! “I’d like to thank my family, and my fans…” Anyway, being such a comfortable and helpful place, the comfort inn had a book of eats (a FULL book, maybe 200-300 local bars/cafes/restaurants of different persuasions) and I chose McGillins Irish pub, Philadelphia‘s oldest continuously operated Irish pub. Or something. I chose it based on… pretty much nothing. But then, when the shuttle bus guy (’free’, but you tip - thankfully we‘re saying goodbye to that nonsense, with Europe!) was taking us there he mentioned how popular it is, and it’s crazy at St Paddy’s time (hopes start edging higher) and then after a crazy trip through the town stopped at the end of a small alleyway between two streets in the city. A smelly alleyway, but we could see the sign. And on the topic of ’smelly’, I think we forgot to mention that lots of American cities have open sewer grates. No doubt a leftover from the past (excuse my disgusting pun) but still, the streets often stink like you-know-what.
McGillins was all I could hope for (http://www.mcgillins.com/). We paid USD43 for 3 pitchers (each about a jug and a half in Aussie terms), plus two main meals - and they were big and delicious and fresh tasting. It was why we went back the next night. And THEN I had an USD8.50 mussel pasta, with probably 30+ mussels in it.
Day two we looked at the ‘sights’ of Philly. It’s a very historical place, being that it played a role in the civil war and the constitution was drafted there (hence all this ‘liberty this’ and ’freedom that’). We were actually pretty nonplussed by their Liberty Bell, which is actually a replica, but it used to ring to tell the government guys (in Franklin’s time) that it was time to get their butts to parliament. Basically, it was interesting, but neither of us is likely to have a photo with a replica bell (which made us the exceptions there rather than the rule).
Below: City Hall
But our first stop was actually something Nick had picked out in all the considerable internet research that was done on our likely destinations - Eastern State Penitentiary. THAT place was cool. We walked across town to get there, and did a walking tour of the joint with headsets on. Which sounds way nerdy, but it meant you could choose which stations you cared to listen to. Here’s the webby http://www.easternstate.org/
But basically the place was built by the quakers as the first ever ’penitentiary’, inventing that meaning of the word, I.e. to make you contemplate what you did to get in there and essentially do your penance before getting out. Won’t bore you too much, but there was a mock-up of Al Capone’s cell (apparently it was really pimped out, even though they weren’t supposed to have gramaphones, rugs, comfy beds and cognac, so by then the whole system was obviously at least a little corrupt) and the place was really atmospheric, having served as an active prison for 150 years, been abandoned for 20+ years, almost been sold to make shops and units - like Boggo Road, and then been rescued for its historical value. So they’ve done up parts of it, for tours and are slowing the degradation of the other areas to preserve it as a ruin. It’s like ’Old Town’ in Philly, in that you can see the plan is to eventually save and restore as many historical (they are ALL historical) buildings as possible, but for the moment, because its such an expensive process, they’re just stabilising a lot of places with scaffolding etc. I thought it was really cool that they valued those buildings (up to around 300 years old) rather than knocking them down and building high rises.
But basically the place was built by the quakers as the first ever ’penitentiary’, inventing that meaning of the word, I.e. to make you contemplate what you did to get in there and essentially do your penance before getting out. Won’t bore you too much, but there was a mock-up of Al Capone’s cell (apparently it was really pimped out, even though they weren’t supposed to have gramaphones, rugs, comfy beds and cognac, so by then the whole system was obviously at least a little corrupt) and the place was really atmospheric, having served as an active prison for 150 years, been abandoned for 20+ years, almost been sold to make shops and units - like Boggo Road, and then been rescued for its historical value. So they’ve done up parts of it, for tours and are slowing the degradation of the other areas to preserve it as a ruin. It’s like ’Old Town’ in Philly, in that you can see the plan is to eventually save and restore as many historical (they are ALL historical) buildings as possible, but for the moment, because its such an expensive process, they’re just stabilising a lot of places with scaffolding etc. I thought it was really cool that they valued those buildings (up to around 300 years old) rather than knocking them down and building high rises.
Here are two shots of cell blocks in Eastern State Penitentiary.
Mock-up of Al Capone's cell...
Nick getting in my shot... AGAIN. LOVE fountain, in Central Philly. Yes, it's blue (no reason apparent to me).
Left: Just a cool street shot.
Below: Some of the street art around the place.
Below: Just a shot of the bridge, at night, from the pedestrian bridge... our last night in Philly. Sob!
Day 2 night was McGillins again, where we spent considerably more money as we were there pretty early, having skipped the weird hotel bar (which was actually just some bar stools in the lobby of the hotel - talk about shags on a rock!)
Day 2 night was McGillins again, where we spent considerably more money as we were there pretty early, having skipped the weird hotel bar (which was actually just some bar stools in the lobby of the hotel - talk about shags on a rock!)
We wished we could have had more time there - just to hang out and soak up the atmosphere, which is the best bit about Philly, but we’d locked in 5 nights in New York to attempt to do the place justice, so it was off on day 3.
Sorry if this was a boring post! We loved Philly, but it was mostly the atmosphere and culture we loved, and I forgot to strike while the iron was hot re blog. or rather, because Hotel Carter in New York was such a dive, we didn’t have wifi access in our room. New York will go up in next day so stay tuned….
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