Cazzie and I arrived here in Philly on Thursday 25th June for our final 3 days in the States. We did not know what to expect here either. We manage to find the hotel with no problem at all as we had hired a car to take us from Washington and had TomTom to guide us. After a very easy check in where the hotel offered us a suite for $20 a night, we had to return the hire car to the Avis centre. The TomTom new exactly where this is but we needed to get gas. I plugged in "gas stations" in the sat nav and it brought up quite a few in the area. I picked the one en route and followed the instructions. I do not know why the TomTom would lie to me but after 15 minutes of dashing about to find fuel (due to the fact that we needed to get the car back to the Avis garage in 20 mins), we decided that it would be cheaper to return the car half full of gas that risk getting charged another days hire. Upon our arrival at the Avis garage, we were told that they shut in 2 hours so we had time to fill up. We were informed that there is only 1 gas station within the Philadelphia city limits. Again, why would my TomTom lie???
All got sorted and we took the short walk to the hotel. I have stayed in a few hotels in my time, but the Sofitel in Philly has the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. I'm not sure it's worth the visit alone, but it's a good tip. I would like to mention at this point that we learnt that Michael Jackson had died. It was quite good (if that's the right expression) that we were in the US and especially Philly. There was a huge African American community here and there seemed to be a really positive reaction to his death. Every 10 minutes we heard a car with it's window's down blasting out Jackson songs, all the TV channels had 24 hour coverage and it was the talk of the town.
As it was late on we walked to China Town, grabbed a quick bite to eat and then we hit the comfy bed.
Friday we were up and about early and headed to the Art Museum. The steps up here are the ones made famous by Rocky - the ones he ran up during his training session!
There was a queue to get your picture taken with the Rocky statue and the obligatory "local" wearing a Rocky T-Shirt trying to screw a dollar out of you for the privilege.
After a long walk in the park that is larger that Central Park in NYC, we headed to the more historical part of town and this is where I decided that the Americans love their water features. It seems around every corner there is another one. This time it was in JFK Plaza. This concluded our stalking of JFK for this trip. In the Plaza there was a free music concert going on and the reason for it was free was that is was performed by kids. They were OK but not good enough for anyone to pay for! The Liberty Bell was next on our list to do followed by a visit to Betty Ross's house. The Liberty Bell was smaller than I imagined and has a huge crack in it. It was only used for a few years before it was silenced. Repairs were carried out a few years later, but cracked again after the first use.
We had worked up a thirst, so after a quick shower back at the hotel we headed out for food and drink. We had a lovely meal washed down with 2 bottles of wine and asked for direction to a good selection of bars. We tried one or two and ended up in a student bar which was great fun!
The next day involved a lot of walking. Philadelphia, along with many other US cities, has a terrific market called the Reading Market. This place is brilliant serving up dishes from every corner of the world. It was that good we returned the next day for lunch!
It was time to head out and get ourselves a famous Philly Cheese Steak and we had 2 options. We could either eat at Pats-Kings of Steaks or Gino's-The best steak in the world. So did we go for the Kings or the Best. We flipped a coin and it was Pats that got the nod. I don't think it mattered as there were 50 queueing outside each place anyway, so either would have been OK. I ordered a "steak wit American cheese wit mushrooms and fries wit cheese whizz". It was a bit of a panic order but it was worth the 30 mins walk, the 60 mins queue and the worry about finding a toilet for Cazzie. This was the biggest surprise as there was no mad dash and the moment passed.
Later that evening, Cazzie wanted to go to a wine bar on 13th street - rated in the lonely planet! The barman was a friendly chap who proceeded to inform us that if we waited around for long enough we would see some prostitutes. Not your normal type of prostitute, but midgets or gay transsexuals. After a long discussion, Cazzie decided she didn't want to get one so we headed to our hotel!
After a good night's sleep and another visit to the Reading Market, it was time to head to the airport.
All the pictures can be found here.
Philadelphia didn't seem to be so great at the time, but having written this blog, looked at the pictures and chat with Cazzie about it again , we decided that Philly is a great city to visit. I think it didn't stand out against our visits to Vegas, Washington, Boston and Houston, but it is well worth a few days.
So that concludes my USA blog. We were away for a total of 21 days, visited 6 cities, travelled over 6,400 miles (just in the US), saw 2 baseball games, had the best steak ever at Abe's & Louie, met a lot of new people (and a puppy) and had an amazing time!
I can highly recommend it.
Lots of love
Stuoobs
xxx
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