His View 

Philadelphia - Feliks' perspective

 

First thing about Philadelphia: pay attention when you are driving. Let the passenger do the Google Maps. Drivers are very aggressive and if you have more than a millisecond delay when that light turns green they play a nice tune with their horns. 

 

We got to Philadelphia around 7pm so it was getting dark and the city was starting to light up. It was an awesome sight! The bridges that lead to the city are massive and we drove on our first double decker bridge of the trip. The city is enormous and has some of the best looking skyscrapers I've seen so far. We were meeting Caywood's previous coworker and had to make our way to South St. I had heard about Philadelphia and its one ways, but I was not ready for reality. Google Maps even struggled with getting it right at times. Make sure you look at the signs before you listen to the lady. 

 

South St. was crazy. Traffic was backed up a couple blocks and people were walking through the street with no regard for the cars. There were parked cars on both sides of the street and we got lucky with a spot right by the meeting place. Since it was Sunday, our thought was that parking was free; a $36 parking ticket proved us wrong. At least we didn't have to pay for parking for the rest of the night. 

 

We ate at Jim's Steaks and it was an amazing Philly cheese steak! Eric and his wife Donna treated us to dinner, which was much better than the normal sandwiches. After dinner we took a nice stroll down South St. and Eric gave us a very nice guided tour. There were tons of bars, shops, restaurants, flashing lights, nice cars, bikes, and of course music. It felt like Bourbon Street. I could see myself having a good time roaming around on a weekend. Awesome place. We closed out the night with a short drive to Boathouse Row, which was a little difficult to photograph, but the cell phone camera did it best. 

 

Monday was our day to really explore Philadelphia and as we drove through the heart of the city to Independence Hall, we pissed off a lot of people. Bus drivers, commuters, bikers, and I think even a police officer were irritated by my driving. In my defense, the street signs and turning lanes can be very confusing and hard to see. 

 

Independence Hall was pretty much in the center of the city, the main part covering about 4 blocks. We were told to get tickets to see Independence Hall itself and that was the first thing we did. We had about an hour before our scheduled tour so we stood in line for about 15 min to see the Liberty Bell and headed over to security for Independence Hall. There are other building there that you don't need a ticket for. We did those first, then got in line with our tickets in hand. Not only did they let us keep our tickets for memorabilia, they even trusted that they were the right tickets without checking them. I'm pretty sure the people behind us didn't even have tickets. I'm not saying you shouldn't get one, but if you want to go earlier than what they give you, just stand by the line and ask the ranger if you can join. 

 

We had lunch on the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Same stairs that Rocky ran up and did the famous boxing dance. Even thought the statue was not at the top (it was at the bottom on the side), it was fun to watch all the tourist run up the stairs and reenact that famous moment. After finishing my sandwich, I ran up the stairs and did my version of the scene while Caywood laughed through her camera lens. 

 

On our way out we stopped at Old City. Google Maps did not lead us to the right place - search for Elfreth's Alley. Very cool! Lots of old and neat stuff. 

 

Overall, Philadelphia was great! Again, so much to do and not enough time to do it. I would come back for a second tour. I would not drive my own car again though: taxi or bus. To anyone that was in Philly driving the same time we were, I am sorry. Tourist. 

 

Parking was extremely difficult and meters were confusing. We did not see a lot of tourists, minus Independace Hall and Rocky Stairs. The locals were very aggressive drivers and all seemed to be in a very big hurry.