After the short bus trip from B-town over to Philly it was surprisingly nice to see nothing but trees and the remainder of snow. Yet again the trees were bare, the grass was non-existent and there was fuck all really to look at as we travelled over to the once upon a time capital of USA. Heading into the city I wasn’t too sure how it was going to pan out as the bus stop was in the middle of the city. Being an Aussie that had never been there before I was unsure as to where exactly I was. There were a few buskers and beggars so I figured it was safe enough to catch a cab as it was only 7 blocks up the road. This hostel was by far one of the smallest but one of the best hostels that I have EVER stayed at! They had 24 bed dorm which was sweet cause there was heaps of room between bunks, the lockers were outside of the room as too was the bathroom. They had power points within the lockers which was a huge bonus as you could lock stuff up on charge and not worry about shit getting stolen. Every night they put on new things, pub crawls, club crawls, tours and free drinks.
During the first day I was able to find a real funky craft beer bar with southern style food. A Sampler plate of different meats, mac n cheese and coleslaw. The local beer was priddy nice too. I still didn’t get the fact that every city I have gone to, they have pale ale beer which is really an amber ale in colour and taste… last time I checked that was amber ale. I don’t enjoy it at all as its way too hoppy for my liking but at the end of the day it wasn’t all that bad and it was cheap! After a good feed I headed back to the hostel as I still wasn’t feelin the best n fighting my damn cold but in saying this there was a Ghost walking tour of old town Philly. This tour cost $2 and they took us around to Benjamin Franklin’s grave, an old bank with a few different stories how 2 employee’s (who lived upstairs to the bank back in the 1700’s) stole over $170,000 between them and then slowly deposited the money back into their bank accounts at the same bank! Seriously, some people weren’t overly smart back in the day. The tour guide then continue to tell us that they were released from jail after being caught and then they were allowed to go back to the bank and resume living in their apartment above the bank!!!! I was priddy tripped out about it however not really a ghost story. Travelling through the city streets at night was awesome and very very safe. The hostel was right out the front of the Customs building which was used for the Ghost Busters movie where the Marshmallow man climbed up onto the big massive building. This building was amazing and HUGE! At night it was all lit up and looked like something out of Gotham city. With further stories and random buildings through the neighbourhood it was time to head back to the hostel where free beer was provided and a crappy movie to go with it. Not bad for $2 I say!
The following day I got my shit together and headed out on a massive walk and checked out the Liberty Bell, Benjamin Franklin’s grave, Independence Hall, and the Mosaic Museum. As the weather started to turn abit crappy I found a small Cheese Steak place and had my first Philly Cheesesteak. I was overhearing a lot of people order their meals as I knew from the random food TV shows, that there was a specific way to order the cheesesteaks. “A cheese steak with” is a cheese steak with onions and then you tell them which sort of cheese you want and any salads or toppings. OMG this thing was really big but really tasty and of course you could order beer with it. This cute little place had hundreds of signatures and pictures up on the wall from heaps of famous people like John Candy, Bruce Willis, a ton of Basketball and Baseball players and a heap of others that I really didn’t know about. Once I got back to the hostel I was then told that this place was the BEST place in Philly to actually get their famous cheesesteaks. I was really impressed and most def had an amazing meal.
Later on this evening, I met up with the Vizzarri family in Philly. John was super nice and arranged to pick me up from my hostel and take me back to his place where his wife and other family members prepared a massive dinner for what seemed like an army! I hadn’t met anyone before, nor has my family, so I had the pleasure to go over and have dinner and meet everyone and try and work out how we are all related. It was an amazing night with all the stories, the history, the different people and the delicious food and drink. I honestly felt like I was in my dining room back home with all the extended family around. Instantly knew that YEP we were most definitely related and more so for the fact that our great grandfathers were from the same town within Italy. I had a blast but sadly it was getting late and most people had to work in the morning so we said our extended see-ya’s and John was awesome and drove be back down to my hostel with a small guided tour of the city on the way back. I couldn’t believe how loving and welcoming the whole family were. It wasn’t til I got back that I was soooo overwhelmed that I had the best opportunity thus far, in meeting them all and sharing many laughs and great stories. Was definitely a special moment in my life that will never be forgotten.
On my last full day in Philly I took the bus over to the Penitentiary Prison and had an audio guided tour of the place with small little interaction tours within closed off sections to the public. The surgery room, the death row and the punishment rooms. Each place was soooooo creepy yet amazing. 9/10 of the prison hadn’t been restored or retouched so it was all in ruins giving it a textured look and feel to it. The moisture in the air gave it a damp smell to it and it was real dark in some cell blocks. I found out that Al Capone also stayed at this jail too. It seemed like that I found him in San Fran at Alcatraz, Miami at one of his houses he used to own and then in this prison too!
Having seen 90% of the prison and spending approx. 4 hours there I really had to push on and start walking over to the Museum of Art to see the Rocky statue and to climb the steps. And that I did. There was a guy there who was selling tshirts out the front of the museum who was happy enough to take a whole bunch of pictures of me (for a tip of course). Since I was travelling alone it was one of those opportunities that I needed to take up cause selfies sometimes don’t really cut it. Scored a rocky tshirt with the tip too so everyone was laughin. From there I made my way down Franklin Parkway where all the flags from around the world we on display which made its way down to City Hall. This massive building had soooooo many different features to it, Gothic statues of what looked like dragons and some other bird towards the top of the building, a statue of Ben Franklin on the very top and fantastic designs around the windows. I was easily there walking around the building for about an hour just taking pictures and taking it all in. I also found my way walking through the LOVE park and had a small chat to a Police officer about the city and about my photography.
As the afternoon was pushing on I needed to make my 2 km treak back to the hostel as I figured it would only take another 30 min or so to get there. The city itself was real busy at that time of day and a few shady people out the front of Macy’s department store. Quickly packing away my camera’s and with earphones in I managed to avoid any sort of begging or communication with these people which is a bonus, cause most people always want to talk to me about everything and anything. On the way back I realised that It was getting way late and needed to do laundry which was going to take another 2 hours due to drying issues with certain clothing articles and was sadly have to bail on a couple of the Vizzarri’s who had invited me out to dinner at a restaurant in the city. Unfortunately it was something that I had to miss but at least I got a good handful of free drinks at the hostel while I was doing my laundry. They provided 2 hours of free spirits at the hostel and then they pushed on for a pub crawl which started at 9pm. I had just finished doing laundry and repacked my bag just after 9.15pm and was very lucky to see that the guy running the pub crawl was waiting on a few other people and managed to jump on the band wagon and hit 2 different bars which were literally 2 blocks away so it made for an easy crawl back. I had met soooo many different Australians during the course of the night and had so many laughs and good conversations. The different bars we visit were all unique within themselves and one that stood out for me was a bar that stuck credit cards on the walls of the bar. People that had left them behind, he paid their tabs and then stuck them to the wall making a mosaic wall of different cards… easily 300 + cards over 12 years from what I was told. I had to do the dues and leave the crawl as it was getting late and I had yet again another early start in the morning to push on to the next city. Philly by far is most definitely a place I would consider to live, if I had to live anywhere in the states. So thank you again but onwards to my next destination…. New York!!!!
