P Stands For Philly: Part 1

Arriving in Philadelphia, I knew that my historical buttons would be pressed that day and prepared myself for a cultural and educational experience. I plodded off to the visitors centre, the only tourist (amongst many) laden down with baggage on his back.

The first stop of my day was at the National Constitution Center, which served me two functions. Firstly, learning about the constitution and it's many, many amendments and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, giving me a place to store my bag for the rest of the day (handily included in admission). I spent a while in the museum, first attending the main exhibit on the constitution which is their permanent exhibit and then viewing two other exhibits. The first was 'Speaking Out For Equality: the Constitution, Gay Rights, and the Supreme Court' which was an exhibit exploring the history of gay rights in the USA which was a fantastic exhibit attended to by some older members of the LGBT community who had lived their lives through these social changes and made the exhibit more interesting by being able to interact with them. 

The Second exhibit was a photo gallery of the life of President John F. Kennedy, his wife, Jackie, and their family life. It was a bitter sweet exhibit.

Next up, and with my bag safely stashed away I visited the Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence was discussed, created and signed. It is often considered to be the birthplace of American Independence and we were lucky enough to be guided around it. 

Originally housed in Independence Hall was the Liberty Bell, as seen below. Now it is on display in a nearby museum due to its fragility and symbol of American independence. In fact, it didn't work very well as a bell at all and cracked on its very first ding (no dong to be heard). It was remade twice, still cracked and is now protected as back in the good old days of destructive tourism, people used to steal bits of it. Fun.

All this history was making me hungry, so off I went in search for the not so elusive Philadelphia cheese steak. My research took me to a crossroads where the cheese steak was first created by the Olivieri brothers in 1930. 

Their recipe of fast cooked rib meat, covered in your choice of cheese (liquid cheese - sounds disgusting, is disgusting but great, provolone cheese or sliced American cheese) served in a long soft roll was the only of its kind until 1966, when a rival store known as Geno's opened up right across the street. Nowadays, they're still in competition. 

I chose to go with Pat's and learnt how to order it correctly. Basically, you say two words to order your cheesesteak. The first word you say is the cheese you want (whiz, provo, American) and the second is your preference of onions (wit or wit-out). So to order a cheese whiz sandwich with onions, I should have said 'whiz wit' and that would have been enough. I chickened out though and ended up just doing a 'boring order'. Oh well, the result was the same and boy, oh boy, was it delicious.

I walked around the streets of Philadelphia for a while, enjoying the sunny day and happening upon patriotic dinosaurs and interesting looking buildings, before heading back to the Constitution Center to be reunited with my bag.

While I was waiting to meet my host for the next two nights, I decided I needed to experience something I'd seen a lot of Americans divulge themselves with, and that is one of the Dunkin' Donuts absolutely ginormous drinks, as seen below. It was difficult to drink this much liquid in one sitting, but I got there and ended up going to the toilet a lot. When in America...

The picture doesn't do justice to how massive this drink is.

Shortly after, I met Stephen, my host, and we walked back to his place together. He lived alone in a three story house, but always had couch surfers staying. I would be staying in the gym room as I was a last minute guest, but I was quite comfortable. Also staying with him at the time was a young guy who'd just completed part of the Appalachian trail, something I'd love to do one day. I asked him about his scariest experience on the trail and he told me about how once, when he was running along the trail in the pouring rain trying to find dry shelter, he turned his torch and saw a family of wild boar! Well, safe to say his run turned into a sprint and he saw no more of the pigs that can be quite dangerous, especially when there are piglets around.

I popped out to a place called Sidecar Bar and Grill where I enjoyed a burger, before heading back to Stephen's to chat with him and lay my head down for a while. The next day was to be another interesting one. Read about it in my next post!

Dan