Today we spent the day in Philadelphia. We took some friendly advice and decided to take a tour around the city. Thank goodness we did too, because there is so much to see, and the tour guides were all able to give us great advice on how to see as much as we could/wanted to in our single day in the city. We took Philadelphia Trolley Tour/Big Bus Tour which let us take either the trolley or the double decker bus. It was slightly cheaper than Philadelphia Sightseeing Tour, and it offered a relatively easy to use shuttle from our hotel to the start of the tour, along with hop-on/hop-off riding for the day.
The morning started early when the fire alarms went off at 5 am. They turned off after a minute of us shuffling around trying to find shoes. Leah called the front desk and we discovered someone tried to go out an emergency exit, so I went back to sleep. When we finally woke up for the day, we realized the hotel didn't offer free breakfast, so we walked across the street to a Wawa convenience store and grabbed coffee and breakfast sandwiches, then came back to the hotel to figure out the shuttle system. After talking to the lady at the front desk, we figured it out. The shuttle man came to pick us up in our own private trolley and gave us a mini tour of the murals on our way to the visitors center from our hotel. Philadelphia is known as the mural capital because it has so many murals around the city, in an assortment of areas. Apparently, they started painting walls with murals in an attempt to decrease graffiti, and for the most part it has been successful. After that, we were dropped off at the visitors center and one of the tour guides helped us get our tickets for the buses. He then recommended we see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall as soon as possible because neither had a long line yet.
We then saw walked into the Liberty Bell building, where we learned about the symbolic significance the bell has offered to many different political movements in its time. A quick detour up the road took us to where Benjamin Franklin's press and bindery were, along with his old house (which is really just the foundation of his house) and an old post office (that still works like it did back in the day, except now it takes credit cards!). When we finally got into Independence Hall (okay, it didn't take that long, it just felt like forever because it was already so hot out!) we were taken on a tour of the building by the most disgruntled National Parks worker either of us had ever seen. He made the exciting history of that building feel dull, like a history class you didn't want to take but had to sign up for in order to have enough units for your scholarship--you expected it to be cool, but it wasn't.
Then we hopped onto a double-decker bus and rode around, soaking in the history and sights of the town from the top level, making notes of where we would want to stop on the way back (the first commercially produced ice-cream, yes please!).
Around 1:30 pm we decided it was time for lunch, so we got off at a stop near the "most famous Philly Cheese Steak" restaurant and made our way to food. Leah had her first Cheesesteak, and she liked it. The food was delicious!
After that, we hopped back onto a bus and stayed inside the air conditioned bottom. We made a quick detour to the visitors center gift shop where we bought some post cards, then hopped onto another bus and rode to the public market where we got delicious ice cream. Then we made our way back to the hotel where we spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to stay cool and plan the next few days of our trip (New York here we come!). The A/C in the hotel room was not functioning properly, and after some time we made our way to a restaurant down the block and planned our trip from there. It started pouring rain, but after it let up, we walked down to Ben Franklin Parkway where we ran up the "Rocky Steps" (Rocky Balboa-style) and looked at the skyline from the top of the art museum steps. Then we walked back to the hotel and called the front desk again about the A/C, which appears to be finally fixed!
Tomorrow: New Jersey to stay with more of Leah's family, American Museum of Natural History ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment