Philadelphia Summary

At first we had a very distinct schedule but due to weather conditions and a slight lack of navigation skills, we did not follow the original exactly. We began by heading North from the drop off point towards the Masonic Temple, which was unfortunately closed due to construction, but we did not let this slow us down. We immediately headed a couple blocks further into Chinatown and noticed a small celebration on the sidewalk in front of a local business. After closer speculation, we realized that this business was the Angel Face Spa & Salon, or simply a barber shop. The owners were celebrating the grand opening had an entire pig being cut up and given away for free along with bread, fruit and other foods. We ventured further east on Race Street in search of any other interesting points in Chinatown until we approached where we thought the Chinatown subway station was and we could not find it. So, we decided to follow Race Street to Independence Hall to see it and find the subway station in that area. Unfortunately we were unable to see some the sights in this district due to many tourists clogging the lines, so we proceeded to enter the Philadelphia Visitor Center in search of directions. While Jackie asked for directions, Pankiewicz and I observed the venue and as Jackie called over to us, the man at the counter said, "Oh, so you brought your body guard with you," giving us all a brief bit of humor to contrast the unfortunately started day, consisting of bad weather and inability to see what we wanted to. After discovering the correct subway to take after bumbling from street corner to street corner at a certain intersection, we were on our way to South Street. Unfortunately in the subway, we encountered some initial difficulties. We wanted our train to bring us to 15th street from our current location of 5th street, and each train going the opposite way had "All Stops" printed on the screen on the side, whereas each train going the direction we wanted had "To 40th Street Station" printed on the screen. We were baffled by the situation and after a solid 15 minutes, we decided to take a risk and get on the train to 40th street. Lo and behold, it did stop at all stops, and we came to 15th street connector in no time, where we could to take the orange line down to South Street and 15th. At this point in time, we encountered a stumbling drunk, barely able to keep himself up, smoking a cigarette, which eventually burned his finger due to his near unconsciousness. This man was a mess at best. After a brief wait, our train came and we were at South Street minutes later. This was the best part of our day. We proceeded down the street taking notice to the magical art garden and then a mosaic garden slightly further down the street. Even further down South Street we took a turn towards the oldest African-American Church in the country known as Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. We entered the great structure, taken away by its fantastic architectural forms, and noticed that service just ended and we couldn't seem to find a great deal else interesting about it, so we decided to leave. Upon exiting the building a woman asked us if we had been downstairs to see the museum, now being excited. The woman turned out to be the current Reverends wife, Mrs. Susan Leath, and she told us about all the interesting spectacles downstairs, so we couldn't leave without seeing them. We headed downstairs and noticed the founders tomb, the original pews from when the church was founded, the ballot box, where the term "blackballed" originated from, among other amazing instruments and furniture. After seeing all we could see, we ventured back to South Street with a vision of cheesesteaks, and shortly thereafter we saw Jim's Steaks. With a line wrapped thrice through a 20 foot front serving area and another 20+ feet of line outside the building, and 8 or more people working behind the counter, we could see that Jim was bringing in the loot. After what seemed to be at least a 30 minute wait, the cheesesteaks arrived and we went upstairs to the seating area to discover our fellow travelers Andre, Bridget, and Emily. After finishing the food, we ventured even further down south street to the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial realizing that we had over an hour and fifteen minutes left of our trip. We briefly explored the monuments and sought shelter from the cold when we were done. We noticed a Hyatt hotel nearby, decided its lobby would satisfy our needs, and proceeded to enter it where we reflected our long day traveling "The City of Brotherly Love."