Cheesesteaks and 75c beer.

I’m getting behind in my journal. I started writing this entry as I was leaving Philadelphia and here I am, finally finishing it up, after I’ve since been to Boston and I’m now in Toronto, about to leave tomorrow.

I felt like starting out this entry with just some general reflections of my present travelling experiences that I’ve been mulling over in my brain – writing them out helps me to sort of consolidate my own thoughts. This is such a different vibe to travelling in Europe. There are subtle differences in terms of the crowds at hostels, less people on long winded trips (because North America physically don’t let you do it), more British people than in Europe, when you do run into Australians they’re on longer trips. Me deciding to bring a suitcase with me had been a thing of contention for me. My next trip, should there be one, I’ll likely do the backpack on wheels thing. I’d wanted to try to feel as normal as possible here but there are impracticalities – a lot of hostels don’t have elevators for example. Emotionally the experience is different – there is an end point, and there’s sporadic support systems throughout the way. I’ve hardly been in touch with anyone from home – I haven’t heard much at all from friends, not even on Facebook, and so this online support network I’ve built have been proving themselves as being fiercely loyal. My muse hasn’t kicked into gear like I’d hoped – oh well. Big deal. I’m still feeling up in the air about life. The good thing about travelling is that no one judges your story. At home, I sense the judgement – yes, that’s right, I changed my degree and deferred and now I’ve been looking for work and now I can’t find work so I thought I’d go flitting around the world again. A lot of people you meet travelling have similar stories about the travel bug and that intense need to see the world around them, the fear of getting bogged down in the mundanity of life.


In many ways my experience travelling has proved to me in the online sense who are friends and who are acquaintances. The people who know I’m abroad and might be in their area and they haven’t shot through a PM or whatever. Doesn’t exactly make me feel the need to go out of my way to meet them, no matter how much other people swear by their goodness. The people who make the effort to alter their posting habits to cross my path, to come onto Twitter more than maybe they did before, to come into Off Topic threads when they didn’t used to... it means so much to me. It’s lonely here at times, no one to REALLY share it with, and it doesn’t help when you don’t hear from people who you’d normally expect to hear from and when you do it’s rather superficial. Yeah I’m off doing amazing things and seeing the world – doesn’t mean that I don’t crave human interaction.


Anyway. To move on from my musing, to talk about my experience in Philadelphia. So for a first this trip, I was using means other than aircraft to hop between cities – I’ve got a few Megabus trips booked on the east coast and also from Milwaukee – Chicago. Megabus are SUPER cheap – context, is that I think the most expensive date I booked was my bus from Boston to New York City which is on July 5th, a bank holiday this year. It was $13. Originally I hadn’t been sure about Philadelphia. I was looking at my itinerary and shuffling things around – one of the things I was building around was that I had to be in NYC after a particular date because Nel was going away for summer camp for a week. Anyway and I remember posing the question to people with a few possible cities, including Philly, Denver, Salt Lake... I wound up ignoring all the feedback and choosing Philly because Megabus introduced a new route from DC – Philly (previously to get from DC – Philly you could’ve gotten a bus from DC – NYC and then from NYC – Philly) which had a promotional sale and I scored a $1 ticket. Bargain. Part of why Megabus is so cheap is because they don’t have ‘stations’ or facilities in the US. It’s just like a regular bus stop on the side of the street at a designated location. In Washington DC it was in a parking lot, and to the side there was a fancy shade cloth – definitely fancier than the Philly or NYC stations I can now tell you – and a homeless bum on the side of the crowd of people shouting at us all to hurry up or we’ll miss the bus. Anyway, as I was waiting in this parking lot I realised that I didn’t have my guide book with me! I have a Let’s Go USA book which truthfully I’ve hardly looked at – but it’s a nice security blanket to have, most of the cities I’m going to it has a mini map and so worst case scenario if I can’t procure a map straight away upon arrival I could dig out the book to help me navigate to my hostel if necessary.


So we had more emotional tears from me and because I was frantically looking through my bag thinking SURELY I’d just not looked properly and it was on the bottom, as the people stood up from where they were milling around and started to queue up, I was shoved toward the back even though I’d gotten there before most of them. I knew exactly where it would’ve gone – there was this gap between my bed and the sofa in DC and I had knelt down and glanced there but evidently not hard enough. I’m more annoyed with myself than anything – travelling with a mini laptop renders a guidebook pretty meaningless, you can Google just about everything, it’s mainly the map thing but my fingers are crossed that I’ll be able to push through without it. I’ve told myself from the beginning that as long as I don’t lose my wallet, passport or camera, it doesn’t matter. And preferably not my netbook either. Clothes, books – whatever. I can replace it. As was pointed out when I was initially freaking out about the matter on Twitter I could get the hostel to courier it somewhere but I seriously don’t know if the DC hostel would do that sort of thing (they weren’t very... accommodating with that sort of thing) and even if they did, it’s a big thick heavy book and the price it would cost, seriously, it would be cheaper to buy the exact same book again and dress it up identically so I feel like I never lost it.


Anyway so after all that I spent most of the bus ride to Philly from DC stewing – although I did get my first experience of enjoying the novel wifi on board Megabus, and also had a mini flip out when I realised we were going past Baltimore. (Note: where Hairspray is set.) I arrived in Philly and managed to find my way to the hostel. One of the loud British girls who had been in DC had raved about the hostel I was going to and first impressions – it lived up. Apple Hostel is in the HI chain which I’d been dubious about. In Europe, Hostelling International hostels are known for being dowdy, boring, bland. They’ll be clean though, and a lot of cities/smaller towns that don’t have hostels in Europe will have a HI which was nearly always when I stayed in one – when there was no other option. However in the US it seems that HI are different – I’ve got two more booked after Apple, both in NYC and Boston... actually my Chicago one might be HI affiliated too, I can’t quite remember. They are advertised as featuring fun and parties and bar crawls – the opposite of in Europe, where they are more ‘family friendly.’ Apple Hostel is the best hostel I’ve stayed at in North America so far. I wish I’d been in Philly longer just to enjoy the hostel. In an awesome location in a street between Market and Chestnut (two of the main streets) near the river front. It was clean and immaculate – I personally saw staff coming in to do periodic checks of the bathroom in our dorm on probably four occasions. Little things when you’re travelling like lots of power outlets throughout the room, little lamps for each bunk, plenty of space so you can have your suitcase out without making it impossible to walk around. These little things you come to appreciate, once you’ve stayed in a hostel where you’re fighting to be able to charge your camera. There was a comfy lounge, great strong Wifi access, a super cute kitchen and dining area. It was only a few dollars more a night than the shithole in Washington DC. My only gripe is that there was this like, dim censor light in the entry to the room which would only work at night once the lights were turned off (which gets done around 11pm by staff) and it was a strong censor – I had a bed really close to the door and if I rolled over, the light came on. But the concept of the sensor light was fantastic – it was just executed in a way where I was afraid to move haha.


Anyway on day 1 I arrived around maybe 3pm? I took my time settling in because the minute I’d arrived – thunderstorm. Good timing. The hostel staff (including HOTTIE RYAN) assured us when we checked in (a group of us sort of walked in around the same time and had commented to one another how glad we were that we missed the storm) that in Philly it would be fine again in 20 minutes. They were right. Anyway so once it was pretty much fined up I went off for a bit of an explore in the immediate area around the hostel. I love when people think I look so self assured that I must be a local and I get asked for directions. These people pulled me over almost as soon as I hit a main street and I was like, ‘um, I think it’s that way but let’s look at my map (which I’d gotten for free at the hostel) to be sure.’ It was still pretty grey and spitting a bit so I didn’t go too far, just to get a feel for the immediate area. I went to a cafe, hungry because I hadn’t had a proper lunch, ready to have my first Philly Cheesesteak experience. I enjoyed it muchly and I think my body was happy with me that I fed it red meat – I’m weird with red meat, I never really crave it or want it but when I eat it I usually enjoy it a lot, particularly beef – like I’ll usually choose a chicken burger but if I have a beef burger I always really enjoy it. Anyway. Enough about my eating habits.


I went back to the hostel ready for the bar crawl they had planned – I don’t usually get into planned hostel activities but in North America this is only the second hostel that has even ran anything like this –the other was in Vancouver and it was like a dumb trivia night – and it was preluded by free drinks so I was like, count me in. Now, it was a Thursday night and I know Thursday nights often have major drink specials but OH MY GOD. To begin with, the hostel provided hard liquor – like they put out bottles of vodka, gin, rum, bourbon and mixers and it was a free for all. Surprisingly no one was really free for alling – evidently not many Australians were around. At the first bar I paid one dollar, one single dollar, for a bottle of bud light. At the second bar, they had as drink specials cans of beer for SEVENTY FIVE CENTS. If you didn’t want the crappy seventy five cent beer, just about the most expensive beer was two dollars. At the third bar SPIRITS were a dollar. ONE DOLLAR. Some of my university professors talk about ‘I remember back in the day when you could get a rum and coke for a dollar in Surfers Paradise... oh those were the days.’ If I was LUCKY I’d pay $4 for a spirit mixer at home. Average is six or seven dollars, I’ve paid up to $10 some places. SO THIS WAS INSANE. Given tipping culture, someone asked the guy from the hostel, and he said that he wouldn’t put down a dollar for a dollar drink so he’d order two at once and leave a dollar, or like, buy for a friend so they could do the same. EVEN TAKING INTO ACCOUNT TIPPING THIS IS RIDICULOUS. SEVENTY FIVE CENTS FOR BEER. Alcohol is so cheap in the United States; I’d already made this observation in grocery stores so I don’t know why this surprised me so much. And yet Australia evidently has this massive drinking problem... proves that charging more doesn’t do anything to curb the problem. At the hostel the guy had told us to bring no more than $30 and that was if we were planning to have a HUGE night. I was like, um, at home that’s four drinks. One of the bars also had tacos for a dollar. How convenient is that!


Anyone who knows me well knows that sometimes I don’t handle my alcohol well – I’ve had nights where I have nine vodkas and I’m barely feeling it; but sometimes it goes the other way. I guess I haven’t drank in a while (other than a few drinks at Audrey’s which had food among it all) and mixing the vodka and beer (when I don’t even like beer, also) just made it bad. Anyway, I could feel that I wasn’t coping well and it was like, I could keep drinking and just vomit and then not be able to see any of Philly the next day, or I could call it quits. So I called it quits. In typical drinking fashion, I grabbed a slice of pizza and a bottle of water from a place right near the hostel – I’ve no idea how much it cost – where the guy in line behind me got angry at me when he asked if he could have a bite of my pizza and I said no. It was only around midnight when I stumbled into bed.


I did okay the next morning. I let myself sleep in til 9:30; I had a bad headache but Nurofen fixed that. The hostel breakfast was cereal (which they only provide Friday, Saturday and Sunday; how convenient that I was there Friday Saturday morning :)) which I ate some of but then just threw the rest out. I had coffee; and then set out to explore Philly – and about two blocks away was tempted by one of the many, many, many street vendors (think, mini silver caravans; like the pretzel/hotdog vendors in New York City) selling food – a bacon egg and cheese sandwich was calling out to me. MUCH BETTER FOR SLIGHT HANGOVER. With that in my system I was pretty much good to go. I started out just walking around and even though Philadelphia isn’t that big, I was under time pressure and for $5 you can get a hop on hop off ticket for one of the buses which is designed for tourists – it stops at the main tourist stops. So I got that from the visitor information center.


Philly is really trying really hard to be known for more than a Cheesesteak Sandwich, and rightfully so. There’s a lot of history in this relatively small city (at least the city centre isn’t that big comparative to other cities) and for free, they’re willing to share it. Around the tourist spots there are these little ‘story time’ spots with workers/volunteers (not sure which one) there and you can go up and they’ll tell you a historic story about that spot. In the visitor information center there’s people dressed up in... erm... olden day clothing? Haha. And singing songs and telling stories and sort of providing half entertainment half useful historical information. There’s a push for historically related tourism, taking you to the important sites in the context of Philadelphia history on tour buses – both narrated (expensive) and like the one I did (cheap, just taking you there).


I only really had a day in Philly and I honestly didn’t even make it a packed day, but I feel like it gave me a really excellent taste for the city. I went out to Penn’s Landing to have a look at the river, in the area around the information center with the Liberty Bell and the Constitution Center. Generally up that end (between the river and the information center; where my hostel is about in the middle) is the historical district – ‘old town’ – with a lot of the older buildings. I went out as far west as the ‘Free Library’ (I’m honestly not quite certain whether this is relevant in that in the US libraries aren’t free; or that when it was first established it was unique in being free. It’s in a VERY old buildings) which still functions as a library and I went for a wander inside in the older sections and you could just SMELL the history – that musty book smell that if you have an inner geek like me you kind of love. There’s a lot of funky historical type buildings and monuments in that area that I won’t bore you with a recollection of. I then headed to the town hall area which sort of seemed to be like the CBD, a lot of the buildings were new, highrises, with businesspeople in suits rushing about and a Starbucks on every other corner. This is where I got my second Cheesesteak from a street vendor this time and took it to ‘Love Park’ (aka JFK Plaza) called so because there’s this really cute photo spot with like a modern art funky ‘LOVE’ thingy and in the background a view of the fountain and found a corner of shade to eat my lunch. As I was headed back to find the bus stop a random err... less fortunate looking... gentlemen approached me. The United States, in every city I’ve been to, there is a homeless problem. Philly wasn’t bad in the area where my hostel was but on the subway (which I only used getting to and from the Megabus stop and my hostel when I arrived and left Philly) and in this CBD area there were the most prominent population. Sometimes they just ask for money, you look away (and ifyou’re me you feel incredibly guilty every time) or apologise and say you don’t have any cash on you or whatever. Sometimes, if they’re male, they come up and act like they’re hitting on you and then ask for money. This is the worst kind, the ones that get into my space and where I start to clutch to my bag a little more firmly. I’d told myself that next time this happened I’d pretend I like, didn’t speak English. I could say in Japanese ‘do you speak Japanese?’ but it would sound Asian and weird if they were vaguely educated and so I instead thought I’d start to talk in German. (I know about three sentences in German.) I got as far as ‘Sprechen...’ and the guy started to talk to me in German! I was like, oh shit. So then I had to admit that I didn’t speak German, he laughed, and then I said ‘look, sorry, don’t want to talk to you and don’t have any money’ and got up and left.


Another random story about people asking for money is that I’ve used a few times, when I’ve got my luggage with me, at train stations/subway stations. A lot of the time people are asking for money to get on the whatever form of transport it is. I tell them that I’ve just arrived in America and I don’t have any cash on me and if they’d like some Australian coins they can have them. They sort of blink and walk away – this is where I got my bright idea of speaking in German from lol.


To round off the day I finished with a spot of shopping which was mostly unsuccessful (my newfound love Old Navy were having this MASSIVE sale but all the stuff in my size range was gone (typical). I had Cheesesteak for my third time for dinner, for a bit of difference ordering a Chicken Cheesesteak (so, instead of beef it’s chicken...) which my chicken loving self quite enjoyed.


That wraps up the basic gist of Philadelphia...