Philadelphia:
It's not the movie with Tom Hanks. (Well, it is. But not only...)
Monday
Monday, 5am: Been up for a short while. Working on my first cup of coffee....Wait! wait, wait, wait. This should start yesterday...
Sunday
12pm: So, after some discussion, I finally convince my wife that we NEED to buy a laptop. Macbook Air. Shower, hugs, kisses, packing for the week, and I'm off. An hour of playing around at Best Buy and sorting through options, and I go for the Macbook Pro instead. As we live in a fairly rural area, I am already staying the night at my mother-in-laws to make it to the airport at a decent hour. Now I'm locked and loaded with my new toy. Not a bad way to start a trip.
Monday
5am: Here we are. All, caught up. Out the door by 5:45, 10 minute drive to pick up a co-worker. Stop for gas, still making great time. We aren't quite sure what streets the parking structure is on, but we get lucky and find it first try. We are already checked in, we aren't checking luggage, so we just need to wait in line for security and we are good to go.
7:15am: The line for security is literally a quarter of a mile long. No joke. We have an hour and 45 minutes to get through, but it seriously looks like we may not make it. A text from one of the veeps of the company (yes, I said veeps on purpose) assures us that we will make it through relatively quickly. Sure enough, that morning at LAX it only took 30 minutes to walk a 1/4 mile through security. (does it bother you that I wrote 1/4 mile once with a fraction, and once spelled out?)
8:45am: Off we go. Easy flight. Laptop gets played with.
5:00pm: We land in Philly. No sense of the city yet. We meet two of the veeps, find out they are in a different hotel, so we grab the shuttle and get to our room. JJ (co-worker) and I are roomies. We are waiting for J (another co-worker) to show up, as the rental is in his name. He had a later flight.
6:00pm: We spend about an hour on Yelp. Straight up. We're in Philly, and we want to enjoy the food, starting with Monday nights dinner. We settle on trying to find an authentic, comfortable southern Italian restaurant (A Philly staple, says the internet.) We narrow it down, find the right one. Stomachs are so excited we eat the rest of our pre-packaged airline food while we wait for J to arrive.
8:00pm: So, J arrives. Via shuttle. Rental car issues! The rental was booked at a place that was closed by the time J landed. Obviously, the most retarded thing that has ever happened. We try to work magic...nothing. We discuss taking a cab to the restaurant, but that is cost prohibitive. Oh joy! There is a Ruby Tuesday's across the street from the hotel. We are so hungry by this point, we just stumble over.
8:05pm: The inside of Ruby Tuesday’s smells like a lake. The food is nearing horrible, the waiter cannot be bothered to do his job, and we are bummed. Philly doesn't show us its magic or wonders. We feel like we are back in Los Angeles, at some crap-hole chain restaurant. Hoping tomorrow gets off to a better start.
10:00pm: I beat J in a pushup contest. We are all just boys after all.
Tuesday
12:00am: Still awake. Time difference and JJ’s work load to blame. I play You Tube DJ as we rock out to early 90's rock. Tripping Daisies? Check. Cranberries? Check. Pearl Jam? Check and mate. Bed time about 1am.
10:00am: Rental car never gets sorted out. We get the attention of our companies co-owner and travel partner, Mike, and luckily catch a ride to the conference. Light Fair. The super-bowl of Lighting events. So they say. My first time.
10:30am: We park, walk half a block to the Philadelphia Convention Center, and in that short walk, I am already in love with Philly. The buildings are old. OLD. But so well kept. The way I picture those parts of the Great Wall of China they usually show in text books and Wikipedia articles. The smells of a big city, but a DIFFERENT big city. It is really just a great feeling to soak in a new place. It's a cliché, but a well worn one. The sights, the smells, the sounds. Ahh! Philly! We take a sharp turn into the convention center, and off we go.
10:35am: We walk the convention. It's not anywhere near as boring as it may sound, and if it sounds at all interesting to you, then it totally was. I enjoy myself, say hello to the few people I already know in the industry, and poke around.
1pm: LUNCH! Well, as the angel of Philly would have it, we are caddy corner to a famous market. It basically feels like a giant indoor swap-meet, where each booth is a permanent fixture, and the wares being hocked are traditional Italian groceries, ice cream, dry goods, burgers, cheese-steaks, etc. Guess what? We want cheese-steaks. It takes us 10 seconds to spot Carmen's. We know zero percent of nothing about Carmen’s, but the sign says cheese-steaks, and...Well...that’s good enough for us. Plus, we are starving.
1:05pm: As we wait in line, we notice a picture of Obama ordering a cheese-steak sandwich at Carmen’s. Authenticity! Assumptions are made, the largest being that if Obama ordered a sandwich here, and someone took a picture, and he was wearing a suit, then it’s probably a legit place. We get to the front. There are four of us. It is cash only. We have $38 bucks. Sandwiches are $7.75 each. Math is in our favor. We order. The burly, (surly? na) boisterous, half biker, half mechanic guy (who, I think, is also the owner.) takes our order. Want peppers? Sure. Sweet and hot? Yes and yes! Lettuce and tomato? Yeppers! Onions? Why, yes please! So, four orders later, total comes out to $50. Oh. Crap. Those were up-charge questions. Long line, questionable disposition of the order taker/mob-boss/owner, and four dopey tourists without enough money. We basically count our money in front of him and let him figure it out.
"You guys short? Tell you what, give me what you have, we'll get the food started, and right down there is an ATM. Just get what you need and come on back."
Wow! City of brotherly love! Our first (and not only) encounter with extremely nice locals. Not the kind of thing I would be used to experiencing in Los Angeles. (Hey, I love my city too. It’s not like its full of rude jerks. But I don't think that would have happened, at...say, Philippe's...)
FOOD! GOOD! Really, not sure where to go with this. Imagine the best version ever of meat in bread. With American cheese. That is what we're talking here. So good. Not what I was expecting...For some reason I thought the authentic Philly-cheese-steak would have been a little more "high-brow", but its more "down and dirty" and "addictive fast food". Honestly, way better than I thought.
1:30pm: We pay what we are short. It's $12. The one of us that pays (J) gives the guy a $20, he keeps all of it. Our guy assumes that was our balance. Turns out it wasn't. We have a discussion on getting our $8 back. I am on the side of "no". The guy didn't embarrass us, cooked our food before it was paid for, the food was stupid amounts of awesome. Don't go back to him at this point and say "excuse me, kind, but large sir: When we didn't have enough money to pay, we were only short $12. You somehow thought we were short $20, and kept $8 too much. Can you stop the flow of your large line of customers to sort this out for us?" No way. We don't ask for the money. Members of our party that wanted to ask for it (J) let is spoil their cheese-steak experience. I let it enrich mine.
1:35pm: Back to the trade show. Oh joy. Walk and walk. Meet up with the rest of the group (8 of us) at about 6pm.
6:00pm: Off to the first of three parties. First one is hosted by one of our largest business partners. Its in a dance-night-club type of place attached to a restaurant. There are probably 200-250 people crammed in there. All for the party. We eat some bar type finger food, mingle for an hour, and leave. (Oh: The hot-dogs wrapped in croissant rolls are legit.)
8:30pm: Off to the second party. This one is gangsta. (I never say that.) Its IN the Philadelphia Museum of Whatever...The one from Rocky. It's invitation only, we somehow managed to get invitations. We hear later this party is in the neighborhood of $500 a person. This makes me feel super important as the night wears on. I kept thinking, "Someone paid $500 of real money for me to be here tonight." We're in some room of the museum with marble columns, statues, giant tapestries on the walls, two stories, balconies, etc. It looks like the kind of party Bruce Wayne would throw and Joker would crash. It’s awesome. Tri-tip, roasted chicken, asparagus (green AND white), open bars, etc. Nice ladies walking around with desserts, some better than others. (The desserts, not the ladies.) We hob-nob. We enjoy. I vow never to take experiences like this for granted. I am at a party. In a museum. There is a statue of frackin' Rocky outside.
Side note: We walk the only exhibit that is open for us that night. A history of women’s fashion dresses. I'm not even sure what to say about it at this point without sounding like some ignorant jerk. But, man. It was dresses.
10:30pm?: Off to the third and last party. This one is in the lobby of a hotel. The most casual of the bunch. The perfect place to end a long night. People have been enjoying the bar... We watch people flirt. We take mental notes to tease people about stuff the next morning, but totally forget to. We leave around 11.
Wednesday
1am: Finally off to sleep.
7am: Up. Getting ready. JJ and I are off today, the rest of the team is going to Light-Fair. This is our day to explore Philly and take in the sights. On 5 hours of sleep after a long day. I honestly consider spending all day in bed. 10 seconds later I tell myself to stop being so dumb. We pack up, head over the Light-Fair, say goodbye to the troops and start exploring.
9am: Lucky for us, (and we knew this ahead of time), almost everything we wanted to see was within walking distance of the convention center. We start off going to City Hall. There is a statue of Andrew Jackson[1] (I think it's him...) on top of this building. It is the tallest building in the (country? world?) that doesn't use steel straps for support.[2] It’s stone. Freemason’s, and all that. The building is breathtaking. The buildings adjacent to it are breathtaking. I want to sit outside this building with a coffee or snack and just soak it in for an hour or so. It’s the man-made equivalent of wanting to soak in the view of the Grand Canyon, or Yosemite, or a perfect beach on a perfect day.
We find a visitors center, and discover that we can take an elevator to the tippy tip top of the building, then go INSIDE the 35 foot[3] tall statue on top. We buy tickets, and head in.
The building is basically the size of a city block. It is a square with an open courtyard in the center. From the courtyard, there are archways, or tunnels, that let you out in any of the four directions. It’s a giant, stone building. It looks like a castle. It needs a moat. Or Gargoyles, or something. Freemasons are legit. (and secretive.)
We follow directions, take this elevator to that floor, to this elevator to that escalator, and are finally on the 9th floor. A nice old man sees our tickets and starts fussing and apologizing. Apparently, there are some peregrine falcons that live in or around the statue, and once a year the commissioner of animals, or park superintendent, or mayor, or whoever it is goes up there to tag the falcon and do research.
guess what? That day is today! We can't go up. The guy feels horrible. He radio's down to the ladies selling the tickets and lets them know. He tells us we can explore the building, and even lets us know there is a great room on the 4th floor to check out. The Caucus room.
10am: We commence project “Explore City Hall”. We poke around the 7th floor, the first floor on our way down that has anything worth seeing.
This building is OLD! Did I say that? We find a corridor that looks like that scene in every horror movie that takes place is some creepy, old hospital. Have you seen The Frighteners? It feels like the hospital scenes at the end of that movie. I find a restroom. I took a pee in the first toilet that ever flushed.[4]
We head down to the 4th floor. We see a sign that says "art tour on the 2nd and 4th floors." Good enough for us. We find out by observation that this building is a fully functional government entity, as well as a crazy old, creepy building. I love that it's both. There are lawyers and judges milling about, cops, etc. It's like going to the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and finding out it still has rooms for rent. It's odd. And super cool.
We get stopped at the 4th floor by a cop and an older black gentleman. They are sitting at a table, sort of checking people in and out. We look at them out of the corner of our eyes, and start passing them.
"Can I help you? Where you guys going?" says copper.
"Uhh...art tour? " I mumble.
"Oh, you guys just looking around? Enjoy!"
This sparks a 30 minute conversation and is my second experience with people just being way nicer than you would ever expect. This cop and other dude (like, some civil volunteer, or something) tell us all about the building...Ask us where we are from...tell us to walk around. The cop literally tells us to try doors, and if they are open, to go in and look. "Yeah, I left them unlocked for you." He really made me believe he left these doors unlocked for us.
Building trivia: It took 30 years to build.[5] It was first open in 1900 (1906?)[6] For nearly a decade, there was a law that no building in the city could be taller than the top of the statue on this building. [7] This helped preserve all of the old buildings in the city and is one of the things that gives Philly its unique, historic feel. There used to be a huge pigeon problem in and around City Hall, but that problem mysteriously disappeared after the Peregrine Falcons moved in. :-)
Go poke around? Yes please! After getting two copies of a "civil rights" inspired newspaper that the other guy writes a column for, we say "please and thank you", and head off.
10:30am: We find the caucus room. It’s amazing. There is a giant, circular table with about 15 chairs. There is a chandelier with over 100 lamps, paintings and portraits, gorgeous architectural features. It looks like a room that belongs in the white house. No one is in there, so we go in, snap some pictures, and soak it in.
The rest of our City Hall experience pretty much goes the same way. We poke around, find awesome, old rooms, take some pictures, chat. etc.
(Side note: My travel partner, JJ, was about as perfect of a companion as you can find. Complementary personality, just as nerdy as me, just as appreciative of the small things, in it for the experience, etc.)
11:15am: Not quite hungry for lunch, we grab a snack at a liquor store. I grab my wife birthday cards. (It's tomorrow, on this timeline.) JJ needs to hit the Verizon store for some emergency blackberry service. We mellow out for a bit.
11:45am: We walk the 5 (or ten?) blocks down to the Constitution Center area. Tons of school kids. Field trips. We basically land right at the liberty bell. There is a large, open park that spans 4 blocks or so. At one end is the Constitution Museum, at the other end is Independence Hall. In the middle is a large visitors center, and the Liberty Bell Museum.
12:30pm: The Liberty Bell: Simple, elegant building, with a few small displays, then the Liberty Bell at the end. Very cool to see. The Liberty Bell is placed in front of a large glass wall that looks out over Independence Hall. This is as "National Treasure" as we got, and it was great. The original wooden mounting is still attached the the bell.
1pm: We head over to Independence Hall. The large tower is being worked on, so it is covered in scaffolding, which seriously impacts the view. Oh well. Even worse: You need tickets for the tour (free), and they are timed. We head back to the Visitors Center, and find that the only tickets available are too late for us. Crap. Off to the Constitution Center!
1:30pm: So...turns out the Constitution Center doesn't actually have The Constitution. Weak. We see one of the first public printings, watch a video (type thing), get creeped out by life sized statues of every person that signed the Declaration, get roped into a 15 minute conversation with an employee who reminded me of Fred Arminson playing that blind governor[8] on SNL, see an exhibit on traitors, spies, terrorists, and all of the dark things in US history (it's creepy), and head out.
2pm: It's raining! We haul butt about 5 or so blocks back, get SOAKED. Laptop! In my backpack! Free civil rights newspapers! Quick! Wrap the laptop in the newspapers! JJ! Help! is it wet?! Oh crap! Rain! WHY?!?!?
2:15pm: Crisis averted. We go into a K-Mart, I get some towels to wrap my lap-top in. Ladies at the checkout are super nice, let me unpack my bag, tend to my laptop, etc right on their checkout stands.
We find ourselves in a large, indoor mall, and make our way to the food court.
2:20pm: Cheesesteaks? Yes please! We figure we are at a food court in the mall, and these are not going to be as good as yesterdays. Correct. But still easily the second best cheesesteak I have ever eaten. JJ and I make an observation about what makes the locals so nice. They are almost aloof, and can’t be bothered. But then you realize they are just super playful and fun. The gal[9] working the register is smiling and teasing us as we order, all the while telling the cooks next to her that if they don't stop teasing her, she is going to lay them flat out. We enjoy the local color.
This really happened to JJ while waiting for our sandwiches:
"Where you from?"
"Los Angeles"
"You should have brought some of that sunshine with you!"
"Actually, it’s raining back home right now, too."
"Well, why don't you leave some sunshine in our tip jar and leave with some sunshine of your own!"
He obliges, the cooks act super surprised, and give him huge, beaming smiles.
I go back for some ketchup (catsup?)[10], and one of the employee's is taking to a friend over the counter.
"Excuse me, is this ketchup?"
"Yeah, and mustard and hot sauce all mixed up."
I shrug, and go for it. Sounds good to me.
It’s just ketchup. He smiles at me.
"Just kiddin'." -says worker guy
"I thought it sounded good." -me
"That’s how you make wing sauce" -worker guy
"Say it true, say it true" -worker guys friend.
"I ain't lyin'. I just gave you my secret recipe!" -Worker guy.
I record all of this somewhere in my brain and swear never to forget it.
3pm: J calls us, he is free of Light-Fair. We meet him up. With about an hour and a half before we have to head to the airport, he has little time, but wants to see something cool. Its close, and it was the coolest thing, so we head back to City Hall. J gets to see the Caucus room, super nice guy cop (George) is gone, but we tell J the story.[11]
City Hall enjoyed.
4:30pm: Cab hailed. Back to the hotel, which is a free shuttle ride away from the airport, and where our luggage is waiting. JJ chats up the cabbie, who is from Haiti. He stops himself just short of asking if the cabbie had any family affected in the earthquake, but I could HEAR him almost ask. He confirms this later. Good catch, JJ.
5:00pm: Luggage grabbed. We get the shuttle. J is on a different flight, so we get dropped off at two different gates. We say goodbye to J. Moments after we print out boarding passes, JJ realizes he left his cell phone on the shuttle. We are SUPER early for our flight (J's flight was an hour plus earlier that ours, but we wanted to share cab fare), so we aren't too worried. JJ calls the hotel, and the shuttle driver brings his phone back. City of Brotherly Love! Again! No one even acts annoyed by us. How wonderful.
8:45pm: After 2 hours plus of lounging around the airport, we are locked and loaded, ready to fly home. (side note, the flight attendants were not nice at all. A woman said she was not comfortable sitting in the emergency isle, and they basically treated her like garbage. No way were they from Philly.)
?:??pm: Somewhere, some time zone, over some state--JJ and I attempt to watch Top Secret[12] on my laptop. We do not stay awake.
11:45pm: LAX! After shuttle, car, drive back, etc, I am snug in bed by 1:30am, Thursday. (my wife's birthday!)
Thursday
9:00am: Back to work!!!!
-Philly, May 16-18, 2011.
[1] Fact check-It’s William Penn. I was wrong.
[2] I cant prove this, but I swear I heard it from someone.
[5] This is true.
[6] 1901
[7] Okay. It was a “gentleman’s agreement”, and wasn’t broken until 1987.
[8] David Alexander Paterson
[9] She pretty much reminded me of Rosie Perez in appearance, accent, and attitude. In a good way?
[10] Ketchup is the dominant term in American English and Canadian English; tomato sauce is not a synonym for ketchup in either, where it refers to pasta sauce. Commonwealth English (e.g., in Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa) largely favors the term tomato sauce instead of ketchup. Other terms include tomato ketchup, catsup, and red sauce.
[11] (Oh, forgot to mention. This is how nice George was: He told us, "next time you guys are in Philly, come up to the 4th floor, ask for George, and I'll make sure you get up to the statue"...Who says this to strangers you met 30 minutes ago?)
[12] Confirmed from another travel partner: Top Secret has not stood the test of time. UHF, on the other hand, totally has.
Like it Brad! Sounds like an awesome trip! Love your 90's music references. I have the same love deep within my loins...
ReplyDeleteWay to go on the Macpro! You will never look back-- but if you do, you'll just get nauseous. Have a great summer!