Philadelphia, "The City of Brotherly Love". I'd never have coined that phrase for this city, but it is what it is. The last time I was here, it felt like New York City would have been had the Erie Canal not been built. Now, the city seems to be growing up with quite a few tall skyscrapers being built. And this would be our destination for the next few days.
If we didn't have non-refundable Amtrak tickets, we would have postponed this trip. What we didn't know at the time of booking was that the second presidential debate would be held during our visit, and that our plans to visit Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the Constitution Center, and the US Mint would be scotched for the day we planned to visit. However, there were enough other things to do, that RQS and I would likely be busy for the 3 days we would be here.
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Our day started by getting showered and dressed, and out the door to Penn Station, NYC. Although this was a weekend, the subway's weekend schedule didn't make it overly hard for us to reach Penn Station in a reasonable amount of time. (Often, the weekend schedules might force us to make multiple unneeded transfers to reach some parts of Manhattan, as some routes are shortened and don't facilitate the transfers we need to make.) By 2:30 pm, we were on the train and off to Philly.
Once we reached Philly, it was off to our hotel. I was surprised to find that the hotel was on a narrow street that was too narrow for a cab to drop off passengers without blocking traffic. Yet, the hotel was in a busy an relatively safe neighborhood. So it appeared that I again had a made a good choice in places to stay.
After having a chance to rest, it was off to a Japanese place for Sushi, and then off for Ice Cream before trying to take an Uber home. And this is where the first glitch in or trip occurred - I entered in the hotel's address, 130 S. Juniper Street, and accidentally got 130 N. Juniper Street filled in for our destination. Our Uber driver could not speak any English - he was effectively a deaf mute to us. We ended up walking several blocks with our melting ice cream to our hotel room. At least the ice cream was still enjoyable when we settled in for the night.
