The City of Brotherly Love
I'm at a hotel in Philadelphia waiting to take a ridiculously early flight home tomorrow. I flew in yesterday for a photo shoot in Wilmington, picked up a rental car and proceeded to spend two hours giving myself the grand tour of Wilmington under the guise of looking for my hotel. And when I say grand tour, it means that I think I now know Wilmington, Delaware better than the town I live in. Below is a map of the city with my approximate route drawn in red. I'm pretty sure those aren't the only streets I drove down, but it all started to blur in the second hour.
The whole trek started because the directions I was given said to turn left after exiting the freeway instead of right. Once I decided that the original instructions were useless, I decided to try the drunken sparrow method of navigation. There were enough street names given that I figured I could find at least one of the streets and follow it until crossed another. But, nope. It lasted far longer than it needed to because I didn't stop for new directions until it started to get dark. Eh, what else was I going to do with myself? The up side was that I knew exactly how to get to my appointment this morning.
After the shoot I headed back to Philadelphia to return my rental car, hoping there would be time to visit a few sights, including the Italian Market. What with the train schedules, being at the far south end of town and early closing times it turns out I had time to do exactly nothing. I thought a hockey game would be fun and found out that there was a ticket available in row six at center ice, for tomorrow's game. Gah.
I was dying to get out of the hotel room so I walked over to the only restaurant around, Ruby Tuesday, for dinner. From where I was sitting I could see the large swinging kitchen doors that were marked with 3-inch block letters screaming "YES" and "NO" in an effort to prevent unpleasant accidents. Two waitresses, one in training, walked by on their way to kitchen. The trainer asked if the other girl had ever worked in a restaurant before and got a negative answer to which she said: "The most important thing is that you walk in the right door." Awesome. And actually true to the extent that no one wants to wear a trayful of food for an entire shift.
When I walked back into the lobby the guy at the front desk yelled "Lily! What's up?" Apparently we became friends at some point during check-in. I wish he was our neighbor.
Right now it's midnight here, 9 p.m. my time, and I have to get up at 5 a.m. to get to the airport. I'm really torn between staying up for another five hours or trying to get a few hours sleep. Either way, I hope the hotel is open for breakfast early enough to get something to eat. US Airways didn't even serve peanuts and only one drink in five hours. At least there was no danger of having to use the bathroom.
Update: I compromised and only got two hours of sleep.
posted by Amy N. @ 7:07 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
There is so much to do/see in Philadelphia and too bad you only had such a short time there. Btw when I drive in new places I ALWAYS get lost, and it can be a nightmare trying to use a map while driving at the same time!
Ruby Tuesday has pretty good and reliable food, I use to go there for lunch sometimes after shopping in the mall. The airlines have gotten ridiculous with being stingy about the food, and it's rare to even get peanuts these days!
Lily, for me folks at home say that if a telephone booth has two exits, I can get lost. Which is sadly true. Whenever I travel alone, I have standing instructions to call back home as soon as I have located my hotel! Good that you got two hours of sleep! And that restaurant report is insteresting.
JB, Seattle is a great city to explore, especially around the waterfront. I like to just start walking and don't mind doing it by myself. It's nice to be able to check out whatever catches your eye without worrying about what someone else wants to do!
Trying to walk through the right door is probably a good philosophy for life. :)
Crystal, I was really looking forward to spending some time in Philly. I grabbed some visitor's information, though, so I can do a better job of planning a real vacation there.
Isn't driving a reading a map fun? Actually, I didn't have a map this time, which would probably have been a big help. I couldn't believe that they didn't even hand out peanuts on the flight!
Mridula, I have a good sense of direction outside, but put me in a mall or large office building and I'll never find my way out without help.
The good thing about only getting two hours of sleep was that I could sleep on the plane to kill some time since I read my entire book on the flight out.
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