Philadelphia

Philadelphia

Day 1:

Well we didn’t start off good in Philly, all accommodation fell through leaving us stressed with not much we could afford.

When we arrived we wandered around looking at the city with an undesirable feeling of discontent with not knowing where we would be sleeping for the next couple of days. We found a Starbucks and decided to chill there until we found somewhere to sleep. Starbucks are great because of their wifi, and pretty relaxing feel. They are also everywhere, there were about 50 in the city alone.

We sat in Starbucks for about 3 and a half hours looking and emailing surfers trying to get something, finally deciding on a hostel not too far it was just a bit pricey. We arrived it was very cool everyone sitting around the tv watching a movie like a party form when you were a child.

While we checked in they had told us there was still heaps of room for tomorrow but not anything for the night after. I explained to Carly that if no one has emailed me back tomorrow morning ill book for another night. We unpacked our bags and walked to go for a night walk and see this city.

Philly now is a safe city at night, I say now because I hear it wasn’t the safest in past times, as we started walking we only made it about 20mins then it started rain so we had to head back to the hostel and hit the hay.

Day 2:

When I woke up in the morning we found out no one had emailed us back, I went down to book an extra night only to be told that there wasn’t any beds available for us and the other hostel was 30min drive and it only had one bed available. This was a blow and we didn’t know what to do, then we found a lead that might help us. The manager of the hostel was a couch surfer and his account said he had a couch. I emailed him and explained our situation and we had met him the night before so he knew who we were. With nothing to do we packed up and went to put our bags in the hostels storage for the day.

While packing we met 2 people Lucy from Scotland and a guy from Australia (forgot his name) we all got to talking. Carly and I decided to head out for a walk with the Australian to take some photos of Philly and see some of the History district. We walked for 2 hours and just chilled out, until we decided I wanted to see the Rocky  steps as most do while in Philadelphia.

The walk takes you through the heart of the city so you get to see some really amazing things. Among them City Hall is a huge building with a clock tower now, City Hall is an old with sort of a gothic feel to it, then its surrounded by a wall of new concrete towers either business or apartment complexes so it does take away a little but at the same time it looks funny so I don’t know.

Then you cross the road and hit the LOVE statue, again huge for tourists, I even got a photo, but the view from there is of the world flags lining the road all the way to the steps is a just as good view from there, then the view from the steps facing the city (the famous view).

We walked to the steps and did what most do, the rocky stance and dances on the top of the steps just for the fun, it really is an amazing view from here looking over the city.

Heading back to the city we stopped at a Starbucks again to check our emails, we had got a reply but not of the sort we wanted. The guy said he didn’t have any room for us but he could tell us a place to squat if nowhere was found. Can you guess it we didn’t find anything.

He told us to meet him and he’ll show us where the place was and that we could eat dinner at the hostel (Wednesday was free pasta night). When we arrived he showed me an abandon apartment that nobody lives in and told me how to get in and all that was needed. Now at the start I was fine with it I didn’t really think about it as being to scary.

Sitting at the hostel until the pasta was cooked we chilled and met 2 guys from the UK Mathew and Chris we got to talking, they were cool. When dinner was ready we went down and got it sat with Mathew and Chris chatted more, I had seen that the cinemas were cheap on Wednesday so I asked if they wanted to see a movie with us, then I asked Lucy they all said yes.

I had to drop the bags off in the apartment because we could stay there after 8pm, then when we got back anther girl had over heard and wanted to join us, it was so much fun the fact he had a good sized group to spend the night with.

We all walked down and watch movie called Win Win, a really funny movie and we all had a good time, again new experience for us and it was good. After the movie we didn’t want to go back because then we would have to stay in the apartment for a longer period of time and not what we wanted, I said asked if they all wanted to go for a walk to the Rocky steps for a night view. We all said yes and did just that walked there and had an amazing time with this cool group of people.

When we got back to the apartment it was time to sleep, not a fun experience and it soon became an unfun experience all you could was people around us, on the streets and there were people in other parts of the same building so you could hear doors open and close voices. I was waiting for a knock on the door the whole night, never coming, I got no sleep for two reasons one Carly took the whole sleeping bag so I slept fully clothed with nothing covering me and it was a cold night not fun. The second was I kept waking up with every nose because I didn’t want to get caught, but when morning came safe and sound was all that mattered.

Day 2.

When morning broke we headed for Starbucks free WI-FI best thing and did we take advantage of it while in Philly. We had found out that someone could host us for the night but by the time we saw the email, it was too late so we organized to surf with him in two nights, we had had another guy as well contact us and he was online so we just headed to his house. His name was Dan, Dan was an artist and he lived not to far from the city but with out exploring and comfortable sleep we just wanted to sleep. Over the next 2 days we just chilled out and organized what we wanted to do going forward, also getting to know Dan and his lifestyle. Dan was an amazing artist but it sucked for him, his next-door neighbors main water pipe had burst the day before and knee lever of water flooded his basement,  and in his basement was his personal archive of all his work with 90% of it being destroyed he was incredibly clam it astounded me haha, it was just like “it will make everything that survived worth more money when I die” so he was just one of the most relaxed guys we had met.

Day 4.

We headed to Starbucks again and chilled there for the whole day until Faiz our new surfer could pick us up, faiz was a cool guy we chilled with him over the next 3 nights, hanging with him and his girlfriend. Taking us to his personal favorite place to get the Philly Cheesesteak, so we got our first cheesesteak and it was great no amazing.

Day 5. We got out and explored more of the city and walked to all the ends we had which wasn’t much but we came across a cool little secret called “Magic Garden” a single man had put 45 years into this amazing work of art, see the city of Philadelphia has some of the most amazing mozacks and they cover buildings everywhere, and this was a whole garden that was huge completely cover.

Day 6

Heading to New York.

Jason & Carly
Signing Out
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