Philadelphia, or How to Waste a Perfect Opportunity to Visit a Major US City

Tuomo writes: Don't you love it when your flight gets cancelled...?

You wake up in a room you don't recognise. Ah yes, your flight got cancelled due to ATC congestions caused by a massive thunderstorm. Things could have been worse: sit in a plane on the tarmac for hours waiting for take-off and then (a) take off in the middle of a thunderstorm or (b) return to your gate. The hotel turns out not to be even in the same state as the airport you were flying out of: Gloucester City, New Jersey rather than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. No wonder the ride from the airport had taken so long the night before.

The hotel the airline put you up in is a Comfort Inn, which it is neither. Rather no comfort and a Dump de Dump. The staff at check-in had been grumpy and totally incapable of cracking a smile. Hmmm having to deal with a customer base consisting mainly of passengers with cancelled flights makes you forget how to smile... The fear of scabies doesn't disspiate after a shower in a slimy tub. Check out and deal with the same unfriendly staff; is it really that difficult to smile -even if you have to work somewhere in 'burbs of Philly in New Jersey?

You find the shuttle bus you want to take back to the airport idling in front of the hotel. For 15 minutes. Now how much was the price of gas again? The bus seats 14 - legally - but there are 16 of you; the 20+ minute drive is just as long and uncomfortably bumpy as the the night before.

The train from the airport to the city centre runs every 30 minutes. Except that the one you are waiting for is more than 10 minutes late. No announcements. Are we even on the right track? The 25 minute long ride lasts longer than that, and the fare is quite steep: US$7. Beats hanging around the airport all day...

Finally in downtown Philly. What to do, especially when one does not have a map or any other forms of information on the city. Ah yes, the Liberty Bell. Thank goodness the storm last night ahs cooled down the air a bit, so the ten block walk feels good. At the intersection before the museum, you notice a group of tourists heading the same way as you. What else do you do, but put on some speed and beat them to the line. After all you want to have your belongings checked by the security staff before theirs.

You learn a lot about American liberty. How everyone loves and wants it. Except that you learn that the Bell had cracked well before July 4, 1776, and contrary to popular myth, it was not rung on that day at all. Aha, so what else about American history is a myth, you wonder? The exhibition is farily small as is the Bell itself. You have your picture taken in front of it, like the dozens of other tourists who have made it there so early in the day. You wonder how many of them were on cancelled flights, too.

Lunch time! You want a real Philly chesse steak sandwich. You've had those before at food courts, all claiming to be authentic. Except the mall nor the HQ of the chain have ever been anywhere near Philly. Suprisingly difficult to find a decent place for lunch. You locate a diner (God bless America) where you order one with buffalo chicken wings as an appie. The sandwiches - meh! - come before the wings. The wings look delightfully meaty but turn out to be lukewarm (frozen again!), and the sauce is nowhere as spicy as you want them...

Two more hours to go before it's time to return to the airport. Mindless roaming around with a surprisingly high number of Italian tourists, who are just as lost and baffled in the city as you are. Except they have maps, and you don't. What's this square again? Ah JFK Square, with a magnificent water fountain. Check out the passers-by while digesting your food. You come to realise that there's a big and famous museum that you could have visited too. You realise that you could have seen and done a bazillion of other interesting things during the six hours you're in town. Bah...

Go for a cup of coffee and a treat at Borders. Say hi to your "friends," i.e. the wider and less expensive selection of books than in Canada.

Go back to the railway station. Run to the platform from which the train to the airport is about to leave any minute now according to the schedule. Except by the time you get to the platform, panting and wheezing, you find out that the train is 16 minutes late. Nice. You pay US$ 7 again for the 25 minute ride to the airport.

With boarding passes ready since last night and the luggage checked in, proceed to the security check. Have your bottle of soda confiscated because you hadn't finished it in the morning and you thought you'd finish it later.

So yeah, Philly must be a fantastic travel destination :-)