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Published: January 4th 2011
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We woke up early and amazingly, had checked out and left New York City by 8.30am. The weather was really good with a clear sky but very cold. We crossed a bridge over to Manhattan which was astounding with views of the city from the bridge. We encountered our first driving experience through Manhattan which wasn't pleasant, as the drivers there aren't good at all. We left New York and headed down the highway towards Philadelphia. It was only a 2 hour drive, which turned into 4 hours by the time we included traffic and stops for breakfast.
We arrived in Philadelphia around 12.30 and planned to spend the day there. It was very cold, around freezing and the wind made it seem even colder. My first impression of Philadelphia was a good one. The skyscrapers stood out, although they seemed few in comparison to Chicago, New York and Toronto. The cities old architecture was amazing and the art museum and city hall were particularly impressive. The Art Museum stood out on its own with a large road leading up to it similar to Buckingham Palace or the Versailles in France.
The museum looked like a temple. It was
also the place where a scene in Rocky was filmed and so there was a statue dedicated to him outside the museum. The museum was closed so we headed into the city centre.
The first thing we visited was the city hall, which I was surprised to see was designed by three Scottish architects and builders. The city hall didn't look nearly as impressive as the art museum, but it did come a close second. We weren't able to explore the city hall, but we could walk round the lower floor, quadrangle and outside. Our next stop was the JFK Plaza to see the Love sign posted in the plaza. I was quite excited to see it as it is quite famous erected there to celebrate US bicentennial Independence.
I was a little disappointed to see a Christmas tree behind it, as the tree didn't look nice and spoiled the scene in the park.
We walked downtown to Liberty Bell - which is supposedly a famous bell and part of US history, which I didn't know much about. It wasn't impressive or interesting. We walked in, took photos and walked out.
We then sat down for lunch in a
restaurant to try a Philadelphia Cheesesteak - which is the food choice of tourists in Philadelphia. I'd previously tried one in California, and didn't enjoy it at all, it was just a heart attack in a sandwich as it was filled with cheese, onions and grease.
We walked back downtown Philadelphia and back to the car to begin our night drive to Philadelphia. We headed south into the impressive orange sunset. It was a really long bright sunset and was nice to see across the blue sky, the colours were beautiful but it didn't compare to the sunset we saw on our first day in New York.
We arrived in Washington DC around 8pm and checked into our hotel - the nicest hotel we had booked so far, and the last.
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