Philadelphia & Washington DC: Is That A Gun In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Pleased To See Me? Oh, It Is A Gun....

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There are two types of people in the US, we’ll call them type A and type B, with roughly 50% of each. Type A are the most friendly, helpful people in the world. If they see you in the street looking confused at a map, they’ll offer to help, if you’ve got bags with you they’ll ask if you want a lift to your destination (see later) and they’ll always be smiling and striking up friendly conversation. Type B on the other hand is different. There’re often moody, unhelpful, aggressive, use double negatives (“I ain’t doin’ nothin’”) and say things like ‘I’ll slap your face in’ for no reason.

When we arrived at Philadelphia airport it was mostly full of type B people. No one actually threatened to hit me, but the people we spoke to at the information desks were very unhelpful. We were stuck at the airport and needed to get to our accommodation, 15km away and in a different state. No one on the transport information desks could help and despite making several calls on the local pay phone we were no closer to finding any way of getting there that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg.

After walking about a bit I found a different information desk and they were more helpful. However, here I encountered a different problem and one that would repeat itself throughout the East Coast. Namely, people not being able to understand what I’m saying:

Me: “Hi, I was wondering if you knew how we could get to Brooklawn in New Jersey using public transport”
Woman: “Hmmm… I’ve not ever heard of Pittman”
Me: “No, sorry, Brooklawn not Pittman”
Woman: “Yes, I’ve never heard of Pittman, it’s in New Jersey you say?”
Me: “Yes, New Jersey, Brooklawn (this time I try and say it in an American way ‘Brak-Law-N’)
Woman: “Nope, I don’t know where Pittman is. But if you want to go to New Jersey, ring this number and they might be able to help”.

Thankfully the number she gave me worked and we found out which train and bus we needed to get on, though not before I had the same ‘Brooklawn’ problem with the bloke on the phone.

Our adventures still didn’t end there, on the bus travelling from Philidelphia city centre we realised that we didn’t actually know which stop to get off at, so I asked a woman sitting nearby.

“Oh, that’s going to be a little walk from the bus stop, why don’t you just get off at the next stop with me and I’ll drive you there”

That’s right, she was a typical type A.

After a bit of annoying British indecision from me “are you sure?”, “we wouldn’t want to be imposing” “We can always just walk” and some encouragement from a black lady sitting behind “Take her offer! Don’t be a fool!”, we decided to go with her and she took us right to the door. Lovely!

Before arriving in Philadelphia (or ‘Philly’ as almost everyone calls it) my only real knowledge of the place came from the ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’. This meant I was expecting to see a lot of trendy hip-hop types and posh people mixed together with hilarious consequences.

This wasn’t exactly (or at all) what we got, but we enjoyed visiting the city. On the first day we went round some American Revolution sites, including a very interesting tour of Independence Hall (where the Declaration of Independence was signed) as well as other attractions such as the Liberty Bell and a museum on Ben Franklin. For dinner we went to a local diner, which to date is the most stereotypically American meal we’ve had all trip.

Everything in the diner was as you’d see it in a film, the décor, the waitresses (and their accents), the uniform, the clientele, there was even a working jukebox next to where we sat. Best of all though was the list of 8 ‘vegetables’ you could choose from to add to your meal:

1. String Beans
2. Mashed Potato
3. Brussel Sprouts
4. Fries
5. Baked Potato
6. Rice
7. Fried Cauliflower
8. Apple sauce

No, none of this is made up. These were all the vegetables they offered. Fries are bad, but how on earth is ‘applesauce’ a vegetable? It’s a sauce! Made from a fruit!!

The next day we’d booked up a food tour of the city (which, having eaten at the diner now seemed like a bad idea). During the tour we tried a variety of food (tomato pie, pretzels, cheesesteak, a hoagie, chocolate pretzels and a cookie) and got shown some of the main city sites. It was all right, but I think we both left a bit disappointed. Still, ask Helen about ‘tomato pie’ and you’ll get a very positive reaction.

So, what was our favourite part of Philly then? The food tour? Seeing some real American history? Cheesesteak? Nope, it was the bus ride from our hotel to the town centre.

Each day we’d get on the bus and travel for about 15 minutes before we reached an area called Camden. The 10 minutes we’d spend driving through Camden would be the most interesting 10 minutes of our day.

This was because Camden is the most horrible area I’ve ever seen in my life. And I lived in Stoke for 3 years. It looked as if the place had been bombed, not with normal bombs though, but with bombs filled with wanna-be rappers. It was terrible, but so terrible it was fascinating. As we drove we saw signs saying ‘drug free school zone’, a huge billboard saying ‘Are you wanted for a crime in New Jersey? Ring this number’, loads of topless fat men, skinny looking drugged up girls and worst of all, Helen saw someone go in a shop with a gun in his back pocket. A gun in his pocket! Who on earth carries a gun when they’re doing their weekly shopping!?

In fact, I just looked at wikipedia and it turns out that Camden was ranked the most dangerous city in the USA in both 2004 and 2005. In 2007, for every 50 people they’d be an instance of violent crime (rape, murder, robbery or assault) and this number almost triples when looking at theft. Pretty high right? But then remember that that only includes crime that was actually reported to the police…

Anyway, if you’re ever in the area I’d recommend going through it, if just to see how badly neglected some parts of American society are. Just don’t get off the bus.

After Philly we took a bus to Washington DC. This should have been a fairly easy trip but due to the fact there were no pavements where we were staying we had another frustrating 20 minutes of pulling our suitcase over grass and across dual carriageways.

Thankfully, where we chose to stay in Washington was in a much better location and much nicer area than where we had stayed in Philly. It all made for a very good experience and for me, Washington was maybe the nicest place we’d visited in North America. Pedestrian friendly, clean and with an unlimited amount to do, we enjoyed our 3 days.

We didn’t do too much out of the ordinary, we went to Capital Hill, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the WWII, Vietnamese and Korean War Memorials, the Natural History Museum, the Air and Space Museum and, of course, the White House. Unfortunately, we didn’t see Barrak, but one day while we were in the area we did see several limos leave the house, along with a ton of police cars and 4X4s. So maybe we got pretty close to him!

The highlight of Washington again wasn’t one of the typical sights above, it was a visit to the local baseball ground so see a game. I had wanted to see a Boston Red Sox game, but the ticket prices were so high (£45 for the worst seats) that it seemed stupid. So, a ‘Washington Nationals’ game it was.

The ‘Nats’ are currently one of the (if not the) worst professional team in America and the game was on a Monday night, meaning that attendance wasn’t great. Thankfully this didn’t matter and I had a great time. During each break in the 9 innings you’d get something to entertain the crowd. This ranged from watching people dressed up as famous American presidents having a race to people shooting T-shirts into the crowd using massive gun like machines. It was great fun. The ‘Nats’ unsurprisingly lost, but being a Norwich city fan I was used to it.

So that’s that. This is the last blog that I’ll write by myself…*sniff*… But don’t be upset, you get to see me in person soon and you’ve still got 2 more blogs to come. Do keep checking as they should be going up over the next few days.

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Comments

[jinkyj]

Oh Camden!
Your blog made me laugh - I grew up near Philly and Camden. We called them "Philthydelphia" and "Damden".