This morning we left Washington Dc and travelled to Philadelphia for the final stop of our three week adventure. This is the penultimate day (for me), and the last full day in the USA.
Firstly, after checking out of the hotel we needed to reach Union Station, which was the other side of the city. Our route consisted of a journey on the tube, a changing of tube lines before reaching the station…the difficulty; this was during the busiest part of rush hour. When we were on the first tube it was very crowded with lots of city workers all on their way into the city centre, this made it a bit difficult. After a brief stop when Stephen felt sick we reached the Metro centre to change lines. Luckily after a 5 minute rest Stephen felt well enough to continue on our way.
The second part of the journey was much more comfortable, with much fewer people, so we could sit down. We arrived at Union Station, and quickly found our way to the busses.
We found that our route had been scheduled 30 minutes later than when we originally booked, but this was not a problem. We boarded the bus and then were shortly on our way.
The bus was a quick ride, only 3h (which seems very quick compared to our 20h journey from Beckley to DC), so was a nice journey. The greyhound stop is central in the city, so it meant that it was easy to walk to our hotel which is only 8 minutes away. The hotel seems very posh, we were lucky to get a good deal with Expedia. We checked in before heading out to explore the city.
The first stop on our tour was the Liberty Bell, this is a very symbolic icon of American Independence, which was interesting to see, however, without it’s history it would just be a bell (a fairly small bell at that!) but I was pleased to be able to see this famous exhibit.
After this we continued on past Independence Hall then Independence Mall (a small shopping centre with 6 of the same type of touristy shop). When Sam asked to find an ATM, this made me remember that we were able to visit the US Mint.
The US Mint is the location were all of the countries money is produced (although there are a few satellite sites). This was really interesting to explore as we were able to get an understanding of the methods used to create the money we have been using here every day.
We returned to the hotel to get changed into smarter clothing for our final big meal of the trip, at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is situated just around the corner. This was a fantastic meal, and a great way to “finish the trip”, this tasted great and really did sum up typical American Food.
After returning to the hotel, me and sam decided to make use of the hotel swimming pool and to swim some lengths before relaxing in the hot tub. This swim was very refreshing. After this we returned to the room and packed our bags. This is the final time I need to pack my bag, it is heavy at just under the weight limit, but does mean that I do not need to get rid of anything else!
Tomorrow I start my journey home, which will be exciting, the trip has been really awesome and a fantastic experience. More of a summary coming shortly, please see the next post 🙂
US4 Adventure 