We started the day at 6am, after having slept barely 4 hours, because we had held World War III, pillow fight style in our room until 2am. Bleary-eyed, we made our way down to breakfast. We had already said goodbye to one of our awesome roommates; Vicky Hagen. She, along with more than half of our group were already going home. They would have to miss out on the wonderful cities of Philadelphia and DC.
For once we left a little later, 8:30 am, so the morning was more relaxed than the previous days. We eventually got on the bus and started our next adventure, we were on our way to Philly, leaving the chaotic, loud, but still fascinating city of New York behind. After about two hours, we got to the reading terminal (pronounced 'redding') for lunch. There were so many choices we had a hard time deciding what to get, but in the end we all got something we liked. The choices included Japanese (that was actually more Chinese) for Airi, salad for Sabrina (yay, healthy food!) and the real junk food that is so typical for most Americans: a big hamburger with fries.
After that, we headed over to Independence Hall to take a look at the interactive museum. We had a lot of fun, and I personally wished we'd had a little mo time. Next, we met up with our guide to start an amazing walking tour of the city. Unfortunately, most of us were too tired to really appreciate it. At least the weather was really nice; our first completely sunny day of the trip (so far). We saw many things, like the liberty bell, the former capital buildings, the first national bank, Ben Franklin's house and history in the town, the pews people like Penn and Washington sat in at church, etcetera.
It was like history coming to life, like stepping into a Back to the Future movie, only instead of seeing cowboys, we saw the founding fathers (did I mention we saw that movie on our way from NYC to Philly?).
Our guide made sure to stop at the stairs to the Philadelphia museum of the arts, aka, the Rocky steps. We raced up the stairs, Sabrina winning, and posed for a glorious group picture, overseeing the beautiful city. On our way to the restaurant, we had so much fun looking for our country's flag on the boulevard. More than once, two or three people shouted out the name of their country as soon as they saw it, I think Zsofi was the loudest :) .
We couldn't have ended our day in a greater way than to go out and eat a traditional Philly Cheesesteak (not to be mistaken for cheesecake), at a cozy restaurant in downtown Philly.
Afterwards, we all filed back into the bus, driving the two hours and a half to DC, with Inception playing in the background.
It was a wonderful, busy, tiring, educational, and amazing day, but we couldn't be happier getting to the hotel, and crawling in bed.
Our Philly day was definitely one of the better days we've had so far. But now it's late, and we have to get up early again tomorrow for our first day in DC.
I can't wait!
An Jooken, Sabrina Carli and Airi Hikita
Belgium, Italy and Japan
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