Mahinda’s Little World

Okay, so we’ve established that I walked and ate a lot during my week away. I drank a little but, being on my own, I was hardly going out on the rampage.

Actually, I should mention Eulogy, a Belgian bar I found in the tourist district (old town) — as well as a decent selection on draught, they have a seriously comprehensive bottled beer menu, with everything from Old Tom to some very stange Lambics. And it’s owned by a real Belgian! I had a very strong and very tasty trippel, brewed in Canada of all places.

So, on with the story…

(this is fast becoming Mahinda’s Guide to Philadelphia)

Touristy Stuff

During the week, I walked around a lot — more getting a feel for the city (and scoping out restaurants!) than doing museums and the like. I just didn’t fancy it, really.

The main touristy stuff I did was on the Saturday and Sunday…which actually remained fairly dry and sunny, despite the seriously doomy gloomy forecasts. I walked around old town, including the five or six blocks set aside as historic parkland ("Independence Park"). Pretty, in an old colonial way.

The Liberty Bell was, well, everything I expected it to be. Nowhere near as large as people expect, in essence it’s just a small-to-medium-sized bell with a whopping great crack in it. Oh, and lots of history to go along with that. It was surrounded by Scouts, and getting into the building featured security checks that would have made Heathrow proud.

After that, it was off to the Betsy Ross house — she was the seamstress who may (or may not, according to recent research) have created the very first independent American flag. Here’s where it felt slightly weird — this was an ordinary enough 200ish-year-old house in which some woman who sewed (or didn’t) a flag once resided. That’s not exactly History with a big ‘H’, is it? Still, I suppose you’ve got to take what you can get, and Americans do have somewhat stronger feelings towards their flags than us Brits.

On the subject of the flag, it really did evolve some. Here’s a page detailing its history. One of the stranger ones is the "Don’t Tread on Me" flag featuring a rattlesnake — seemingly out of place amidst all the red, blue and white.

Zap!

Straddling all this history like a collossus was Benjamin Franklin. Now, I was aware he was quite a statesman, as well as being one of the true scientific geniuses, but I didn’t realise quite how caught up he was in American history.

Well, he was.

The Franklin Institute seems a bit like our own Science Museum in tone…but I didn’t go in. I did, however, visit Franklin Court, which was more about the man himself — lots of exhibits on his life and times, but the real star was the glass armonica.

Have you ever made a wine glass "sing" by holding its base and rubbing a wet finger on its rim? No? Seriously, you should. It’s an amazing sound. The pitch of the sound you make is controlled by how much liquid is in the glass (and the characteristics of glass itself).

So, Franklin decided to make an instrument out of this principle — rather than describe it here, I’ll point you towards some better pages:

• Wikipedia
• Franklin Institute (including "play it yourself" web wizardry)
• Some muso bloke

I was lucky enough to see (and hear!) a demonstration of the fully-working replica armonica they’ve got in Franklin Court. Haunting. It’s very much like playing the piano apparently, with each glass edge being a key. The young Mozart was so impressed that he composed a piece especially for it.

Unfortunately, the glass armonica is a VERY expensive thing to produce — each glass bowl has to be perfectly tuned, and it’s of course a bit on the fragile side. We’re talking thousands of pounds here.

I exited Franklin Court to find that I’d just missed a heavy shower. Instead, I got a rainbow.

ComedySportz

While I didn’t make it to the theatre, despite there being a Shakespeare festival running, I did at least take in some comedy. Improv, in fact — ComedySportz. Very much like Who’s Line is it Anyway in style, this had something of an Edinburgh Fringe feel to it, right down to the studio theatre. If you’re in Philly and stuck for something to do of an evening, try to take in one of the 10pm shows — it’s fully worth the admission!

Adriennnnnnne!

The number one biggest tourist cliché in Philadelphia is the steps of the Philadephia Musem of Art, aka the Rocky Steps. Benjamin Franklin Boulevard (who else?!) stretches a mile or so from the city centre, running diagonally across the grid network, to terminate in this impressive façade.

On the Sunday, I finally made it over to the end, in absolutely glorious sunshine. I couldn’t help but hum the Rocky theme as I walked up…which was considerably more restrained than the various people jumping up and down at the top, indulging in a spot of shadow-boxing.

It’s a lovely view from the top, and I hear the Art Museum itself if very good. I wasn’t in the mood to spend such a glorious day indoors, however, so I moseyed on to…

Escape!

This one was my favourite — the prison upon which many of the world’s other prisons are based. Eastern State Penitentiary (ESP) was the first actual ‘penitentiary’, where prisoners would be left to, in theory, reflect on their sins in (Quaker-inspired) silence and isolation, with little or no contact with anyone else during their sentences.

That last link was to Wikipedia — the official website is pretty good, too.

Of course, the initial ideas fell into disarray with the onset of overcrowding, corruption and so on, but the ideas were there. The very design of the place, with long linear corridors radiating out from a central room (from where a single guard could see every single corridor), was revolutionary.

I took the audio tour, as well as a guided one on prison breaks — all very Shawshank! In fact, that’s where the place’s atmosphere came from for me — the silent crumbling walls and massive thick stonework were straight out of the general genre of American prison films.

It was topical too — at the time, I was reading a trilogy (borrowed from Rosy) in which the reincarnation (vaguely — it’d take too long to explain) of Al Capone was one of the chief villains…and, in ESP, I got to see Al Capone’s old cell. And very plush it was, too.

Oversea, Undersea, Wombleing Free

I almost forgot this one. Out to the east of the city, on the banks of the Delaware river, is an area called Penn’s Landing, which of course is where William Penn originally set foot on land and founded Philadelphia (Greek-ish for "city of brotherly love" of course).

Well, the area now seems to be a sort of leisure zone, complete with mall and the Independence Seaport Museum. Did I mention that just about everything in the city had "Independence" applied liberally? Well, it did. Everywhere. Given that I’m actually writing this on 2nd July, I’d imagine that that’s even more pronounced right now. Ergh. There’s pride…and there’s tackiness. I suppose I just don’t understand, given that it’s not my pride.

Anyway, Independence Seaport. It was a colleague of Michael’s (who’s in Dallas, but has workmates from all over) who recommended "the submarine thing" to me, and I eventually found out what it was.

Basically, they’ve got a WWII sub, the Becuna, moored up and open to visitors. They’ve also got a great big iron-hull, the USS Olympia, next to it – dating back to 1892, it’s actually the "oldest steel warship afloat in the world". So there.

It was all absolutely fascinating — the contrast between the cramped confines of the sub and the relative opulence (but, in some respects, worse conditions) of the ship. For example, the submarine crews seemed to be a law unto themselves, a sort of special club amongst the navy. And I suppose they’d have to be! The submariners’ food was probably better, for a start.

On the subject of contrast, I had a good look into a WWII German-style (but actually Finnish) U-boat a few years ago — the Vesikko, moored on the island of Suomenlinna, just off Helsinki. It provided quite a contrast — the American vessel was MUCH larger, probably with all the pros and cons inherent in that.

One of the most striking things [on the Becuna] was one of the sets of bunks, where the sailors would pretty much sleep on top of the torpedoes that they’d eventually fire. Probably not a job for the nervous!

Summary

Anyway, after boring you with all that, I’d heartily recommend Philly for a long weekend, if not a week or two — it’s certainly a vibrant enough place, with friendly people and plenty of stuff to do. And eat. Definitely eat

I’ll leave you with a quote from Franklin himself:

"Three can keep a secret
                    …if two of them are dead."