Philadelphia. Philadelphia. Philadelphia… word gets more ridiculous the more times you say it (says the girl from the country with places called Woolamaloo and Wangaratta). Started out this morning having a look out the window across the Delaware River to the New Jersey side and admired the snow that was still on the ground from last night’s delightful weather.

Had a bagel smeared with Philadelphia Cream Cheese (made in Illinois, go figure) and a cuppa before deciding to head into the Old City to have a look around at the historic sites, of which there are many, in Philadelphia.

First stop was the Visitors Centre to grab a map and try and work out how to maximise the touristy stuff and minimise the being outdoors stuff, seeing it was blue skies and sunny, but still below zero.

We went from there to check out the Liberty Bell Centre, and even though we were freezing cold, we were in high spirits – until we encountered the security staff there. On the way it, it was ‘No you don’t have to take off your coats, we just need to inspect your bags and see under your coats’… only my cross body bag was on under my coat, and I went to show it to the guy who then insisted I take my coat off in the freezing cold. I looked at him imploringly and said ‘Really?’ and the wanker, looking directly over my head and not addressing me at all said ‘Bags off people, coats can stay on’. So I stop dead and hold up the queue while I disrobe enough to take off my satchel. The least he could do, the VERY least he could do, was look at me while asking me to freeze my tits off to take my jacket and bag off… but apparently that is asking too much. Then Mr K cops an equally powertripping moron of a security officer who he goes to open his bag for, and she tells him ‘Don’t touch the bag’ and goes about opening his bag (all the zips) herself.

I tell you what, first impressions are being formed less and less by Visitors Centre staff, ticket selling staff and actual tour guides (in this case National Park Rangers), and more and more enduring first impressions of American tourism destinations – in this case historically important national monuments – are being formed by SECURITY STAFF. And this pair took our chilly but collective bonhomous countenance, and trampled it underfoot quick smart. We went from convivial and ‘Oh, isn’t the America fuck yeah, so quaint and amusing this morning?’; to being pissed off at our diffident treatment and ‘Fucking hell, we’ve had it up to the eyeballs with the Sepo Bullshit!’, in about 90 seconds flat. Dude, I don’t care if you hate your job, I don’t care if your country can’t be bothered paying you a decent living wage, I don’t care if you are cold standing around doing bullshit security checks on excited tourists all day and are dissatisfied with your life choices – you take a job like this, you are working with the public and with that comes a certain responsibility to treat with them some modicum of civility… such as looking at a person when addressing them!
Grrr. So much for the Liberty Bell. Given I was now thoroughly ticked off, and given there’s no point in arguing with security people because that never goes no where good – I wasn’t much in the mood for reading the information displays, so y’all will have to settle for the Wiki version of what the bell is all about:

“The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American independence, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Formerly placed in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House (now renamed Independence Hall), the bell was commissioned from the London firm of Lester and Pack (today the Whitechapel Bell Foundry) in 1752, and was cast with the lettering (part of Leviticus 25:10) “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” It originally cracked when first rung after arrival in Philadelphia, and was twice recast by local workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose last names appear on the bell. In its early years, the Liberty Bell was used to summon lawmakers to legislative sessions and to alert citizens to public meetings and proclamations.”

So this broken arse bell ends up being really famous and important to the Americans, for allegedly having been rung on Independence Day – July 4, 1776 – even though there’s no way that could have happened due to there being no public proclamations announcing the Independence thing, available until the 8th of July (printing presses were somewhat slower at the time). So the import placed on the bell feels like a bit of a furfy. Oh well, moving right along.

We hightailed it away from the Busted Bell and the arsehole security, and onto the Independence Hall (previously known as the Pennsylvania Sate House), famous for containing the exact assembly hall where the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4th, 1776, AND the Constitution was signed there too on Sept 17th, 1787… both of the documents we saw at the National Archives back in Washington! This painting was commissioned from an artist named Glanzman in 1986 to commemorate the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence and features all the dead white dudes who were instrumental in bringing it about, all painted based on representations of them in contemporary portraits.

Independence Hall is a beautiful Georgian Building (I found this vaguely amusing, given they were working hard to get away from British rule and George III, and here they were adopting the predominant architectural fashions of the period most associated with good old George) with a lovely clock tower, a court room, an assembly room, a ballroom upstairs, an office/meeting room also upstairs and the militia storage facility.
With visitors interested in coming to see where the Declaration of Independence starting barely a couple of years after the incident occurred, the place turned to tourist attraction rather quickly and is very much today, as it was then – down to the unfortunately choice in interior paint colours.
Assembly Room, where the documents were actually signed, in the centre is George Washington’s actual office chair: The courtroom:
Desk set, including inkwell, used to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution documents: Upstairs ballroom: Governor’s office and meeting room (that device on the end of the table is a telescope, believed to have once belonged to Mason and Dixon): The militia storage room: Loved the militia room with it’s near row of rifles and paraphernalia.

After we finished our tour of Independence Hall, we wandered around the Old City for a while, there were several gorgeous buildings in the area, many of which have exhibits in them or (like this one), the State Library Building, as was, is awaiting an exhibit on Thomas Jefferson (as a weird co-incidence we noted that an exhibition of Jefferson’s personal writings and journals had just closed up at the Library of Congress in Washington, and wondered if it was coming here…?)

Then we made a weird decision to try and dinky little diner for lunch called Mrs K’s Koffee… to try a Philly cheesesteak sandwhich. Now, mostly you can get these all over the place from Louisiana to New York, so why did we wait to order on in Philadelphia?? You might think it would be the most obvious – when in Philadelphia, etc! But actually it was a West Wing hangover. Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits), goes a campaigning in Philadelphia and you guessed it – gets told to order the Philly Cheesesteak to make the locals happy, and promptly gets it all over his suit… which is the only reason Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches exist in my weird little mind. It turned out to be a somewhat dubious decision, as it was served with ‘cheese fries’ (even bigger mistake: ‘American cheese, ok?’, ‘Errr… sure.’). And this is what came out for lunch: Thank goodness we didn’t order a sandwich EACH, and had sensibly decided to share. Bea, if you are reading this… I have a feeling this is what Cheese Wiz is like, only hot – don’t go there, just don’t. :S

After lunch we popped over to the Benjamin Franklin Museum, which was a very cool little museum focusing on the life and achievements of Benjamin Franklin, from his lack of formal education, to his time working as a printer, to his travels as an ambassador to the French court seeking support in the wars against the English, to his later years as a statesman, author and all round decent guy. It also focused on his keen inventors mind and his involvement in the United States Post Office – he was the first Postmaster General and from what we were told this was the first United States Post Office.
We checked out the bookshops and giftshops around the area and by then (I think it must have been nearly 4pm) we had to call it quits to get out of the cold. One alarming (and absolutely weird) thing I did see today in a gift shop was the USA Boomerang… comes in red, white and blue… and comes in ‘Right Handed’ and ‘South Paw’ versions!