Philly Trip

When I moved to Columbus, I wanted to travel to all the interesting places I would now be close to that I had been seeing in the movies and other popular media. Specifically, I wanted to take a train somewhere. On a pretty spontaneous trip to Philadelphia, I wrote down the events I experienced right after they happened so I would be able to tell a complete story of my trip. I didn’t realize until I started to write about these events in detail how much had happened. I don’t value photographs as much as others, so I’m using this unusually long read to preserve the memory. While more cumbersome to produce, it is more detailed, highlights my thought process, allows me to reflect on my experiences, and reveals mistakes I made. The memory of this trip is precious to me and I’m sad that I know I’ll eventually forget the faces of the people I met and the look of the views I saw but there’s something special about that loss that makes me feel a way I like. I will have this text recording, and I hope to turn this into a series when I get more opportunities to travel.

A lot of the details I include are unremarkable. I make judgements, observations, and insights in some of my recounting but a lot of it is pointless in the grand scheme of things. That’s true for most of my life. For most of the lives of other people as well. So little of what we do is worth remembering or has a lasting impact on other people yet for some reason I like sharing what could have been a private trip with these digital characters even though it’s likely nobody besides me will ever read them.

I live a very routine life. I have a meal schedule that I do a pretty good job of following, I see three movies a week at AMC, I get my laundry done at the cleaners on Tuesdays, and there’s always another movie or tv show in my queue. My apartment is also set up as neatly as my schedule. When I live with my family I don’t get those luxuries. I am dependent on others for almost everything. I can’t even leave the house whenever I want since I don’t have a car while I’m there. By the end of my two-week stay in the valley I was extremely eager to return to my peaceful life of solitude.

I had six days of nothing left after I returned and that’s a bit much, even for me. I came up with the idea of finally fulfilling my desire to travel with Philadelphia as my destination. I’m not sure how I landed on Philly. It could have been while looking at a list of places with Amtrak stations, or browsing maps, or seeing an article about the show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. By the time I got home to my apartment, I already had my bus, train, and plane picked out so all I had to do was take out my card and buy them all.

My plane from the valley to Columbus got in around 7 o’clock at night on New Year’s Eve so I arrived home around 7:30 by taking an Uber. I was worried that my door would be off its hinges or my car on cinder blocks but thankfully everything was as I left it. After some hijinks with Little Caesar’s and Panda Express, I eventually ate dinner and returned home to quickly unpack my suitcases and pack a backpack. In Brownsville, I got a North Face Recon backpack that was big enough to hold enough clothes for my four-day long trip. Three undershirts, three long sleeve flannels, three pairs of socks, and three pairs of underwear along with electric handwarmers my sister gave me for Christmas, a phone charger, a refillable Visa metal water bottle, and a standard toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant combo. The logic behind my packing was to travel light enough to where I could have all of my possessions on me at all times. I was going to sleep in my day clothes and keep wearing the same pair of pants since those don’t start to get truly dirty until after a few wears (allegedly).

I was so excited for my trip I could hardly sleep. I got a solid two hours before I was up at 6:30 am for my 7:55am Greyhound to Cleveland. Because Columbus didn’t have an Amtrak, I scheduled a day to explore the city of Rock and Roll. I arrived at the station around 7:20am and my trip was instantly off to a rough start. I sat too close to a woman that was obviously jonesing for something. Right after I took my seat, she screamed out that she’s in so much pain and wants it to stop which I understood to be a ploy to gain my sympathy. I kept my eyes dead ahead and acted like I was in a coma. On two separate occasions she started to cry for about 30 seconds then went back to normal. At one point, she left the station to talk to two sketchy characters outside and then returned saying, “I thought they was gonna fix me up.” I don’t want to forget to mention that she also had a scar across her face letting me know that she was in some altercation a long time ago where someone slashed her face. Additionally, there were no less than three people sleeping inside this staff-less station, one of them on the floor beside me.

The actual bus ride was fairly pleasant. The heating wasn’t excellent, so it was still a bit chilly, especially when we drove through some areas that had received a lot of snow. I was still shell shocked by the Greyhound Station and even though none of the more interesting people made it onto my bus I was not taking any chances by letting my guard down. I wouldn’t have been able to rest if I wanted to since the woman behind me was speaking loudly on the phone the entire two- and a half-hour trip in what sounded to me like Swahili.

When my bus got to Cleveland it was around 10:45am and I started to make my way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum. On the way, I stopped at Pizza Melt and got two burning hot slices of Pepperoni Pizza with a bottle of diet coke for $9. There was construction by the museum that made me take a super long detour, walking all the way around the browns stadium to get to the entrance. When I left the museum later, I found that there was a much shorter walkway set up by the construction crew for people to pass through. The museum itself was really fun with a lot of cool memorabilia from all genres of music. I took the time to read a lot of the plaques even if I didn’t know who the artist was, which was the case for most of them. There was a Power of Rock experience which was a sort of light show with a video on moving projectors that was blinding but worth waiting for a time slot. When I left that show I saw somebody left their bag in the auditorium and when I ran down to give it to them, they didn’t even bother saying thank you which I found a bit insulting. The museum also had free pinball on one of the floors where I played a couple of games with the intent of coming back and sinking extra time into but when I did there was a crowd around them. I left after about two hours at around 3:30 feeling like I had got my money’s worth.

I had planned to also go to the Cleveland Aquarium and the Museum of Art, but the aquarium apparently only had about 45-minutes worth of exhibits for $19.95 and the museum was closed because it was New Year’s Day. I ended up taking a bus to an AMC to see A Complete Unknown. Unfortunately, I traveled an hour in the wrong direction to a theater that wasn’t showing it. I saw Sonic the Hedgehog 3 instead and enjoyed 2 glazed donuts and a small hot chocolate at Dunkin’ afterwards. Before leaving the theater though, I took a bunch of paper towels and put them in my backpack since I thought they would come in handy for blowing my nose and drying my hands if they got wet in the cold.

I then made my way to a bar that had karaoke and a wing special on Wednesdays to kill some time before my Amtrak ride at 1:46am. On the way to the bar, I took the metro which decided to not open the doors of my car at my stop. Instead of waiting for a train to maybe take me back one stop I just walked the extra distance since I had extra time anyways. Before arriving at the bar, I stopped at Walgreens and bought a box of protein bars that I opened up and poured into my backpack as soon as I walked out of the doors. At my destination I found that the place was closed even though there was no indication of it being closed online and I had only found the place through some third-party site where the bar itself posted the flyer for that Wednesday. Not only that, but everything in Cleveland seemed to be closed for New Years. I was still miles away from the Amtrak Station with three hours left until they unlocked the doors and five until my train left so I just started to walk there.

I saw a sign on the street offering $10 palm readings from a psychic, so I called the number and asked to be let into the little shop by the fortune teller who mishears my name as David when I introduce myself. I learned that I am going to be working in a design role in 18 months and that I will be getting a girlfriend in March who will be from out of town and completing an internship. I gave her $20 and asked for five back since I thought it’d be rude to not tip since I made her work at such a late hour. With a new sense of hope I returned to the streets for a short moment before hearing a punk rock band playing in a bar across the street from where I was walking. I quickly crossed and entered the club to be stopped by a girl at the counter who I had trouble hearing over the music. She told me that it was a private party and that I couldn’t come in, which was extremely annoying since the least she could have done was lock the door, at least put a flyer on it. I call my friend Aaryan while I walk and tell him about my adventures and how we should plan a trip in the future. When I get to a livelier part of the city, I sit down next to an outdoor ice-skating rink and eat some protein bars while watching the skaters try not to fall. Some man comes up to me and gives pitches himself as someone in need who isn’t homeless who needs money for him, his wife, and his three-week-old baby. I offered him a protein bar and he walked away without even bothering to say no like I wasn’t even there. He then tries to do his pitch to people ice skating, but they obviously just kept on skating.

My last activity in Cleveland was going to Jack’s Casino and paying $13 for a pretty small double cheeseburger. I thought gambling was supposed to subsidize the food but boy was I wrong. I didn't dare think about ordering a drink at the bar since I knew it would be even more unreasonable. After getting enough looks from security after I finished eating, I took the cue to leave before they asked me to. By the time I got to Amtrak I had an hour left in 10-degree weather before they opened the doors at midnight. The jerks who worked at the station drove in a quarter hour early and didn’t even consider opening the door until right at midnight. I was just happy I wasn’t dead since I was starting to lose sensation in my toes. My legs were extremely sore and every time I stood up from my chair, I had to push on both armrests while moving very slowly.

My first train was delayed for a whole hour to 2:46am. I slept for maybe half an hour on the ride before getting to my stop in Pittsburg. At 5:52am I brush my teeth in the Amtrak bathroom after realizing I hadn’t done so since the morning before around the same time. I then proceeded to sit in the train station until 7:30am sleep deprived. My train to Philly departed on time and I got about two hours of on and off sleep in my less-than-ideal aisle seat. I left the Philly train station at 3pm without any idea of where I was going. I had checked the maps earlier to see where I wanted to eat whenever I got off the train and I thought I had seen a Cane’s nearby. When I put the Cane’s into the map, I saw that it was a forty-ish minute walk but at that point I couldn’t feel my legs anyways. Before I made it to Cane’s there was a Chipotle that I decided was more appetizing. I enjoyed a steak burrito and a warm diet coke since their ice machine was broken. Before leaving, I went to the (fortunately private) bathroom and changed my clothes for the first time on my trip. From there I walked to my hostel which turned out to be the opposite of where I had been walking.

I chose to stay at a hostel because it was very cost effective. This was also why I made sure that all my possessions could be worn by me since I didn’t want to leave them lying around in a room with 17 strangers. It was risk that panned out in a great way. I met a lot of people that I won’t name to preserve their identity but will describe my interactions with them since that’s what this whole piece of writing is about.

The place seemed to be friendly enough when I walked in. After I collected my bed sheets and key card, I walked across the alley that the hostel was in to the separated building my room was in to claim a bed. I saw online that they offer free drinks most nights and noticed a flyer that said they were serving mixed drinks at 8:30. With my time until then, I charged my phone for a short time then went to Winterfest, which was a small carnival type event on the Delaware Riverfront near George Washington Bridge that had an outdoor ice-skating rink and concessions. I saw a family walking with ice skates on the path there, so I began to follow them since there was a detour from construction and didn’t want to give myself the headache of navigating a longer than necessary path around it like I did in Cleveland. One man noticed me following them and stopping when they did. The first time I pretended to get on my phone. The second time, my stopping was a coincidence because I saw a sign about the slave trade on the riverfront and stopped to read it when they also stopped to take a picture. I realized what their perspective might be since it was at night, and I could be anybody, so I didn’t read the sign and kept walking. One of the men in the group stepped toward me and gave me a look like he wanted to punch me when I walked past them but who I think may have been his wife pulled him back because he wasn’t in the frame of their selfie. There were at least seven of them and one of me so I don’t know what threat he thought I could have posed. One of the security guards at the place played a prank on me by asking me to undo my laces before coming into security which I questioned. He laughed before telling me that he was kidding. I got a funnel cake and ate it at a table while watching the ice skaters. I didn’t realize that walking through construction detours and eating while watching people ice skate would be a reoccurring theme on this trip.

On my way back to the hostel I stopped by a restaurant and bar called Cuba Libre. I had a shot of tequila with a cube libre. I got to the hostel around 8:00 and sat in the common area watching two guys play pool. There was a third in their group that was watching while sitting at the counter near the pool table. I was hoping to use the upcoming mixed drinks as a social lubricant for meeting new people but that turned out not to be necessary because I got asked to play with them once the two of them finished their game. The guy that asked me was a Filipino from Toronto. He was playing against a guy from Australia and the guy watching was from Germany. Funnily enough, the only reason the German guy had come to Philly was to see an Eagles game since he was a fan in the team. I didn't realize American football was so popular over there. By the time the hostel started serving drinks my team, which had the Australian guy, had already lost twice but we were enjoying each other’s company. I had two rum and Sam’s which are generic rum and cokes. I got a funny look from the bartender when I ordered a rum and Sam’s and had to explain how I thought I was being clever. The guy from Australia starts to play on the Piano and another girl picks up a guitar. The guy from Toronto gets a big bongo drum and all of a sudden there is a jam sesh going on. The guy from Toronto convinces himself that he can sing but he doesn’t know the lyrics to any of the songs and he’s pitchy at best which just makes the whole experience better. One of the hostel volunteers that was another guy from either Germany or Australia lets us know that there will be a bar crawl starting soon and almost everyone says they’re in. We went to three bars on our crawl. The first an Irish Pub, the second was more of a restaurant, and the third was Mac’s which is owned by Rob and Kaitlyn McElhenney. At the first place I talked to a guy from Mexico, the guy from Australia, and the volunteer that was from either Germany or Australia. In a conversation about secret tattoos I was able to make my worn out Princess tramp stamp joke that got a good laugh from the group that I could feel good about. I had one super overpriced frozen drink at the second place that I’m not even sure had alcohol in it and talked to this girl from Israel who had just finished a semester at UT. At the third bar, another hostel volunteer that was from Istanbul told us about a jazz bar with live music. The group dwindles to about 10 people including me if memory serves correctly as we make our twenty-minute walk to a less clean part of town. We’re accosted by several homeless people in the alley of the jazz bar with one person going as far as to put their hands on some of the group. It didn’t seem like they were trying to be aggressive, and nobody seemed to pay much attention, but I remember being concerned about that one person in particular over how bold they were being. One person in our group didn’t have the right ID so we spend about one minute in the jazz place before going to a Barcade around the corner. We were there for a while and by then it felt like all the alcohol was out of my system from how much we had walked around. The guy from Toronto takes a selfie with me and the guy from Australia which is funny to think about since he will no doubt forget me and most of what happened that night soon enough and then just have a random picture of some stranger. We all got back to the hostel around 1:30am and I went to bed while the rest of the group headed to the common area to find something to eat. From the lack of rest for two days and physical exhaustion I had no problem sleeping at night.

My only full day in Philadelphia was spent taking in the sights. I arrived outside the Betsy Ross house a little before 10:30 for the Independence Mall Walking Tour. I got to talk to a guy from Germany that went to school in Wisconsin and another guy from Toronto that worked in production for the Starfleet Academy show. There was also a group of four people that I didn’t talk to that was from New York with the exception of one girl who was from the UK. We visited Elfreth’s Alley, Christ Church, Carpenters Hall, Frankin Court, and the outside of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. While on the tour, my group walked past three girls who I recognized from the night before. One of the girls, who was born in Denmark but moved to Germany when she was two, gave me a wave and I gave them all a smile because I couldn’t get my hand out of jacket pocket in time. My tour guide Joseph was great. He let me know that the Ghosts of Philly Tour that I scheduled for later that day at 7:30 may not happen pending the weather. Later that night he sent me a text saying that he could do the tour, but I opted for a refund since he also let me know I was the only one that signed up for it that night.

When the tour ended around 1, I got in line at Independence Hall to take the 20-minute tour led by a National park Ranger named Hugh. He was funny and entertaining and for the price of free, I’d say it was worth it. I noticed one man who obviously didn’t understand English, and I could tell this because he was using Google translate to translate everything the tour guide was saying. I thought this was super cool that Google translate was now good enough to do this in practically real time. I picked up a Stromboli from Viva Pizzas and took it to eat in the hostel. I tried to buy a Pepsi from the vending machines in the hostel, but it just spit out quarters when I put dollars in.

The guy at the hostel form Toronto recommended the Eastern State Penitentiary and said that it was really spooky. I took a bus there and arrived slightly before four, which was a bummer because I didn’t get to explore everything there. There was a main guided audio tour that I got to complete that was narrated by Steve Buscemi and one-off clips narrated by workers at the Penitentiary, professionals, and even former inmates. One building had an interactive exhibit about incarceration rates in the US that was very interesting, but I didn’t have time to read everything there. It started to snow when I was outside and instead of it being spooky it just looked really pretty. There were also a fair number of people there since it was Friday that gave the place a more welcoming atmosphere. I left right at closing at five and easily could have spent another two hours there.

I took the bus back to the hostel and found the guy from Australia and girl from Israel that I had spoken to the day before and introduced myself to a guy from Rhode Island. The guy from Australia decided to stay at the hostel as the rest of us left as a Trio to Angelo’s Pizzeria where they make some of the best Philly Cheesesteak in all of Philly. After a twenty-minute walk we saw that it had closed over an hour ago. Defeated, we turned back and ate at Sonny’s Famous Steaks less than a block from the hostel where I got a Cheez Whiz Cheesesteak that tasted pretty good. Allegedly Angelo’s would have been a lot better. As they start to close the place, we all stuff the last of our sandwiches down our gullets and go back to the hostel right around the corner. We all found our forty-minute journey to eat somewhere three minutes away amusing.

We reunited with our Australian friend who was going to go to an ACME supermarket to get groceries. With nothing to do, I asked if I could tag along. The other two in my party also wanted to come so the four of us made our way to get food. I didn’t get anything while I was there, but I did look for more protein bars since I was already out of them. By the time we got back to the hostel we had almost completely missed the free beer hour. I had one can of something generic and sat at a table with most of the people I had made quick friends with. We joked about American healthcare and in words that are too saucy to write here, I made a killer joke that’s setup involved me in a hospital bed missing a foot from diabetes dying from tumors while corn syrup is being put into my veins via an IV. Because, for the most part, nobody really knew each other I tried to break down barriers with comedy and I had some pretty good riffs when I was around others. The guy from Australia got cards against humanity and we played until someone got seven black cards. I was in the lead for a little while but the guy from Australia eventually won. When everyone went to turn in, I went out with the guy from Rhode Island and guy from Germany to a local Irish pub where the drinks were really affordable compared to the places I had been before. I had a shot of tequila with a rum and coke and then a Guiness. We had a lot more laughs there about sports and our cultures as well as some more meaningful conversations. I can’t remember what time we made our way back to the hostel, but I know it was well past midnight and from all that I had done that day, I had another really good night of deep sleep.

When I woke up on the 4th day of 2025, my last day in Philly, I packed up my sheets and checked out of the hostel before 10am. I beat the crowd to the Liberty Bell Center to get a look up close at the bell and look around at the small museum. I walk to the Wawa close by and pick up a protein bar, bag of Pillsbury cookies, and a pack of Airhead Xtremes to snack on in the airport. I called my mom to let her know how great my trip was after I got past the few bumps in the beginning to help the time pass before I headed over to the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History. I had told the girl from Israel that I was going to go there the day before and she asked if I wanted to meet her there when she went at 11. She showed up saying she was feeling sick and she looked the part. She went through a fair number of tissues while we were there, and I was holding my breath trying not to get sick. We went on a tour led by an old Jewish man who I assume was a volunteer. Mentally, he was mostly there but with some awkward pauses and the few times he forgot what he was saying while he was talking I could tell he won’t be giving those tours for a whole lot longer which is a shame because he was really entertaining at times and had some stories that weren’t written in the exhibits like his story of how Levi Strauss came to be during the gold rush. I’m both happy and resentful that I went on the tour and that I agreed to go with that girl. There was so much in that museum I didn’t get to look at. I was there for an hour and a half when there were way over five hours of exhibits if you really took your time. Some exhibits had QR codes that you could scan and listen to people talk about things that aren’t written anywhere. The girl spent a lot of time on her phone, which was embarrassing. It was only the two of us on the tour and the guide, who knew she was from Jerusalem, would ask her specific questions and she would not have been listening to a thing he said. I saw what she was doing a couple of times, and it was liking things on Instagram which I wouldn’t consider time sensitive. She seemed to be more interested in antisemitism than Jewish history. The only question she asked our guide was if there had been any antisemitic actions against the museum and later stopped to take a picture of a bike sticker about antisemitism. From my perspective, it looked like she was chasing something to be upset about when it wasn’t evidently present where she was at the time. Being where she’s from I’d assume it’s more of a relevant topic in her day-to-day life and that’s why I got that impression. Regardless, I still had a good time at the museum, and it is right next to the Eastern State Penitentiary on the list of places to revisit in Philly. The building had so many interesting pieces of Jewish history in America and was beautifully designed.

From the museum, the girl asked if I wanted to have lunch with her and I accepted since my plan was to just get more pizza by the slice somewhere and she had a recommendation from her parents. Before heading to the restaurant, we stopped at some academic building her dad used to hang out at, and she took a picture of it. Thankfully it was on our way and didn’t add too much travel time. We arrived at Moriarty’s Pub which is a classic looking Irish restaurant with antique lighting fixtures and dark wood making up most surfaces and furniture with the exception of some large mirrors placed along the wall we were sitting to. I ordered the beef stew which was much more expensive than the slice of pizza I would have gotten but it was something new. She ordered onion soup, Shepard's pie, and we split an appetizer of arancini. When she took off her jacket, I saw she was wearing a Gryffindor sweater, so I talked to her about Harry Potter. She had reread the books several times. She told me about her Instagram account where she was posting about her travels and the positive reception she got on the platform. I shared some of my problems with social media but didn’t go too far down my list since I could catch myself talking for hours about it and I knew she was a fan of it. She didn’t ask to split the bill and instead just put $4o for the total check which covered her food plus her tip. I didn’t have a reasonable amount of bills to cover my part, so I put my card down to cover the remainder. The waitress, when she took the check, cash, and card printed a second bill with the $40 taken off and then charged me for that second bill. Because all $40 went to that bill, I had to calculate what she put in for a tip that went to pay for my food on that bill, and overtip by that amount on my new bill so the waitress got a fair tip. I think I overtipped by a dollar.

We both left the pub and bid each other adieu. The next day she was flying to Miami and later going to Denver. I walked to the city rail station and bought a ticket to the airport. Sitting in my train car I noticed how dirty my fingernails had gotten. I didn’t shower the whole trip because I was not ready to take on hostel showers yet. I spent about half an hour going through TSA at PHL and I ate all the snacks I got at the Wawa before I even got on the plane in only an hour-ish long wait. I had a layover at MDW and walked down the whole airport to see what there was to eat. I got a $5 bottle of diet coke from one place and two glazed donuts from Dunkin’. I finished my dinner with a $15 packet of beef jerky looking forward to meals with Pepsi Zero instead of Diet Coke and pasta instead of donuts. On my 45-minute flight to Columbus I read a chapter of my book. I then Uber-ed home, showered, and began typing and revising this series of events on and off for the next four days.

Overall, I had a great trip. It started off poor, then got good, then really poor, then awesome and stayed pretty close to that way for a while. I got to meet a lot of new people from all over the world and see some of the history I learned about in school. I did feel kind of like a Barton Fink walking around with the other hostel people. A lot of them were on a big backpacking tour. The guy for Australia had been backpacking for three years since he graduated high school and was using money he made as a bartender to pay for it. Here I was with barely enough resources to make my short trip that I wasted part of seeing Sonic 3. They were trying to find out what they wanted to do with their lives, where they should go to school, what to do with the degree they got but didn’t know how to use. I was trying to look at Independence Hall. That group of three girls from the hostel that I recognized, two of them had happened to meet in a city they were in together previously and had been traveling together and were continuing to do that. I can’t imagine forming a spontaneous friendship like that.

On my next trip, I want to be a little more organized with what I want to do. I want to meet more people and maybe plan to do things with them depending on what type of person they are. I probably won’t pick someone who seems too attached to their phone but would pick someone I could joke around with. I got the number of the Rhode Island guy, and he told me to hit him up when I went to visit Boston. The German guy also said he would be in Cincinnati in a couple weeks, and we exchanged WhatsApp information so maybe I’ll see him them. I’m not trying to make lifelong friendships, just get around people I like and peek into their lives long enough to learn something new from them.

Where I’m going next and when I’m going is totally unknown to me. Washington DC, Boston, Toronto, New York. Wherever it is, I hope it does me some good. Who knows, maybe I’ll take my cosmically gifted girlfriend on my next trip.