Philadelphia
0907hrs
Chamounix Mansion, this youth hostel's called, and while on the small side as mansions go, I'd say it lives up to the connotations of its name. It's a nice building in large grounds, which I have yet to explore. I even saw a cat wandering about last night.
We'll be having a look round Philadelphia today, though from what I gather there's not a lot to see. The reason we came here is twofold - firstly, one of Colin's many friends-he's-never-met lives nearby, and today, though nothing's official as yet, either she'll be coming up here or we'll be going down there.
The other reason we've stopped at Philadelphia is that its youth hostel is cheaper than Washington's, and the two are close enough that we can commute. We'll be going there tomorrow.
Not long after that the plan becomes more vague. There are a couple of other friends of Colin's we'll be visiting, and then there are things all over the place we'd quite like to see, but most of which are pretty inconvenient.
A case in point is Mount Rushmore. It's not often that you see four giant heads glaring down at you, hewn from the living rock, as one of the Bronté sisters would put it, unless one of the other Bronté sisters beat her to it, but it's way up there in the Black Hills, the Black Hills of Dakota, anywhere which no train goes. At least, no Amtrak train, and if we went on anything else we'd have to pay.
Besides which, we have to ask ourselves, is it worth the time? The longer we spend travelling across the country, the less time we have in our final destination on the west coast, and there's so much to see on the west coast we really ought to try to get there as soon as we can.
But that's the future, and when one's life is tearing past at such a speed, living for anything but the present is a very dizzying experience.
Back, then, to Chamounix Mansion. Last night we slept in room 31 (where I am now), but owing to them not having any single room available for three consecutive nights, we're migrating all the way to room 32 today.
One thing I've not got round to in this busy whirl of holiday is postcards. I managed to buy a load (six for sixty cents in New York, so far the cheapest we've seen anywhere), and I've even got round to writing a couple, though it's not easy. What can you say in about seventy words? You have to either abridge to the point of meaninglessness, or write about two proper sentences. The other problem is that you can't ever say the same thing on postcards to different people. It's not like any of them might exchange notes, and reveal me as a fraud; nevertheless there is, I feel, some kind of natural law stating that everything you write on a postcard must be completely original, and bear not a passing resemblance to anything you've written to anybody else, and it is a law you disobey at your peril.
But despite these restrictions I have, as I say, written a couple, and I even managed eventually to buy some stamps. Since then, however, my luck has run out. I've been searching for a post box for days, and found not a one.
Today, then, I will search for a post box if it takes all afternoon. In the meantime I'll write a couple more postcards to stick in it.
Same day
The Independence National Historic Park, Philadelphia
1540hrs
Colin's friend's working today or something, so we won't be
seeing her after all. It being a Sunday, of course, there wouldn't be
much to do anywhere, but here in Philadelphia it isn't just any Sunday.
This is Super Sunday, the last day of the summer vacation.
As I remember the last day of the summer holiday, it was always far from super. The knowledge of school the next day after weeks of doing nothing made whatever you happened to be doing feel like the last whatever-you-happened-to-be-doing before the execution.
It is perhaps for this reason that in Philly a diversion has been invented in the form of Super Sunday. There's a big parade (actually, as parades go, it's quite a small parade, but it's still a parade) and all kinds of stalls doing everything from selling pretzels to preaching the virtues of celibacy. One guy was handing out sidewalk chalk (I don't know why. I think he was mad), with which I've done a few doodles on the pavement. I've not seen any by anybody else, though. I don't think it will catch on.
The public transport here is fast, convenient and cheap, which for someone from Britain is quite a culture shock. In Britain, the government and the transport authorities have got a nice little racket going. Every budget, the chancellor announces that he's increasing petrol tax to encourage use of public transport, and sure as Frosted Flakes (of corn) is Frosties, the buses announce that because petrol tax has gone up by 10%, they have no choice, pained though they are by their obligation, to raise bus fares by 30%. Everyone's a winner, except the public.
But there's none of that over here. There's even a display telling you where you are, knowledge which the British bus operators appear to believe is none of the public's business. If we adopted a public transport system like the one over here, there might actually be a slim chance of the planet surviving to the end of the millennium.
Same day
Philadelphia
2031hrs
Philadelphia seems like a nice enough place, but there's not much here for the tourist. At least, not this tourist. It's got loads of museums and historic sights; a lot of things here are connected to the Liberty bell, which is here somewhere itself. We didn't see that. I still don't know what it is, other than a big bell.
We were, I think, quite fortunate to be here on Super Sunday - on that day of the week I don't suppose there's much to do anywhere; the carnival at least made it a bit interesting. As far as I can tell, Super Sunday is unique to Philly. I suppose they might have it nation-wide, but I don't think so.
A word on my diet. I don't know how many of the four basic food groups it contains, but I'm guessing at least three are absent. We've been living off bread rolls (me with a cheese slice, Colin plain), crisps, M&M's and various soft drinks. At first we made the mistake of buying the likes of Coke and Dr. Pepper, but of course when you're not keeping them refrigerated they go flat pretty quick and taste disgusting. We're now going in for orangeade - that way, when it goes flat it's just like orange juice. It might, I suppose, be healthier to buy orange juice in the first place, but how healthy can you be within the spirit of holidaymaking? Not very.
I finally found what, as far as I could tell, was a post box, and got rid of my postcards. It was roughly the shape of R2D2, and didn't explicitly say that it was a post box, but it had the name of the mail service on and a slot, so I guess it was okay.
Speaking, as I was, of health, I've not had a shower since the start of the holiday. Tonight, though, I've been playing Ping-Pong and sweating heavily, so I suppose I can't put it off any longer.
I just watched The Simpsons, the first TV I've seen here. It's sponsored by Snapple, and has two commercial breaks.
The train to Washington leaves tomorrow morning at 9:14. Since this hostel's quite out of the way, that means leaving at eight and getting up even earlier. In Britain that kind of time would seem horrific to me, but I'm still not quite in sync with this time zone and it shouldn't be too bad. Even so, I'd better not go to bed too late. I think I'll go and have that shower.
Room 32, by the way, is much like room 31, but a bit bigger.
