In my 10 years as a professional, I've gone to some pretty cool places for work (Ireland, The Netherlands, San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego), some average places (Laconia, NH and Irvine, CA) and some not very cool places (New Brunswick, NJ, West Valley, UT).
In these 10 years I've tried very hard to coordinate a work trip to Philadelphia because I've been a lifelong Philadelphia Flyers fan and have always wanted to see them play in person. I finally found a perfect training for me to go to in Philadelphia, and the timing seemed great, too: I would be there during the early stages of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It would have been a dream come true to see my favorite team play in a playoff game.
But...things don't always work out the way you want them to, like when your favorite team wraps up their 1st Round series a little early, and then doesn't start their next series until the day after you leave town .... (sigh)....
There are worse places to be stuck without an NHL game, I suppose. There's this really old bell in Philadelphia that everybody seems to like [SPOILER ALERT! ... It's broken.] Philadelphia also used to be a cool hangout for dudes in frilly shirts and knee socks.
I got to see some of the downtown area where my training was, including Philadelphia's grand City Hall, the Pennsylvania Masonic Temple Headquarters, and JFK Plaza. Other parts of the city (Chinatown, Germantown) I ended up seeing only because I got hopelessly lost. It's a credit to Philadelphia (I guess) that you can still get lost there even with a functioning GPS.
I also attempted to substitute a Phillies baseball game for the heartache of no Flyers hockey game. It didn't heal me at all. It was freeze-your-nose off cold that night, the Phillies were awful, they lost to another awful team (the Cubs), and I missed the only Phillies highlight (a home run) while I was walking toward the exit. You know what made the experience better, though? Ice cream in a little baseball helmet. Man, you're never too old for that.
Philadelphia is a real drastic change of scenery for a good old Utah boy. Here are some random thoughts about my 3 days there:
- I didn't see a single member of Boyz II Men. What kind of greeting is that, Philadelphia? Shouldn't they be strategically stationed throughout the arrival gates of your airport?
- People in Philadelphia yell a lot. And not just when they're arguing. I don't know how many times I heard yelling, thought to myself, "Yes, a knife fight!" and turned around to see that the people yelling at each other were actually carrying on a normal conversation. "THAT'S WHEN I TOLD THEM THAT I WAS ACTUALLY HAPPY WITH MY INTERNET PROVIDER!" "I HEAR THAT! THOSE GUYS CALL ME ALL THE TIME!"
- Do people become homeless because they talk to themselves? Or do they talk to themselves because they're homeless? I saw ample evidence to support both views while I was in Philadelphia.
- You are much more likely to watch where you're stepping in a city that has random urine smells wafting around. Trust me.
- Downtown Philadelphia has a tiny grid street system. They have attempted to cram multiple lanes into streets that were only meant for 1 or 2 lanes. To make up for this, they have created many one-way streets. There is also no room for left-hand turn lanes. What does this mean to the out-of-towner? You better pray to your Garmin God that you don't miss any of your turns, because heaven help you if you do. I had to drive to Virginia just to flip a U-turn.
- At the Phillies game I sat by what I am going to assume were two typical Philadelphians. They arrived late to the game, then spent the next 3 innings complaining about their tickets.
Overall I had a great time. But I was very glad to get back to plain old Utah, with its wide streets, calm citizens, and minimal urine smells.
