One sunny Sunday morning in mid April, I left Peddie School in Hightstown and headed to unfamiliar city, Philadelphia. Worrying about the long walk in the city, my partners and I were dropped off at city hall. My partners, Maggie and Alyssa were very excited for the trip and came up with many plans. Visiting an unfamiliar place is always exciting. My group had many plans so we started walking as soon as we got off the bus. While we were walking, Maggie and Alyssa stared at the map, and I paid attention to people in the city as I followed them. The city was full of joy and everyone was joyful under the sun. The roads were filled up with many cars, taxis, and busses. While we were walking, we heard two women shouting at each other. “Move the damn car!!” “I’m not moving!! You better back off!!” Maggie, Alyssa, and I looked at each other and we were confused. I did not know what was causing the fight, but I thought it was funny because they were causing the traffic jam. With a little smile on my face, we started walking again.
Our first plan was to see the liberty bell. When we arrived there, we found out that the liberty bell is in the building. Before we were able to enter the building, there was security check that we had to go through. The security check made me think the liberty bell is a very important part of the American history. In the building, there were many pictures and words up on the wall. However, most people were surrounding the liberty bell. When I first saw it, I could not believe how close I was to the part of American history. Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me, so I decided to keep the image in my mind. I took a good look at it, and we left the building.
Another historical place, Franklin Court was our next destination. The entrance was so vague that we almost missed it. When we entered the court, there was a big space surrounded by buildings. That is the place where Benjamin Franklin used to live. The actual house was taken down long time ago, but we were able to see the floors where Franklin’s kitchen, bathroom and other rooms used to be on. The bathroom made our group laugh because it was just a hole. After exploring Franklin’s house, we sat down and took notes. As we were writing notes, we saw a museum in the court, so we went in. It was a long to the underground until we saw the entrance of the museum. At the entrance, we saw things that belong to Benjamin Franklin such as his chairs, tables, glass instrument and so on. The woman, who was cleaning the glass instrument, told us that she just finished performing. I wanted to see the performance, but we had to wait for another two hours until the next performance. Disappointed about missing the performance, we went further in the museum. As we advanced further, we saw many phones lined up. On the wall in front, there were many names of people in history and numbers. I pressed the numbers which was next to Thomas Paine’s name. “Hello, this is Thomas Paine from the parliament…” I finally realized that I was calling Thomas Paine. I thought it was really amazing that you can call people who you have seen in history text books. While I was having conversation with Thomas Paine, I heard something from my back so I hanged up and turned around. There was a huge box which had many dolls of colonists in it. As I looked in the box, the lights in the box turned off. I realized that I missed another performance of the day. “What an unlucky day!!” I thought. With the disappointment, I left the box and walked around the room. There were many of Benjamin Franklin’s work in the room. There were letters to the parliament, and letters to other colonist leaders. After we walked around the room once, there was not much too see so we left the place.
I was excited when we left the museum because we were heading to Geno’s Steaks. I was excited and displeased at the same time because Geno’s Steaks was on the bottom of the map which was very far from where we were. Without any word, we just kept walking, walking, and walking. We had few words just to make sure we were going to the right direction, but nothing else. We did not talk much not only because we were walking a lot, but were also because we were observing the city. The city looked beautiful under the sunny weather. Everyone in the city was relaxed because it was Sunday. I totally loved the place. After the long walk, we saw a long line of people. I became little upset when I found out that all those people were waiting for the cheese steaks. We went all the way around the corner and lined up behind the last person on the line. We had nothing to do so we started taking notes. As I was taking notes, there were two people in front of us. Their bodies were covered with numerous numbers of tattoos. I tried not to make eye contact with them because I was nervous. However, Maggie spoke up and said “May we ask few questions for our class?” I was stunned. Actually, these people were very friendly and answered every one of our questions.
“Where are you from?” Maggie asked.
“Rhode Island” the tattoo man answered.
“Why did you come to Philadelphia?” Maggie asked again.
“We came to see the museums” the tattoo lady answered.
“Also to check out some motorcycles” the tattoo man added.
As we were talking, many motorcycles passed by the store. The man with tattoo looked at them and smirked as he smoked on his cigar. They were really loud and the sounds of motorcycles were killing my ears. We waited for about forty minutes, and finally ordered cheese steak. When I ordered, the man asked me if I wanted onions in the cheese steaks. I said “sure” although I never knew that you can put onions in cheese steaks. After we got our cheese steaks, we sat down and sighed because we were walking and standing the whole time. Alyssa said “It’s so nice to sit” and Maggie and I both agreed. I took a bite of the cheese steak. As I swallowed the first bite, I said to myself “I am definitely putting onions in cheese steaks next time”.
With our full filled stomachs, we headed back to north. We were all happy since we just ate the best cheese steaks. Maggie suddenly said that she wants to have a cup of ice cream so we stopped at a store as we were heading back. I saw milk shake on the menu, so I ordered it.
“May I get a milk shake please?” I said nicely.
“What?” the store keeper said.
“May I get a milk shake please?” I said it more clearly this time.
“We don’t have milk shake” the store keeper answered.
“But I saw it on the menu list” I told him.
“We don’t have it” the store keeper answered with frightening face.
“…Ok…” I just walked out the store as I answered.
I was in a bad mood since then. At least he could have told me nicely I thought. We continued our way to the north. Our next destination was St. Peter’s Church. When we got there, we were not sure at first because the entrance was graveyard. As we walked in further, we saw a church, so we went in. I do not usually go to churches besides Peddie’s, so it was fresh for me. The room was large. As we were taking a look at the church, an old man walked to us and said “May I help you?” We said we were there for the class. I supposed that the old man is the priest of the church. He told us that this is the Church of England, and it was given by the Paines. He also told us where George Washington used to sit. I was impressed that this church had been there since the period of thirteen colonies. After the explanations, we thanked him and left the church.
We decided to go to Vietnam War Memorial since it was almost pick up time. When we got there, there were already many people waiting for the bus. As I was waiting for the bus, I wrote down more notes. When we saw the Peddie bus, we ran across the street and got on it. Before I got on the bus, I took a last glance at the city, and took a picture with my eyes.
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