Dates: December 22, 2018 to December 23, 2018
The City of Brotherly Love is not a nickname for Philadelphia, rather a direct translation of the Greek. This trip to Philly was a surprise trip—we had a one hour layover from Seattle to London but our plane was downsized, because that’s a thing, and they had to kick forty or so people off the plane. We knew this was coming because we were told this in Seattle and almost given a direct flight, but no luck.
Before going into all that Philly has to offer that we found, a few things about being bumped from flights.
This is an awful experience for everyone involved. When having to move 40 people to other flights to London when London isn’t necessarily the final destination in a timely manner is an impossible ask. Multiply that by a million when you’re doing this at Christmas.
Judy, the attendant at the desk, was incredibly awesome. She had to do a lot of work re-booking lots of flights and did us a solid by getting us two seats by themselves on the flight. She also had to deal with some stressed out people for a long time.
Speaking of a long time, all told we were waiting for maybe 90 minutes, during which we listened to the litany of non-famous Christmas pop playing at the Philadelphia Airport. Highlights? “Hey, Santa” by The Wilsons, which are Wilson-Phillips minus Phillips (for what it’s worth, the top 10 original Christmas pop songs from the 20th century are in order: “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey, and end of list).
Here is some advice about getting bumped. You are entitled to compensation if you are not allowed on your plane. If you volunteer your seat though, you aren’t entitled to anything (though the airline will likely offer you something). In the chaos, we were asked if we would volunteer to be bumped, we said yes and that was it. That said… I’m glad we did. The last person on the flight was a pregnant woman flying alone. Among those who were left off the flight was a woman married to a British man, a whole family starting their vacation, and a man connecting to halfway around the world for a job interview. The airline offered a $700 voucher. Maybe we would have gotten more or maybe someone who really couldn’t miss their flight would miss their flight. And now, Philadelphia
The greatest coffee product in the world is the La Colombe draft latte. They sell these in cans, but if you can get them on tap, then do it. There was a location off the Damen Blue Line in Chicago. But they are from Philadelphia. We opted to take a cab straight to the La Colombe flagship store in Fishtown. In addition to their coffee, they had tons of pastry and some great food for brunch.
From here we took the train (which is surprisingly like Chicago’s El in terms of font choices and design) to Market Street and saw the Liberty Bell. Well, “saw.” Thanks to the Republican administration and Congress, government funding for National Parks were shut down and we could only see the Liberty Bell in profile (no crack) from a window after waiting in a surprisingly long line of other disappointed tourists. We went for a walk through downtown. The city hall is a beautiful building that reminded me of Vienna, both in architecture and the Kristkindlmarkt in the courtyard. We stopped in Macy’s and watched their Christmas light show, popped into Reading Terminal Market, and then walked to the Museum (the one with the Rocky Statue in front). It’s a good museum, but after living the Art Institute for 10 years, everything seems only okay. They had a special exhibit on fashion which was dope though.
We then took another cab to Rittenhouse Square, went to Franklin Bar, a speakeasy in a basement, stopped at the fanciest Anthropologie in the universe, and then got on the train to return to the airport. Off to Europe