Life in the Old World: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Ben and I flew from Portland to Seattle and then Seattle to Philadelphia where we had a 12 hour layover. Ben had this same layover in December and he found a train that goes right into the center of Philly. When we landed it was still dark so we hung out at the airport and took a nap first and then went into Philly after the sun had risen.

When we first got into the city we were starving! Last time Ben was there he had found a market that had really yummy bagels so we headed there first for breakfast. After breakfast we started to make our way to Eastern State Penn, considered to be the oldest penitentiary in the world. On the way we saw the court house, a basilica, the boat houses and one of the art museums.

Eastern State Penn was so cool! It opened in 1829 and housed inmates such as Willie Sutton, a notorious bank robber and Al Capone. It has a wagon wheel construction. What would be the spokes of the wagon is where the inmates' cells were. Over 300 prisons were designed after Eastern State Penn. The prison was designed so that it was virtually impossible for prisoners to come in contact with another human being while staying there. The cells opened into a little exercise room outside but the exercise times for the prisoners were set up so that no two prisoners in cells side by side would have exercise time at the same time. Also, they had to wear bags over their heads when they were outside for the allotted one hour a day. Eventually the prison had to do away with this particular set up of solitary confinement due to the problem of over crowding. The prison also had running water (before the White House!) and the toilets were flushed twice a week.

The prison closed in 1969. However they host annual get togethers with ex-inmates and ex-guards. I don't think I'd be too keen on going to one of those if I had been a guard.

After we finished at the prison we headed to downtown Philly. We went to the United States Mint where they were making pennies that day. We also saw Independence Hall. I wanted to go see the Liberty Bell but the line was way too long and we needed to get lunch and head back to the airport. We ate lunch at the same market and then caught the train back.

Once again, I almost made us miss our flight. Ben asked what gate we flew out of and I glanced at it and told him A3. So we headed there and sat down to wait. At 5:17pm I couldn't figure out why the US Airways people hadn't showed up yet. We were supposed to board at 5:40pm and I wanted to make sure our baggage had made it from Portland, OR. Ben was sleeping so I took out the ticket and double checked the gate. Our actual gate was A20! I was sitting in row 33 so I think that is where the 3 came from. I woke Ben up and we quickly headed over to the correct gate. Fortunately Ben is a pretty calm guy and he didn't get upset with me. I told him I was officially finished with being in charge of what terminal we fly out of or what gate we're supposed to be at.

Eight hours later we landed in Madrid, got our bags and we were home by 8:30am. I wasn't planning on sleeping the whole day and I think I even set an alarm for 11am. We didn't get up until 4pm though! Fortunately we had a few days to fight off jet lag before heading back to work.

Sunset in Seattle, waiting to board our first of two red eye flights to get back to Spain.

The court house.

The basilica.

Art Museum.

The boat houses from across the river.

Eastern State Penitentiary

A plaque honoring the inmates who served in the World War. I do not know if it is for the first or second World War. (First or second? I don't know. The plaque doesn't say.) I thought it was interesting they honored them by using their inmate identity numbers and not their names.