Philadelphia

In Philadelphia I was staying in an area of the city called University City. It is an inner suburban area with 3 different universities in it, including the prestigious Penn University.

I was staying in the Loftstel – the same company which I stayed in at DC. In DC I paid $50 per night for the hostel room which is the most I've ever paid for a hostel. But it was nice, and it paid off, because the Loftstel had a transfer policy, by which you could get free accommodation in any other Loftstel in 4 cities within a week of your last paid visit (with various conditions applying). Anyway, the point is I managed to swing it to get 3 nights FREE accommodation in the Philly Loftstel.

University City was a really really nice part of the city, and full of uni students. Upon arrival at the Loftstel I was hoping for an exact blueprint of the DC Loftstel. It was the same sort of townhouse, but I was disappointed upon entering that it was very run down (in fact in comparison to the DC Loftstel it reminded me of the abandoned house from Fight Club) and there were no pretty 20 year old interns around.

But hey, I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. That night I hung out with 2 German blokes. We checked out the Penn campus. The next day I slept in and just had enough time to head out the the Old City for a Philly cheese steak.

A Philly cheese steak is a sandwich in a crusty long roll with thin cuts of grilled beef, melted cheese and fried onions. It is traditional Pennsylvanian junk cuisine. The Germans had gone so that night I hung out with a guy from Chile and his Greek friend who lives in London.

My last day in Philly was spent doing some sightseeing. I headed straight for the museum of art to run up the stairs from the Rocky movie. Later in the afternoon, back in the Old City, I walked into a random dingy bar to have another cheese steak and a $1 beer. I started talking to the guy next to me, who was a German accented Spanish tourist. We chatted for a while and I was proud to have made friends with someone other than in my hostel. Then we started discussing where we were staying, and it turns out that he too was staying at the other end of the city in University City, in fact in the Loftstel as well, and in the room right next to mine. Amazing coincidence in a city of eight million people!

On my last night I did what I almost always do on my last night – got drunk. I went out to some cool bars with a girl from Oklahoma.

I got to bed at 5am (after stopping off on the way home in 24 hour diner for a third cheese steak in two days), and had to get up at 10 to check out of the hostel, hung over as usual.

I did that, and made my way to the main train station in the city, to catch the New Jersey transit to Atlantic City.