Walking in a Philly Wonderland

I’m Sunny, 21

On Friday morning, at 6 am, I woke up excitedly and got on the lyft to Philadelphia Airport. The plane arrived at 8 from Boston, dropping my dear old friend in my city. Virginia is a friend I met in Oklahoma back in 2012, and we have been looking forward to meeting each other ever since I left the US in 2014.

It was her first time in Philly, so I decided to become her tour guide for the weekend. To be honest, I wasn’t an expert on Philly either. But since Philly has some classic and popular visiting places which I didn’t really go to before, I thought it was also a chance for me to really look all around the city.

After grabbing brunch in a cafe in Center City, we walked to Independence Hall. The weather was beautiful – it was the best I’ve seen in Philly – and it felt like the city was welcoming my friend. Arriving at Independence Hall, I learned that in order to visit some of the historical sites and museums in the city, you have to go through a body check just like the one you do in the airport. After a quick scan of my stuff, we could freely roam around the place though some buildings were closed for the day. The same was applied to Liberty Bell place. My friend wanted to buy a fridge magnet in Philly for her mother, and I offered her a Cheesesteak magnet.

Walking around Philly, we visited several museums in the city. I never knew that there were so many various types of museums in town. One of the most interesting places was the museum of American Jewish History. The reason we went there was because of the big YO sign in front of the museum. YO was a wordplay of OY in Jewish and YO in English, which I thought was both clever and meaningful.

We visited well-known places in Center City, the Art Museum, Penn’s landing, City hall, Pat’s and Geno’s, China Town, etc., throughout the two days. Half of them were familiar places, half weren’t but all of them were a place worth visiting with my friend, and I felt like I was really showing around my city to my friend.

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