Day 2 : We walked how much?!

After sleeping only 5 hours last night after a long day, I gotta say, it was difficult getting up this morning. Nonetheless, the show must go on because we had A LOT to do today.

This is the only full day my parents had while here in Philly, and we’re all leaving about midday tomorrow. With a decent number of things to try and see today, we needed to get up and out at a decent time. Luckily, nearly everything here doesn’t open until 9, so we were out by 8 with time to sit down and eat breakfast before beginning our day.

Considering we were out for 15 hours, and walked over 12 of that, I’m going to do my absolute best to give you the cliffnotes version of our day in attempt to avoid this from being too long… no promises, but I’ll try my best.

On our way to the first stop, we passed by some beautiful murals before walking through Washington Square. The Square is the home of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from the Revolutionary War. This is to symbolize the thousands of bodies that were buried beneath the ground many years ago by the British.

First official stop on the list was Independence Hall – the place where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were created and signed. For day tours you usually need tickets, but the guide said we could squeeze into the next tour so shout-out Luke! Our tour included seeing the Court Room and the Assembly Room. The Assembly Room is where all the good stuff happened.

Many of the founding fathers sat in this room and debated back and forth on what they wanted our documents to say. The last line of the Declaration of Independence states “we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor”, and while we think this Declaration is a celebratory thing for American History, it didn’t feel like that in the moment. Many of the signers waited in silence to sign, fearing this would be the signature to their death warrant. However, later when the Constitution was written, Ben Franklin decided the sun on the President’s Chair was rising (instead of setting), which was the optimistic way of looking at things.

Next stop: Liberty Bell, a symbol of the American Revolution. The bell is now silenced as it has a crack up the side.

The Independence Visitor Museum was nearby, and even though it wasn’t originally included in sites to see, we stopped in for a quick look. They had a replica of the President’s Chair which was pretty neat!

Next Stop: National Constitution Center. This was the first attraction my parents got to use their GoCity Pass for. Going through our history and the progress it took to get where we are today was pretty cool to say the least. They also had a replica of the President’s Desk and Supreme Court Chamber.

Another unexpected stop, but also not surprised – the US Mint. The mint isn’t open on the weekends, however you’re still able to walk around. No photography allowed, though, so that stinks!

We saw some cute things on our way to our next stop which was the Independence Seaport Museum. This museum also is the current holding place of the USS Olympia. Essentially, the biggest “win” this ship had was safely getting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that’s currently in Washington DC to America. They crossed paths with the Tampa Bay Hurricane and nearly capsized!

Time was now getting shorter since just about everything also closes at 5, but we only had one more museum to go. After a quick bite of ice cream, we were in the Uber making our way to the Eastern State Penitentiary. This property is 10 miles long! It was very interesting to hear from some of the prisoners there as well (via audio tour) and see the design and layout of course. They had different cell block areas which included one for general population, one for women, one for those who were stick/ill, and 4 that were for general population but also two story instead of just one. We even got to see where Al Capone stayed! While newspapers and many others claimed Capone was purposely caught to avoid going back home, the park rangers say this isn’t true. It’s hard to imagine living in those conditions for extended periods of time. Everyone was nearly isolated from one another.

Next stop: Museum of Art. Not because we wanted to see the museum, but so we could be in the same place Rocky once was. I’m not sure quite how long it took Sylvester Stallone to run up those stairs, but I’m just saying I did it in 37 seconds. Afterwards, we had to snap a picture in front of the famous statue!

Now it’s about 6:30 and time to eat. We went to LaScala’s Fire which was delicious. It was also a much needed relaxer as we didn’t stop for very long prior to this in all of our walking. So many hours of walking with short and quick breaks made this time even more enjoyable. Especially knowing what we’d be doing next…

Part of the GoCity pass attractions is walking tours. We could choose a family friendly ghost tour or we could choose an adult dark Philly tour. The choice was fairly easy. After our dinner we headed to the meeting spot for the adult dark tour. On the way, we also got to see the first ever Wawa before it ever became a gas station!

Our ghost tour was 2 hours long, but included some pretty neat facts and stories. I won’t give out too much, just a few fun facts I found to be interesting:

• George Washington’s House was torn down, but the foundation still remains. You’re able to see and walk through the layout to get a similar feel. This would’ve been considered the first “White House”.
• The reason we say Upper and Lower House when referring to the Senate and Congress, is because the original building they were in had two floors with the Senate on the 2nd.
• Back in the day, surgeons used to allow patients to sell tickets to family and friends to watch their procedure so they could use the proceeds to fund the procedure.

And possibly the best fun fact to come out of the entire tour?

• Cleopatra invented the first ever vibrator by glassblowing a cylinder shape, filling it with bees (yes, BEES), and sealing it with beeswax. So essentially, according to Joe, our amazing tour guide, “you had 20 minutes to rub one out before the bees died and you had to recharge”. Shoutout Cleopatra, we love a Queen who knows what she wants.

By the time we finished the tour and made it back to our hotel, it was about 11pm. We had been gone for 15 hours total, walking for more than 12 of that, and exhausted. We all came into the room, took our shoes off, sat/laid down and collectively sat in silence for a moment enjoying the relief.

I decided to check my Apple Watch stats to see how much I truly walked, and between yesterday and today, I’ve walked about 20 miles!! That is absolutely nuts.

We decided to end our last night together after an exhausting day with a couple adult beverages, and boy did they hit the spot. Now it’s about 2:30am, and even though we don’t have a full day tomorrow, I still need to get some beauty rest.

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Talk soon😊