Our first days in Philly!
Door: Linda Damhuis
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Linda
01 April 2017 | Verenigde Staten, Philadelphia
Thursday March 30th 2017
Well, the air mattrass did not hold it’s air…around midnight I asked Caroline if she was awake, so I could jump into the double bed with her, because I was lying on the floor already!!
The bed was fortunately a good double bed, so we were not in each other’s way. Didn’t really sleep much after that and we were fully awake around a quarter to 6.
We got up around 6:30am and worked on our laptop and tablet, while we had breakfast.
Around 8:30am we took showers and got dressed and by 9:30 we were out the door. We walked to UPenn, where Caroline was to meet her professor at 11am.
We walked through the neighborhood which was very quiet, although there were a lot of parked cars. The houses looked really nice, some could do with a coat of paint and the stairs needed some repairs, but they were nice.
It was really cold outside!!! Yesterday when we got here it was nice and sunny. This morning we did see some blue skies and a little bit of sunshine, but that was all gone by the time we left the house!! The wind was really freezing!!!!!
The UPenn area is huge!! There is also Drexel University, which together is called University City, surprisingly!
At the UPenn area is a regular hospital, a children’s hospital and a lot more buildings. We also found the Auditorium where Caroline is going to practice with the orchestra while she is here.
It turned out the be only a couple of minutes from her lab, so it will be easy to go there after work.
The professor was a really nice man, he showed us the lab and he introduced Caroline to people she is going to work with. He also showed us the city, by taking us up to the 14th floor. Really nice view of the city and he told us where to find certain things. While we were there, FedEx showed up with Caroline’s blood samples, which she had send this way on Tuesday already. Before we left she could see that it had arrived in Memphis, but because of some extra information that they needed, they didn’t send it on to Philadelphia. We still were not quite sure what it was they needed, but a gentleman working at the lab took care of it.
So now that it was there while we were there, Caroline could take a look at it, see if everything was alright. She of course send it here with dry ice, to keep it frozen, but that only stays ice for so long. Fortunately everything was alright, so Caroline could rest easy!
Around noon we had lunch in a café in the building, very nice tuna sandwich and ceasar wrap. After lunch we walked back to the Auditorium and from there we went to 30th street septa station, where we bought some tokens for the bus, trolley and subway. Everything is pretty much within walking distance, the city center is a bit farther out, so it is nice to have them. When we are tired we can always take a trolley back to the house.
We had coffee and a donut at Dunkin Donuts, which for me is very familiar, but new for Carolina, she liked her latte very much!
We found a grocery store on 40th and Walnut street, very big!
I had already warned Caroline that there would be a lot of food here, usually a lot of different choices and she found herself in a different world!!
Every now and then she had to stop to take a picture! We found blue tortilla chips and mothers milk tea…which we definitely do not have in the Netherlands!
And of course we got a couple of things that she just has to try, because I always have them when I’m here, the turkey sandwich, the cinnamon raisin bagel with Philadelphia cream cheese and so on…yumm!!
So with all of our stuff we walked back to the house in 47th street!!! Next time we’ll bring our empty backpacks so we can carry most of it on our backs!! And of course here we had to go up to the 3rd floor, but we made it!
Caroline talked to Eddie through whatsapp and I wrote a little story!
Someone is watching tv and has it on so that we can all enjoy it. Caroline is practicing on her viola, to see if that would help bring down the noise, but no luck so far!
Friday March 31st 2017
Last night we had a nice tomato soup and the rest of the hotdogs for dinner. After dinner we got an email from our host Amy, who was just downstairs, if we still wanted another mattrass. Which we did, so we went downstairs to haul up a mattrass from a futon. She took down the empty air mattrass.
The futon mattrass was nice and hard….(which I really felt this morning!!)
Around 9:30pm we were tired, so we got ready to go to bed. Unfortunately the music from downstairs was still audible, so while I was brushing my teeth, Caroline went downstairs to ask if the music could be turned down. Turned out to be Amy’s partner!!! Of course we didn’t know that that was her room, but it was a bit awkward!!
But it worked, because she turned the music off and we had no trouble falling asleep.
We slept through until 7:30am this morning. Caroline wanted to go out for a run, so she got dressed and was ready to go. Meanwhile I took a shower and got dressed, when I got back to the room, Caroline was still there. Turned out that she did go out the door for her run, but she came right back in, because it was raining really hard!!! O well, she’ll try again tomorrow!!
We had breakfast in our room, a nice bagel with cream cheese, which is my favorite and now also Caroline’s!!!
After that we were digitally busy, Caroline managed to find a hotel in Washington and I booked our transportation, so we are all set for our first weekend trip!!! We do hope the weather is going to get better, today is really wet and it doesn’t look too good for the rest of the week, so fingers crossed!
Planning to go out this afternoon to a nice 2nd hand bookstore, always a nice place to go when it is raining!
We had lunch with some soup to warm us up and a nice turkey sandwich, also one of my favorites, which Caroline now likes also, so I will not have to worry about her getting hungry when I’m not here in May!!
After lunch I went downstairs to ask Amy if there any umbrella’s we could borrow, because it was still raining cats and dogs, we really wanted to go outside and I only brought one raincoat. Fortunately she had some and she also had an extra set of keys, which will come in handy when Caroline is going to work.
So with umbrella’s in hand we ventured out into the rainy day and good lord what an insane amount of water came down!!!!
I actually felt right at home, because like in Arnhem the water came down the street in rivers!!
We managed to find the nearest bus stop, which Caroline can use when she wants to come back home after practicing in the orchestra. It gets dark pretty early and it is not really fun to walk around in this quiet neighborhood on your own.
Then we walked up to the 40th street, where I got some stamps at the post office, Caroline got some money at a bank and we wandered through the 2nd hand bookstore. The place was absolutely packed with books, from floor to ceiling, there are books everywhere….I loved it!!! Of course I found several interesting books, but I managed to get just one about Thomas Jefferson. Before I came here I read a book about Benjamin Franklin, which also mentioned Jefferson, so I just had to get this book! Plus I figured I’d go easy this time, I still have a month to go back there and in my suitcase I managed to pack only 15 kilos, we were allowed to bring 23 kilos, so I have 7 kilos to go, which will be very nice!!! Caroline found a nice book on the history of doctors, how before we could actually think about healing ourselves, people would just wander off into the woods to die basically.
After our wander through the bookstore, we had some coffee at a nice cofffeeplace not too far off. We walked back to the house through another street, where we found a CVS, supermarket/pharmacy. Good to know it is there in case we need anything.
When we got back to the house we got out of our soaking wet pants, I sat on the bed to read my book and Caroline worked on an article for work.
We had pasta Alfredo and garlic bread for dinner, after which we watched a movie on Netflix. Went to bed around 10pm, doing pretty good with the jetlag!
O did I mention that it had not stopped raining all day long????
Yes, while we were out it rained non-stop and it was still raining when we went to bed, unbelievable!!
That’s it for now!
Bye
Linda and Caroline
Well, the air mattrass did not hold it’s air…around midnight I asked Caroline if she was awake, so I could jump into the double bed with her, because I was lying on the floor already!!
The bed was fortunately a good double bed, so we were not in each other’s way. Didn’t really sleep much after that and we were fully awake around a quarter to 6.
We got up around 6:30am and worked on our laptop and tablet, while we had breakfast.
Around 8:30am we took showers and got dressed and by 9:30 we were out the door. We walked to UPenn, where Caroline was to meet her professor at 11am.
We walked through the neighborhood which was very quiet, although there were a lot of parked cars. The houses looked really nice, some could do with a coat of paint and the stairs needed some repairs, but they were nice.
It was really cold outside!!! Yesterday when we got here it was nice and sunny. This morning we did see some blue skies and a little bit of sunshine, but that was all gone by the time we left the house!! The wind was really freezing!!!!!
The UPenn area is huge!! There is also Drexel University, which together is called University City, surprisingly!
At the UPenn area is a regular hospital, a children’s hospital and a lot more buildings. We also found the Auditorium where Caroline is going to practice with the orchestra while she is here.
It turned out the be only a couple of minutes from her lab, so it will be easy to go there after work.
The professor was a really nice man, he showed us the lab and he introduced Caroline to people she is going to work with. He also showed us the city, by taking us up to the 14th floor. Really nice view of the city and he told us where to find certain things. While we were there, FedEx showed up with Caroline’s blood samples, which she had send this way on Tuesday already. Before we left she could see that it had arrived in Memphis, but because of some extra information that they needed, they didn’t send it on to Philadelphia. We still were not quite sure what it was they needed, but a gentleman working at the lab took care of it.
So now that it was there while we were there, Caroline could take a look at it, see if everything was alright. She of course send it here with dry ice, to keep it frozen, but that only stays ice for so long. Fortunately everything was alright, so Caroline could rest easy!
Around noon we had lunch in a café in the building, very nice tuna sandwich and ceasar wrap. After lunch we walked back to the Auditorium and from there we went to 30th street septa station, where we bought some tokens for the bus, trolley and subway. Everything is pretty much within walking distance, the city center is a bit farther out, so it is nice to have them. When we are tired we can always take a trolley back to the house.
We had coffee and a donut at Dunkin Donuts, which for me is very familiar, but new for Carolina, she liked her latte very much!
We found a grocery store on 40th and Walnut street, very big!
I had already warned Caroline that there would be a lot of food here, usually a lot of different choices and she found herself in a different world!!
Every now and then she had to stop to take a picture! We found blue tortilla chips and mothers milk tea…which we definitely do not have in the Netherlands!
And of course we got a couple of things that she just has to try, because I always have them when I’m here, the turkey sandwich, the cinnamon raisin bagel with Philadelphia cream cheese and so on…yumm!!
So with all of our stuff we walked back to the house in 47th street!!! Next time we’ll bring our empty backpacks so we can carry most of it on our backs!! And of course here we had to go up to the 3rd floor, but we made it!
Caroline talked to Eddie through whatsapp and I wrote a little story!
Someone is watching tv and has it on so that we can all enjoy it. Caroline is practicing on her viola, to see if that would help bring down the noise, but no luck so far!
Friday March 31st 2017
Last night we had a nice tomato soup and the rest of the hotdogs for dinner. After dinner we got an email from our host Amy, who was just downstairs, if we still wanted another mattrass. Which we did, so we went downstairs to haul up a mattrass from a futon. She took down the empty air mattrass.
The futon mattrass was nice and hard….(which I really felt this morning!!)
Around 9:30pm we were tired, so we got ready to go to bed. Unfortunately the music from downstairs was still audible, so while I was brushing my teeth, Caroline went downstairs to ask if the music could be turned down. Turned out to be Amy’s partner!!! Of course we didn’t know that that was her room, but it was a bit awkward!!
But it worked, because she turned the music off and we had no trouble falling asleep.
We slept through until 7:30am this morning. Caroline wanted to go out for a run, so she got dressed and was ready to go. Meanwhile I took a shower and got dressed, when I got back to the room, Caroline was still there. Turned out that she did go out the door for her run, but she came right back in, because it was raining really hard!!! O well, she’ll try again tomorrow!!
We had breakfast in our room, a nice bagel with cream cheese, which is my favorite and now also Caroline’s!!!
After that we were digitally busy, Caroline managed to find a hotel in Washington and I booked our transportation, so we are all set for our first weekend trip!!! We do hope the weather is going to get better, today is really wet and it doesn’t look too good for the rest of the week, so fingers crossed!
Planning to go out this afternoon to a nice 2nd hand bookstore, always a nice place to go when it is raining!
We had lunch with some soup to warm us up and a nice turkey sandwich, also one of my favorites, which Caroline now likes also, so I will not have to worry about her getting hungry when I’m not here in May!!
After lunch I went downstairs to ask Amy if there any umbrella’s we could borrow, because it was still raining cats and dogs, we really wanted to go outside and I only brought one raincoat. Fortunately she had some and she also had an extra set of keys, which will come in handy when Caroline is going to work.
So with umbrella’s in hand we ventured out into the rainy day and good lord what an insane amount of water came down!!!!
I actually felt right at home, because like in Arnhem the water came down the street in rivers!!
We managed to find the nearest bus stop, which Caroline can use when she wants to come back home after practicing in the orchestra. It gets dark pretty early and it is not really fun to walk around in this quiet neighborhood on your own.
Then we walked up to the 40th street, where I got some stamps at the post office, Caroline got some money at a bank and we wandered through the 2nd hand bookstore. The place was absolutely packed with books, from floor to ceiling, there are books everywhere….I loved it!!! Of course I found several interesting books, but I managed to get just one about Thomas Jefferson. Before I came here I read a book about Benjamin Franklin, which also mentioned Jefferson, so I just had to get this book! Plus I figured I’d go easy this time, I still have a month to go back there and in my suitcase I managed to pack only 15 kilos, we were allowed to bring 23 kilos, so I have 7 kilos to go, which will be very nice!!! Caroline found a nice book on the history of doctors, how before we could actually think about healing ourselves, people would just wander off into the woods to die basically.
After our wander through the bookstore, we had some coffee at a nice cofffeeplace not too far off. We walked back to the house through another street, where we found a CVS, supermarket/pharmacy. Good to know it is there in case we need anything.
When we got back to the house we got out of our soaking wet pants, I sat on the bed to read my book and Caroline worked on an article for work.
We had pasta Alfredo and garlic bread for dinner, after which we watched a movie on Netflix. Went to bed around 10pm, doing pretty good with the jetlag!
O did I mention that it had not stopped raining all day long????
Yes, while we were out it rained non-stop and it was still raining when we went to bed, unbelievable!!
That’s it for now!
Bye
Linda and Caroline
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
