Fresh off the train without any sleep I was looking for an industrial toilet and somewhere to sit for hours in air conditioning till our room was ready. What I was not expecting was a Philadelphian badass to come and be our tour guide. Let’s just say my attitude towards being sleep-deprived and not wanting to do anything but sit quickly changed.

While I did not get any photos of the train station itself. As we were quite late getting there. I can also tell you I did not feel safe at least at first. I was warned the train station was not in the best areas of Philadelphia by some friends before we even made the trip. So I just wanted to get out quickly.

On top of any time I hear about Philadelphia on the news, on Twitter, or anyone talking about it. It’s never about anything good. It’s always about massive crime waves, violent riots, and insane zombies out of their minds on drugs. So what was about to come came at quite a great surprise.

Don’t get me wrong there are bad places in Philadelphia that someone like me should stay far away from even during the daytime. There are also bad areas where I’m from as well. It seems Philadelphia has quite a bad rap compared to the actual experiences I got to have.

It also just so happens I was about to go on quite the exploration of the city. The guy leading the charge I’m just going to refer to as our “tour guide”. A local who lives there loves the history of the city and was willing to share it. This guy smoked a cigar and anytime we got out of the car he just put it on the hood for later. Like a badass he is. If you told me this guy was an ambassador to the city with his own set of keys I’d believe you.

The massive downside is I was quite tired. I already am quite known for having a bad memory. There is also just no justice I could do for the information our tour guide shared about the city and locations as we went around snapping photos of different sites.

After a short drive around we ended up getting out of the car. This was back in May when the weather that day was perfect for some walking around. This was also before a large uptick in tourism.

I’m not normally someone who gets all ecstatic over large cities. As I hate concrete jungles. Large parts of Philadelphia are truly breathtaking. The architecture, the attention to detail, and the history of the place are something all of us including myself who had never been there take for granted and quickly dismiss as a place to never go to.

Just looking at that building alone. The pillars, the stonework, all the little details. The fact it has stairs going down into a parking area. The amount of effort that was put into the exterior of this building you just don’t see every day unless you live somewhere like Philadelphia.

There is also something that has to be said about the amount of little green areas everywhere in the area we were in. It did not feel like we were in a concrete jungle. Everything was decently maintained and it just felt like a safe and clean area to be.

This happened to be the northern entrance to the Philadelphia Museum Of Art. While it was closed that day there were quite a few places like this around the city. You could spend weeks here just going into places like these and still have lots of things to do.

It was also quite a strange entrance as well. Between that strange face and the writing, I have no clue what it says above the doorway. If I ever do return to this city I might be down for checking out some museums I’m certainly intrigued wondering what is inside this one.

It was quite remarkable the number of statues in the area. This one almost looks like he is pulling down on the tree branch from the distance I took the photo. While most things tend to have signs telling you further about them. We were just going for a casual stroll to another area not that far away.

When we were close enough to read some of the signs they were quite remarkable. This was about the cradle of democracy from the Ancient world of Greece to the new world of America.

One of the reasons for taking a bit of a walk was to get to the front of the museum I already showed a side entrance into. These stairs are a little more famous for being the Rocky Steps from the film Rocky. There were many people there cheering others along trying to run up the stairs.

From this point of view, it does not look like a lot of stairs. What you are not seeing is a bunch of different landings. It felt it was like hiking up a mountain. You think you are almost to the top of a peak and then you get up to the next landing and realize not so fast.

We walked up to the first landing for some photos. I however decided despite being quite tired to make the journey up. How could I not go up the Rocky stairs? Did I run up the stairs? HECK NO! While some people did pass me by I took my time.

I wanted to go all the way up to the top. It turns out there were even more stairs after these. That is when I decided I was not going to get any closer. It was quite shocking to see this massive area up there. You would not have guessed that was here while down below.

I did do a little bit of walking around up there. It turns out those I left behind at the bottom lost sight of me! It was also quite a crazy view of the city once you looked down the stairs from where I walked up. The city skyline here is scattered with old and new. Amazing looking building in its own right. Along with many not-so-amazing ones.

It was then time to hop back into the car and enjoy a bit of a drive around. A very large amount of the exploration was done by car. This I greatly approached granted it was nice to get out once in a while and take a bit more time looking around.

This was also when I was sharing a much more colorful to say the last recount of the crazy train ride up here. Every so often our tour guide traded back with information about the area or building we were looking at. This was quite a fun exchange of stories back and forth.

Final Thoughts

So far everything seemed great. Other than some people who were clearly on drugs and a homeless person or two. This place was not looking like anything the news made it out to be. No one bothered us and we went to continued further along exploring the city.

Other Content

• My First Train Ride Part 4: Darkness
• My First Train Ride Part 3: Tray Slamming Darkness Approaches

Information

Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar about my personal experiences in the real world away from the computer at home.