The City of Brotherly Love

Eric had a business conference in downtown Philadelphia last week. So, being the supportive business wife that I am, it was absolutely necessary for me to go along. (I only had to ask him once if I could come along and thank God he said yes). We dropped the kids off at my mom and dad's and didn't look back.

Today I'll tell you about a few unpleasant things about the City of Brotherly Love but I promise to tell you what I loved about it in the next few days.

My first couple days in Philly I totally feared for my life.
The plane ride - cake.
The taxi ride to the hotel - a near death experience.  Unpleasantry #1.



Who knew you could pay by credit card for a taxi ride these days?  Poor Dave Ramsey - he's fighting a losing battle!


Unpleasantry #2.
We walked around downtown on the first night we got to Philly. I was totally unprepared for the amount of homeless people begging for handouts.  This kind of thing always freaks me out.  I felt like any moment someone was going to pull a gun on me if I didn't give them my spare change. One guy with crazy eyes (pretty sure he was higher than the clouds) asked us for $2.80 to get home.  Hmmm...$2.80 to get home?  The cab fares must be cheap around here.  After we passed him up on his request he followed us down the street with an impressive string of four letter words. I almost peed my pants.  I think I've been in small town America too long - either that or I've watched one too many crime dramas.

During our whole trip these people were on my heart.  I hated how everyone just walked by them and seemed completely nonchalant about their hopelessness as if they were just a part of the scenery. I was torn between wanting to give them my spare change but also knowing how it was going to be used. I couldn't help but think that we have present day beggars and I have not a clue how to deal with them. We really felt the need to help them in some way, so we talked about whether we should just give them some change or bring them some food.

"Don't give them money" the locals would say, "they just want drugs." The downtown business employees often watch out their windows when tourists give the homeless people food and when the "do gooder" disappears the food gets thrown in the garbage. They explained that some of the "homeless" even have homes in the suburbs and just come to see how much money they can get from the tourists. After hearing this, we decided not to do anything.  But that lasted about as long as walking by the next "homeless" person we saw.  How can you walk by a beggar and not have your soul bleed a little bit?  Eric and I just made the decision to give them our change and if they chose to use it in a destructive matter then that's out of our hands. Don't know if this is a right or wrong approach...and I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject!

Unpleasantry #3
The dining out is something I always look forward to in a new city.  Not so much here. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe first.  Check out the menu. 

This was my first experience with calories printed right on the menus.
My opinion - ignorance is most definitely bliss!
There were only 2 entrees with 800 calories, the rest were well above 1000.
Every restaurant was like this, even the fast food.  But, I will say, I didn't regret ANY of the 1000 calorie meals I consumed.

As if this promise to clog your arteries wasn't enough to ruin my dinner experience at Hard Rock, look at the company that surrounded us.  Yes, they are ALL kids. The place was packed with 100+ kids on a field trip.

At one point they got up and sang the YMCA song at the highest of decibels. This was closely followed by the bunny hop - complete with holding onto each others waists and circling around all the tables while singing Will Smith's "Gettin Giggy with it". The old Tami reemerged - the one who hates kids. I found out that when I'm on break from my kids, I want to be on a break from ALL kids. As they were bunny hopping by our table the thought crossed my mind to trip the front kid in the line and watch the domino effect but, you'll be happy to know, I have grown up since college.

I promise a tomorrow full of pleasantries!