Dec. 08, 2008 – Dover, DE.
The city of Brotherly Love and a live interview.
Known as the “City of Brotherly Love,” Philadelphia is another one of those historical east coast cities that had heavy involvement of the development of America. I couldn’t wait to see the history that fills the downtown district. I also had my first “live” interview. What could possibly go wrong?
I made my way into downtown Philly after a pit stop to fax the necessary paperwork to renew the rental car for another week. With each moment of spending money, I hurt more. I had a budget, but have since gone way, way over.
"Philly, here I come.."
I was contacted by the local NBC station the prior night to do an interview today. The person asked if I had a preference of being in the studio or on the street. I responded with an ignorant “whatever is best for you.” I wish I had only known then, what I know now.
The interview was scheduled for just before 5:00, which means I had most of the daylight hours to check out downtown Philly.
First on my list was the Liberty Bell. I headed downtown (thanks Lola-the GPS) and drove up and down the city streets until I found an open parking meter. Much like EVERY city visited so far, with the exception of New York, I found a spot to park on the street. All those years of filling an empty tennis ball container full of silver change really came in handy on this trip.
I popped some coins into the meter and quickly walked to the visitor center, which had a lawn full of late teens and early 20-somethings performing religious songs.
I figured the visitor center would be a great place to start my downtown adventure.
Much to my expectation, they had a map for me so that I could see where everything was located. There were people dressed as Ben Franklin and other patriots in the building as well. It’s neat to see people dressed up in 1700’s garb, but I’m always fearful of whether they are going to try to hit me up for a tip.
The Liberty Bell was across the street. I had no idea that I was going to be frisked to view the bell, but I was. I guess security is an issue at any landmark in this country nowadays.
Liberty Bell
After taking my picture with the bell, I made my way across another street to Independence Hall.
I tried to walk into Independence Hall, but a guard yelled at me. I wasn’t aware that a person needs a ticket to get into the hall, after all it’s free. He proceeded to tell me that I needed a ticket and had to go back to the visitors center to get one. “OK,” I made my way back two blocks to get a free ticket. In hindsight, I wish I wouldn’t have bothered because the ticket into the hall wasn’t valid for a couple of hours and I didn’t have time to sit around and wait.
Either way, I did get an extra four blocks of walking as a result.
While walking around the downtown district, I also stumbled across Washington Square, where an eternal flame burns on the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”
Supposedly, there is a mass grave underneath the square that holds many of the soldiers from Washington’s army.
It’s monuments like these that make historical events more tangible. When you stand in these spots and think about the people that are (were) here, it puts a whole new perspective on history.
Standing in front of Independence Hall (where The First Continental Congress meeting took place) is more thought provoking than any history lesson I’ve sat through in my life. It does bring the reality back into history.
thousands of soldiers from Washington's Army buried here
I also visited the First Bank of America, which was located about six blocks away from Independence Hall.
Hamilton suggested the bank be built because of the huge Revolutionary War debt. Many states were bankrupt and had their own currency. Hamilton suggested standardizing the currency and building a central bank in the Nation’s capital: Philadelphia.
Check out this page with some facts about the First (and oldest) American Bank.
I walked around for awhile admiring our country’s history, but I had a few other things I wanted to see before my 5:00 interview.
I made a wrong turn while searching for the infamous “Rocky” steps in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The wrong turn forced me onto the Ben Franklin Bridge, which would have been fine except for the $4.00 toll to get back into Philly.
$4.00 for a wrong turn? Ooops.
I reluctantly made my way over the bridge to New Jersey before immediately turning around to pay the $4.00 toll and head back into Philadelphia.
I wonder how many tourists get stuck in that same situation. I imagine it’s a lot of extra revenue for bridge.
I found the Museum of art and I must say, those steps didn’t look that tough. I’m not sure what all the theatrics were about with Rocky, but it wasn’t nearly as mountainous as portrayed in the movie.
What would a visit to Philly be without Rocky?
Once proudly displayed in front of the Spectrum, the Rocky statue now seems to have been relegated to scarecrow. He stands idle off to the side of the steps, in the grass, behind some trees. Fort that matter, I didn’t even see him the first two times I drove by it. When I say “drive by it,” that’s because there is an eternal loop of 3-5 lanes circling around a parking lot out front of the museum. If I had time to go into the museum, I would have happily paid the $8 parking fee, but I was running out of time and didn’t want to pay $8 to park for 20 minutes so I didn’t maximize my visit to the museum, I simply left after driving around the circle for awhile.
I was told to meet at a Wendy’s across the street from St. Joseph’s University. I found the location with no problem, the remote truck and camera guy took video of me, and uploaded it to the station.
While I mentioned before that I had no preference of being in the studio or out on the street, I learned quickly that I made that decision based on pure ignorance.
I had done a few interviews before this, but the only “live” interviews were done for a radio station through the phone. The phone was fine for questions, unlike standing in the street next to rush hour traffic.
The little earpieces they give guests are worthless. They are distorted, muffled, etc. I now have a complete understanding on why so many people interviewed with those things are always asking the host to repeat themselves or staring off into an oblivious space of concentration.
The cameraman of over 20 years felt my pain. He gave me the earpiece early to try and get used to the awkward sounds emitting through it, but it didn’t seem to help.
Here I stood, across from St. Josephs University with a light bright enough to illuminate a city block aimed at my face. I stood on the side of a six lanes of traffic during rush hour. There were trucks, horns, you name it, I heard it all….just not the news anchor.
The cameraman tried to help by playing charades, but to no avail. Evidently, you actually do get used to those worthless earpieces, but it must take quite awhile because it wasn’t happening any time soon for me.
I longed for the option of sitting in the studio again where I could actually understand the voices asking me questions.
I must have asked the anchor to repeat herself a half dozen times before the last straw had been drawn.
She asked me a question in which I had NO clue what she said. I was tired of asking her to repeat herself and the cameraman was too. He was gesturing with his hands in a manner that looked as if he was writing.
Ohhhhh, she is asking the patented question I always received in interviews “Are you writing about this and where can we read about the trip?” I gladly obliged with a 2 minute answer to the question. The only problem with how I answered was that I couldn’t have been more wrong about what the question was.
She supposedly asked “how are you paying for this trip and how much is it costing you?” Hmmm, not quite the same question, is it? Well, immediately following my answer they decided that 5 minutes of torture was enough for their audience and they let me go. In all fairness, they did actually fill up the last 7 minutes of the hour as scheduled with me, so it probably wasn’t QUITE as bad I think, nevertheless it could have went much better.
The cameraman told me afterward that she had asked about “paying for the trip” and I joked with the guy telling him that I would have asked her audience to help out since I am officially broke, he mentioned I would have had people at the truck ready to help by the time we left the parking lot. He claims that it wasn’t an exaggeration, but I’ll never know.
If I ever do another live interview, I can assure you that it won’t be during rush hour on the streets of America’s 4th largest metropolitan area.
I drove for a few hours before stopping in Dover, DE. Gas in Delaware was down to $1.55, a new low.
