luckycanuck | A tale of two cities

I left New York on Sunday morning for Philadelphia where I planned to spend a short time getting pushup photos before heading on to Baltimore.

Unfortunately, there were traffic delays so it looked like I would only have time to get to the art museum that was made famous in Rocky. I collected my gear, got into a taxi, and said I wanted to go to my next destination via "the Rocky museum." The driver said I could have one stop. He refused to do both, and as my window was closing, I opted to give the museum a miss. I thought it was petty in general, but the sheer surliness about they guy kind of pissed me off. In the end I gave him a really small tip and came away with a negative view of Philadelphia taxi drivers.

Getting my next bus was worse. I was booked on the 3:15 and got there to collect my ticket at 2:50 where I waited (though I did get photos on a Philadelphia street while I waited.) No bus turned up at 3:15, and no announcement was made. A group of us waited patiently only to find out that apparently the 3:15 had left on time from another gate without them telling us. I was tring to find out when I could get going only to discover that the next one was at 5:15. I could have gone to the Rocky museum and back having done some cool pushups in the meantime, but I found this out too late for this information to be any good. I left Philadelphia in a bad mood with a universally bad impression of the place.

Additionally the bus itself stalled more than once and I considered the prospect that I might have to get out and push.

I made it to Baltimore about three hours late and quickly made arrangements to meet up with back_track who showed me a couple of bars in Baltimore. in what is apparently a very bar oriented city. One place had about 100 beers on tap and another served us some National Bohemian, which is apparently Baltimore's cheap hipster beer.

I was feeling a bit down about leaving New York and didn't feel like making chit chat with strangers, but I did feel better after heading out into the world to adventure a bit more. I made it to Fort McHenry where the American National Anthem was inspired during the War of 1812. Of course, I would have been on the British side in that war, but there were no hard feelings. The Brits bombarded the fort for 24 hours in September 1814. I just walked in and did pushups.

I also did pushups on Federal Hill and in front of Babe Ruth's birthplace before packing off for Washington.

Apparently Baltimore is a poor city according to back_track but I liked it. The people in bars were friendly, the taxi driver was the first taxi driver I've met in America who didn't seem consumed by annoyance, and the whole place seemed nicer.

Of the two cities, I preferred Baltimore... by far.

A tale of two cities

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