Saturday

We checked out of the Radisson Edwardian at 10.30 and made our way to Heathrow Terminal 5.

I was in total awe of the building. It’s absolutely enormous and very, very impressive, especially when compared to the old terminals at Heathrow.

Despite picking the slowest bag drop queue with a French family in front of us, repacking their suitcase to get under the weight allowance, we dropped off our bags and made it through security pretty quickly.  One thing that impressed me was that because we had the BA iPhone app, we had en electronic boarding pass and didn’t have to have a separate bit of paper – they just scanned the iPhone at every stage :)

We had a few hours before the flight so we chilled out at Giraffe and had a very leisurely (and filling!) breakfast with lovely fruit smoothies and strawberry cider.

 

Laura kept remarking that T5 seemed like it had transported us to the future as there were hundreds of LCD advertising screens all showing the same advert simultaneously. And the underground rapid transit system that takes you to the satellite terminals felt like it belonged in Total Recall.

Our plane was already boarding when we got there so we walked straight on and proceeded to our seats at the back of the plane. The plane was full and sat next to us was a really nice woman from Philadelphia. She’d been bumped from the previous day’s flight and seemed very happy that BA had compensated her with £500. We chatted about where we were planning on going and we mentioned the obscure Red Caboose Motel in Strasberg and she said “Get out! No way!” as it turns out her family are all from Strasberg. In fact, there’s a diner in the town called Zuggi’s which is named after her grandfather. Small world. Anyway, she was very chatty and although we didn’t get her name, for the purposes of this holiday she will now be known as Kristen (as she looked a bit like Kristen Wiig, although not so much in this picture).

The seven hour journey (well, closer to eight in the end) passed quickly. I watched a couple of good films (50/50 with Joseph Gorden Lovit and Seth Rogan Josh; and Crazy, Stupid, Love with Steve Carell) watched a TV show on the iPad, read Empire magazine and whiled away the time watching the little aeroplane icon slowly move over the in-flight map as we made our way over the Atlantic.

Laura: Natalie forgets to mention the most important part of the flight. The food. We had a lovely chicken curry as our main meal, although we both made the mistake of eating one of the bits of chilli which were ridiculously hot. After years of travelling by Ryan Air where you are charged for pretty much everything, the thing that I was impressed with the most was getting free drinks. Free tea, free wine, free vodka, it was a lovely way to start the holiday.

Excitement levels were set to Manic Grinning Level 5 by the time we arrived in Philadelphia. We got through customs and security unscathed. I managed to appear normal throughout and they agreed to let us both in the US – hurrah!

We got a taxi to the hotel in downtown Philadelphia and managed to pick the scariest driver in the smelliest car. I think it took about 2 hours for my nose to forget the smell of wet dog and for my knuckles to unclench... oooh they seem to drive very fast over here!

At the Sheraton hotel there was a national beard competition going on. I know this because (a) I kept seeing people with crazy beards walking around and (b) because when I jokingly asked at reception if there was some sort of beard competition going on, she replied “Yes. There’s a beard competition” without any elaboration as if it was the most normal thing ever. (Laura: Only seeing one crazy beard and getting to the hotel after the beard competition had finished was pretty annoying, although I would’ve only been jealous so it was probably for the best!)

There was also an awards banquet for Lockheed-Martin happening last night.  I know this because I shared an elevator ride with the CEO of Lockheed-Martin. I was busy wandering the hotel at this point, looking for ice and a coke while Laura had a power nap in our room on the 19^th floor.

After waking Laura up, we headed out and had a wander around Downtown. We decided we couldn’t be bothered to go and see the Rocky Steps as it was a bit of a trek, plus we had a really good view of them from our room. It was about 7 and a bit chilly, but we had a lovely stroll around. 

We marvelled at the Comcast Tower (15^th tallest building in the US) and smiled at the sight of a grate in the street with steam coming from it, a fire hydrant and a fire engine (ah, clichés). We found a 7-11 and stocked up on snacks. I took a picture of some beef jerky with a picture of Chewbacca on it because it looked funny. We found a McDonalds and I purchased a strawberry milkshake, which was just as good as the one I had near Florida in 2006 (yes, they’re not the same as the UK ones). (Laura: We also saw yellow school buses, which for some reason Natalie wasn’t bothered or impressed by at all, this I can not fathom as the yellow school bus is just as iconic as the Statue of Liberty, yellow taxis or the White House to me. They’re exciting damn it!)

We saw City Hall and lots of giant things (a giant clothes peg, a giant paintbrush…) before making our way back to the hotel. Laura found a channel on the TV called Cute Tiny Dog Puppies Network (or something like that) and at 9.30pm we went to bed. (Laura: It was the Animal channel actually, it just happened to have a programme on called Too Cute, which was following three dog families and their puppies, it sent me to sleep with happy thoughts. Plus Natalie definitely enjoyed it too, I reckon I need to download and play this at regular occasions, I’ll have a dog in no time at all!)